Why do we play games?

Some say games are usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. While a few say it’s an escape from the real world. Going a little deeper to the fundamental aspect of the question: why do we play games? The answer is not surprising at all. We play games to be happy. Games bring that out in us.

Games have a great influence on our society and the gamers believe that the world has two sets of people, Gamers and the others. What is it in games that make people so addictive? As a response to this question a gamer says ‘who doesn’t want to be happy?’

What motivates people to get so attracted towards games?

Professor Richard Bartle, famous for the defining the Bartle Player Types in virtual worlds, says that when we play a game, we experiment with four main motivations:

• Achievement: Trying to get more points
• Immersion: Imagining oneself in the game world
• Competition: Trying to defeat opponents
• Cooperation: Working together as a team

While these motivations trigger people towards games, the question that still remains is how do games manage this happiness factor? So, we again have to ask a question:

What is happiness?

Psychologist Martin Seligman provides the acronym PERMA in his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being to summarize the factors that seem to make people happy:

• Pleasure: tasty food, warm baths, etc.
• Engagement (or flow): the absorption of an enjoyed yet challenging activity
• Relationships: social ties have turned out to be extremely reliable indicator of happiness
• Meaning: a perceived quest or belonging to something bigger
• Accomplishments: having realized tangible goals.

Relating to the above motivations and happiness, we can derive that

• Achievement – Give us a sense of accomplishment
• Immersion – is a function of the pleasure derived and how engaging is the activity
• Competition – Relationship with the co-gamers, either to win against or team up (both in the right spirit)
• Cooperation – Meaning in the relationships

When you look at different kinds of definitions or reasons for people to play games and also look at other psychological elements, we more often end up at one point – we play games to be happy. The whole point of life again is to be happy.