Do video games have value?

Even as a kid, I loved games and I do think they have value. Everyone has different opinions on what they like and I think it is healthy to have hobbies that you enjoy. As long as that is all done in moderation, I don't see anything wrong with enjoying games and this can be replaced with photography or any other hobby that people enjoy. Of course, there are good and bad games everywhere and it's up to people to decide what they prioritize as there is only so much time in the day. It's something that I consider because a game that I have been looking forward to is coming out this week. This post was kind of inspired by a video that I saw from MoistCr1TiKaL about video games being evil.

Do video games have value?

Yes, I believe that they have value. For me, it's a nice way to relax because I can get away from all the work and responsibilities in my life. So long as it's done in moderation, your life won't be affected. In a way, gaming is just another thing people can spend their time with similar to photography and sports. They can be damaging though if people don't have self-control. Games such as Genshin Impact have micro-transaction built into the games and you can easily spend too much money. Every now and then, I see an article about children using up their parent's life savings and I think that is an issue to do with self-control. If I were to spend that much of my parent's money, my parents would know right away.

As a kid, I played MMOs such as Runescape, Maple Story, and a few others. It taught me quite a bit about socializing with people. While I could do most things alone, I was at one point an officer or the equivalent in a guild. I don't remember what it was called though and I can say that it helped me talk to people.

Of course, there could be more productive things that can earn money and it's not like it's impossible to earn money playing games. There are Youtubers or streamers that play video games are a way to earn some income. In a way, it can also be stretched towards Hive where we can earn for writing blog posts about the game. I don't really do that for anything besides blockchain games such as Splinterlands. These cryptocurrency games are play to earn and the focus is more on the financial aspects. Anyone can do these things but we aren't really guaranteed to be able to live off it.

Games have changed

Games have also changed somewhat over time. I kind of miss the way old games were packaged because they didn't expect everyone to be online all the time. Gone are the days when we can expect a fully debugged game that people can straight from launch and there are tons of cases where games have a day 1 patch. At the same time, DLCs and some other cosmetic things are now added as DLCs to games. A lot of things that also speed up progress in games are gated behind paying money as well. The focus of most game companies is to make money and this has only evolved as we deal with the digital age.

Trails of Reverie

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The game that I am looking forward to is Trials into Reverie. It will be coming out on July 7, 2023 in Englishing for PC or console. If you have been on threads, then you might know that I am a huge fan of the Kiseki (Trials) series. I regularly listen to music from these games and I have played 10 games (including this one). This game is not the starting point for anyone who wants to start playing the series because it's like reading from the middle of the book. While there are summary chapters, I think you are doing yourself a disservice by starting the series with this game. This game is more of an epilogue to close things out before the new arc in Calvard (Kuro no Kiseki).

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What I love about this series that makes it stand out compared to the other games is that everything is interconnected as a large story. It's not like Final Fantasy where they restart the game so that anyone can start the series there to cater to new users. Characters introduced in the first and second game of the series still show up in the most recent games. The amount of lore in this series is large and even the NPCs have their stories updated as the events in the game pass. So the world is expansive and full of mystery. I like the story, gameplay (turn-based), and music from these games. The only downside is that the early part of the stories in some arcs can be slow. At the same time, there is a lot of text due to all the lore and the NPCs as well. The word count can be found above for the original Japanese source (source). The graphics also leave a little bit to be desired as they aren't the greatest. This has been improving though as Falcom has decided to move to their own game engine for the Calvard arc.

I played this game on my friend's PS4 when he applied an English patch, but I did not have enough time to do all the end-game content. At the same time, I'll see how my experience is with the English Dub and playing it through without a time constraint.

Conclusion

Sorry if this post was all over the place. I was trying to figure out how to talk about everything and that video made me think about why I still play video games. I don't regret the hundreds of hours that I have spent in just the Kiseki series and the money to buy them either. I could spend way more thousands of words talking about Kiseki but I'll leave that for another post.

Feel free to leave a comment if you read my post. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

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