It’s hard to not notice that the world is getting more expensive and many people are tightening their budgets, but the most damaging thing is that many of these people are stepping away from gaming, or at least spending less time on the hobby, and this hurts us all.
Over my lifetime I have seen many arguments against gaming, from the satanic panic of the 1980s to gaming being brainrot, the idea that games are just for kids and who can forget the people that said video games were turning kids into murders. Of course all of these arguments are completely wrong. Nobody is summoning demons, games actually help with critical thinking, the average game is in their 30s and the more homicidal people suffered from mental illness long before games ever came along.
One of the more recent arguments is that gaming is a luxury, and that means that if you are not financially secure or just lack the time, gaming is a prime candidate for something you can cut out of your life. While this may seem like it has some logic to it, the opposite is in fact true, as gaming serves a vital function in our society and culture.
Gaming sharpens your mind in the case of tabletop games, boosts your reflexes and motor skills for video games and in the case of sports it is literally exercise. All of these things are important to your health, both physical and mental, and should be pursued from an early age to when you take your last breath.
Humans are social creatures and gaming gives us a reason to go out and interact with others, even if “Going out” means logging into a video game and playing with friends online. We need these interactions to maintain our mental health, which in recent years society has become much more aware of, with the increasing level of mental illness.
The other thing we need is competition. The need to compete is so ingrained in our blood that it actually predates our species. Gaming is our primary outlet for that and the perfect way of sating that desire, as the range of options are nearly limitless.
Leading back to mental health, gaming is an escape. With ever mounting stress in our lives, gaming allows us to retreat to another world where we have control and things make sense. Being able to be someone else for a few hours can have a profound impact and many of us spend our week thinking about that few hours on Saturday when we will get gather around a table to roll math rocks and make Monty Python jokes.
As a developer, games are an art form just like cinema, literature or music that predates written history. Nobody considers music a luxury and we are often told to go read a book. Art is a driving factor in the building and maintaining of a culture to such a point that certain forms of art immediately invoke images of that culture such as anime or jazz.
Of course the cost will always come up when someone declares gaming a luxury, and if you are talking Kickstarter games with 100 miniatures or highly competitive TCGs, that is a valid argument, but not all gaming needs to be that far out of reach. There are plenty of games that are given away for free (all of Trapped Chest’s games for example), organizations like Game-itoba and PrairieCon go to great lengths to make gaming accessible to everyone and there are many of us that commit resources to ensure that those who can’t afford to buy a game can still have a chance to play.
Football (soccer) is perfect example of accessibility. It is wildly popular around the world because of the low cost of entry. All you really need is a ball, which is cheap even if you live in a third world country.
The idea that gaming is a luxury is an excuse to either justify a lack of effort or worse, promote elitism. Gaming should be embraced by everyone, regardless of how rich or poor they are and if you are so short on time that can’t sit down for a few minutes every now and then with a deck of cards, it may be time to evaluate where your life is at. Even a game of solitaire can scratch that itch and if you are reading this, you have a device that can run a game.