Game Over?

I never have been into computer games of any kind. I suppose I was born too early. At university I remember first seeing and playing one of those very simple tennis games in which two players batted a bouncing ball from one side of the screen to the other. But it was never going to supplant the appeal of snooker and the like for us. And then came all those Pac Man machines into the pubs. One or two of my contemporaries took them quite seriously, but I could never figure out how to play them, and could never really afford to.

And when computer gaming really took off it never took me with it, for pretty much that reason. It was way too complicated for me to bend my brain to. And I've always been thankful for that. It's not that I disapprove of such gaming. In fact, I do have at least some small sense of its appeal, especially the historical simulation stuff and role-play games. And that's why I know that if this had been current when I was a lad I'd have been hooked with the best of them. I'm not too sure that many intense hours at the computer screen would have been all that good for me.

That connection of games with a peculiar intensity is an interesting one. There's no point in playing if you don't play to win. But loss is inevitable (as yesterday's grim result usefully reminded me.) It's the balance between the two that creates the space to lose oneself, and, in the process, find oneself in. Learning to get back up to play on for the sake of playing.