Sure, but what really is the point of having a game club with an inordinate number of strangers, that doesn’t even have anything tying it together?
I mean, what is the point in having a community the size of a nation that shares a collective experience? You don’t have to know the people around you to share something with them, and sharing that thing with them feels good for most people? Sharing the history of my countries with others forms a bond and an emotional connection of some sort even if they’re strangers. It’s tapping into the same thing.
Is the value of a game in its game-ness, or is the value of a game just its novelty while the world and the gameplay and story and the challenges just things that dress it up?
That’s many different things and it can be all at once or just one. There’s no wrong answer is there?
Let’s step away from videogames and talk about a different game, like football (soccer). Is the value of the game just the game itself? The competition and winning against the other team? Is it the feeling of connecting with the players on your team to win? Is it the win? Or the experience? Scale it up, to audiences in the millions for huge events, why do people want to watch the football with 40,000 other people? Do they all even play? What’s the value for the players in the sport? Just the money or is it love of the game? Does the game get better for them at larger scale? Or is it better at smaller local scale pub teams?
I don’t think there are wrong answers to any of those questions. Millions of strangers can connect with one another in an enchanting way, some play, some just watch, some compete, some just tap a ball around casually, what they’re looking for is the shared experience and community though. It’s bringing them together. And all the other questions? It’s fine to prefer other things too. All of them are good different reasons for different people.
Is music the same when played to one person? Twenty? One hundred? Ten thousand? Is it better or worse? Does the crowd add something to the music or take away from it? Some will say it adds, some will say they prefer it smaller and that’s ok too I think. There’s an argument for both. But I don’t think it’s wrong of people to love the music with huge crowds, the crowd is as much part of the show and event for them even if the crowd are all strangers.
I mean, what is the point in having a community the size of a nation that shares a collective experience? You don’t have to know the people around you to share something with them, and sharing that thing with them feels good for most people? Sharing the history of my countries with others forms a bond and an emotional connection of some sort even if they’re strangers. It’s tapping into the same thing.
That’s many different things and it can be all at once or just one. There’s no wrong answer is there?
Let’s step away from videogames and talk about a different game, like football (soccer). Is the value of the game just the game itself? The competition and winning against the other team? Is it the feeling of connecting with the players on your team to win? Is it the win? Or the experience? Scale it up, to audiences in the millions for huge events, why do people want to watch the football with 40,000 other people? Do they all even play? What’s the value for the players in the sport? Just the money or is it love of the game? Does the game get better for them at larger scale? Or is it better at smaller local scale pub teams?
I don’t think there are wrong answers to any of those questions. Millions of strangers can connect with one another in an enchanting way, some play, some just watch, some compete, some just tap a ball around casually, what they’re looking for is the shared experience and community though. It’s bringing them together. And all the other questions? It’s fine to prefer other things too. All of them are good different reasons for different people.
Is music the same when played to one person? Twenty? One hundred? Ten thousand? Is it better or worse? Does the crowd add something to the music or take away from it? Some will say it adds, some will say they prefer it smaller and that’s ok too I think. There’s an argument for both. But I don’t think it’s wrong of people to love the music with huge crowds, the crowd is as much part of the show and event for them even if the crowd are all strangers.