Can video games make us better people?

Right from the jump the title of this post can split a group into two and I think the reason for that stems from the fact that video games have often brought about a different kind of questioning - more on the negative side of things. But I dare to ask this question because as a gamer myself, I have seen how my thought-process or decision-making tends to be a far cry from what I would do in reality.

To envision a work of art having a direct impact on our actual lives is not impossible. From books to paintings and even video games, I do believe that they are meant to affect us in someway or another. Now whether video games themselves can make us better people may depend on our own nature and the way we respond to what we experience - because gaming is an experience.

Take for example the controversial franchise that is Grand Theft Auto. Most of us would never dare to run up to a car and push an old lady out of it or randomly inflict violence upon a stranger. But the deeper lying appeal of such a game is freedom. And whether others define freedom as being able to do more wrong than right is irrelevant in the overall experience of the game. It is how we choose to experience the game itself.

So why do we, or let me rather say, why do I, find myself doing things in a game that I wouldn't be bold enough to do in reality - a REAL fear of making the wrong choice. You see, in a video game you can always re-do your mistakes and hopefully make things work out they way you expect. You can just make a quick save and know that even if you "die" you will just re-spawn and resume where you left off, or even just start all over again. Real life doesn't give you that privilege. You have one life, one chance, one death.

We ought to learn from our experiences, and I believe video games are no different. If you learn a lesson that positively impacts your life from a video game (like learning that asylums are NEVER truly abandoned or that we should be grateful that Nazis didn't win the war), good for you. So instead of looking at video games as a sole source of personal change, look at life and every experience you face and know that through it all you can always be the best person you can be - whether buying bread in a grocery store or facing Alduin.

#gaming #opinion #GTA