Why are Games Important?

It may come as a surprise to many that my dad used to play text adventures, and can absolutely stomp faces in at Geometry Wars. Don't discount what your elders are capable of kids. 

I was going to put up an entirely different article today, another article on the Indie Gaming scene, and how small teams are starting to gain some incredible popularity, but I think I'd rather have a discussion than an article this time around.

So what does that mean? It means that over the past few years that Mike and I have been working on Gaming Cuisine we've met a lot of really cool people, and made a lot of really great friends. We've exceeded all of our own expectations, and we have you to thank for that. So instead of another industry analysis, I'd like to open up this one to all you out there. We at GC would like to know why games are important to you. And we don't mean, "I really like (insert genre here) because it's so (insert adjective/adverb here)." We mean why do you love games?

For me it goes back to my childhood, I remember walking down the street to my friends house to play Pitfall II and The Cabbage Patch Kids on his Colecovision (yeah, I'm old, I know), spending time with my dad on our trusty old Ti-99/4A Home Computer System, and later on opening a brand new Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) on Christmas day with my brother and sisters, and my dad hooking it up to the kitchen TV so we could play for hours. To me video games remind me of my family, and the closeness they brought  us, not just by playing together, but because my parents cared enough to know what we wanted, and used games as a way to bring us closer together. The fact that my mother spent weeks trying to track down a copy of the elusive Pirates! for NES just before Christmas, and even calling Nintendo Headquarters trying to find me a copy will never leave me. That act of love and kindness over something as silly as an NES game remains one of my fondest memories of my mother, because she took the time to listen to me, and care about what I cared about. It may seem a silly thing, but this is honestly one way my family bonded, and I think it's awesome that I can share that with you, and feel a sense of nostalgia when I load up an old game, and remember my mother and all she did for me.

Now that's just my story, and everybody's going to feel different, but to me that's the beauty of games, and gaming, whether they be video, physical, sports, board games, etc.. Everybody has played games at some point, and everybody can make that connection.

So tell us, either in the comments below or on our Facebook wall or both, why are games important to you? We'd all like to know.

Until next time, Game On.