To find out why I can’t play a video game?(3)

These days, because of learning this paper I recall the fate that I experience with video games from child to adult. So I want to simply summarize it in this post. Firstly, I need to state that I do not like playing video games very much, the amount of the video games I engaged are probably less than ten. Then I am going to talk about the video game experience I have and analyze the reasons for this particular experience.

Although the development of video games in China is a little slower than Western countries, in Beijing’s shopping mall it is very easy to find the video game section when I was a child. However the memories of these are lacked in my head. If I look back from today I find some possible reasons for this situation. First of all, no one in my family play video games and I was influenced by family environment very much. Secondly, the price of video games is not very cheap at that time, and the economic condition of my family is not very good, so my parents were unable to buy me any games to play. Thirdly, because I am a girl and in people’s notion that girls should play dolls or soft toys, so parents did not want me to play video games which are about killing and shooting. Therefore my impression of video games is killing and shooting as well. Until today, this paper helps me to find out that some games in fact have incredible high artistic quality. Killing, shooting and playing are definitely not the key point in these games. In general, my parents did not worry about the negative effect of video games in my childhood.

Later, about ten years ago, computer started to be popularized in China. In my fourth year at primary school, my school offered computer science class. In class we learned how to operate a computer so the games I first met are Mine Sweeper and Card games which are self-contained in Windows 2000 system. Due to the Windows provided the introduction and guide of these two games so I found that playing them was easy and fun. But maybe in gamers’ eyes these two simple PC console game cannot count into real video games. I remember that I played Mine Sweeper and Card only in the computer class. And about the PSP that was popular at school in that period, I only saw someone play it, but I did not play it. Actually I never touch any handheld game console until now. Maybe because I do not have any interests on video games, I do not even have the curiosity to borrow and try it.

Two years later, I started middle school. Until then my father bought me a laptop. Of course, it should be used for study not for play games. At that time I was indulge in reading online novels. These online original novels wrote the story about how the heroine travels through time from modern to ancient. She often went back to the ancient dynasty and fell in love with prince in royal family. Because the popularity of this kind of novel, game developer seized the opportunity to quickly develop the online games which are based on the traversing novels. At that time I did not know the details of game information such as game type, game platform and game developer; I even cannot remember anything about the game now. The only thing I remember is that the exciting feeling I had when I saw the game. This is because I cannot travel through the time in real life and the word-narrative stories are not that vivid and lifelike, I decided to play the game resolutely and determinedly. I registered an account and chose a heroine, and then I started the game. My main purpose of playing the game is to falling love with the prince but I despairing found that the prince is only a computer designed and controlled cartoon character. He can only say certain words and do certain actions. And I have to running through the whole Forbidden City to do various tasks, in exchange of the opportunity to talk to them. These tasks are nothing but use the keyboard to deliver the avatar to some places and then click mouse a few times. I felt so bored about the completion of these tasks.

The reasons I cannot play the game smoothly are summarized below. First of all, I cannot read map in the game. I often lost in such a big Forbidden City. But in reality I can read map very well, even the electric edition Google Earth. Secondly, these tasks are not really doing actions, they are only clicking mouse and typing keyboard. These simple actions cannot bring me satisfaction and pleasures. My home is in Beijing, so I can really go to the Forbidden City and hang out there for a while. The latter will bring much more fun than the virtual Forbidden City to me. Thirdly maybe because I don’t have any game “cell”, most times I cannot find the way to play the games if it does not provide some introduction or guide. I often stuck on a scene and cannot figure out how I should do to complete the tasks. Later someone told me that to let the players explore how to play is also one of the purposes of the game developers. And this process is exactly the fun part of playing game. Unfortunately, I cannot enjoy the fun. In my mind, playing is the most important and funniest part in a game, not to figure out how to play. Thirdly, I found that you need to pay money almost for doing everything in the game. For example I have to buy beautiful clothes so that I can earn a chance to date the prince. If you do not want to spend any money then you always stay in a low level or have to bear many constraints, such as you cannot do a particular activity because you do not meet the level requirement. But I really do not want to spend money on virtual world because I feel that my money does not exchange any substantial things back. So I gave up this game very soon and go back to read those novels again.

After that I tried to play other two video games, but they were failed as well for the same reasons above. And the worst is I could not even hang on for 3 hours in those games.

Last year I met a classmate who was crazy at playing games. So I asked her to teach me how to play. She told me to search some walkthroughs and to play follow them. Thus I got up the courage to start a new game march. However I felt terrifying when I face to the extreme long walkthrough. I did not think I can remember so many settings, functions and steps those are necessary to getting pass in the game. Moreover, almost all the game guides I searched in Google did not mention some of the problems I met in the game, may be because I am really stupid when played games. I gave up game again in the frustration of killed by a little monster five times but still could not find a solution.

In conclusion, it is very hard for me to entre the virtual world. Sometimes I even think the virtual world is not meaningful because it does not exist substantially. Furthermore, playing becomes a painful process sometimes when I do not know how to play. These are the reasons I cannot play a video game.

JIWEI LI