It’s a different affair

Affair — let’s start by defining the term.

According to Google, an affair can be an event or sequence of events of a specified kind or that has previously been referred to. The alternate definition is a ‘love affair.’ I am going to focus more on the latter.

What is this gaming affair all about? Why did gaming gain so much importance in recent years?

The gaming community is an evolving community, and with the launch of e-sports and various competitions around the world, gaming has become the world’s favorite form of entertainment. I was recently reading facts about this, and found that the gaming industry is expected to grow in size worth $171.96 Billion by 2025! That is a huge number. With the improvement in technology and graphics, games are as good as reality now.

Speaking about reality, I find virtual reality games really fascinating. You can wear your virtual reality glasses, and enter a whole new world. Ready Player One, a movie which I recently watched, has depicted the virtual reality in the future perfectly. I hope to see more improvements in this field, but too much to technology can have it’s own side effects. When I think about it, I see myself partying with friends wearing VR glasses, without actually meeting them; I will become a slave to technology and it scares me.

But let’s get back to the gaming industry; it looks like a spider web to me — one main server connecting to other servers, which connects to the people and then these people connect with each other. The gaming world is really interesting, and you can trust me when I say that. If you are into games which requires a lot of communication, chatting and making strategies, you know a different side of gaming. It’s not only about the game which you play, but its also about the people you are playing with, that is, your fellow gamers and hence the “Love Affair” begins. I am not romanticizing love here, it’s more of platonic love (a type of love, or close relationship, that is non-sexual). Let me tell you how this journey goes; take the example of any real-time strategy game. You are a new player, you join a server, and you don’t know anyone there, so how exactly do you end up making friends?

So, you are new in gaming and when you enter a new server, you are lost and follow the in-game tutorial. The person who becomes your first guide in the game is an animated character, who is very well behaved, communication here is one-sided as you just follow their instructions.

These games are chat supported, and you have the access to the main server chat also called as world chat/global chat, where everyone is either trolling, flirting or talking crap with each other. You go and start chatting, hoping someone finds you funny or interesting, and if you find some like-minded people, they invite you to join their alliance/clan or whatever the game calls it. Another scenario is you join the one that accepts anyone or you create one for yourself after all the rejections (:P).

Now you are in an alliance but you don’t yet know how cool it is or whether it has like minded people. You start with chatting with people, getting guidance, asking for suggestions, and if you like it, you stay, else you move to a better and stronger alliance. At this stage, you probably have made a few friends both in the server and in your alliance. The best part of having a good alliance is you can troll people together, fight together, do tasks together, get all the support you need, make friends for life and be yourself.

Finally, there may come a stage when you get bored or disappointed with the game or have made an enemy in the server who is literally ruining your virtual life and you want to leave. If you love the game, then you simply move to another server with a new identity and start afresh (although you are more experienced now). You stay in touch with your friends that you made previously. This is generally done with the help of the chatting apps made for gamers (for example, Discord), you take tips from them to grow in the new server, and try to convince them to join you there (:P). The journey continues, and the good alliances/clans you have spent time in, they become a family. The game is then more for the love of people you play with. Later, you move to different games together as a big happy family and just enjoy what you love doing i.e. Gaming.

There is another angle to this journey; meeting someone special, with whom you share common interests with and then comes another gaming affair. I have heard of terms like a cyber crush, where you are attracted to the virtual personality of another person, and from then, it’s all hormones. I have even heard of cases where two people meet on a gaming server fall in love and get married. I certainly don’t understand this, but it happens. It’s important to be careful — anyone can be anything in this world, you never know who you are falling in love with (it can be a guy disguise as Lara Croft).

I would just like to conclude by saying that gaming is beautiful. It brings the world together in a virtual space forming a new compact hidden world, that allows you to experience something which cannot be explained. I will be coming up with more content soon as when new ideas will start building up again.

Thank you for reading! Do you have different gaming experiences or any interesting story about something that happened to you during gaming? Tell me in the comments!