People play games for different reasons, and even those reasons may change over the course of your lifetime.
When I was growing up, my family would have regular game nights. Those included some of the classics, such as Waterworks,
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| This was the version at our home, which dates to 1972. I believe Mom still has the game around somewhere. From eBay. |
or Authors,
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| I should have this version around the house somewhere. From eBay (again). |
or Clue,
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| While I was unsuccessfully trying to find my copy of Authors, I found my circa 1980 version of Clue. |
but they also included games that are no longer published, such as Scan.
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| This is circa 1970 or so. From Rahmiano Anderson via BoardGameGeek. |
We also played card games such as UNO, Hearts, or Michigan Rummy, the former two of which received new life when I went away to college. However, those days of my youth were fueled by the desire to beat my dad at these games. It was partly a competitive streak in me, but Dad was easily the best player in the house, and so if I wanted to finally prove my worth (in my own mind) I had to beat him.
As for chess... Let's not talk about chess. I only beat my dad once in chess despite years of trying, and my brother was on the chess team at his high school, so I kind of got used to losing at chess.
But still, it all fed into my primary motivation: Beat Dad.
The simple straightforward concept of "beat the other player" is not exactly new, and this is the basis of a lot of PvP video games today.*
It was only when I was a teen that I began to break out of the 'beat Dad' mentality and understand that there were other reasons for playing games. I wasn't giving up my quest to win, but that drive to win doesn't necessarily fit well into other types of games.
Some of that comes from learning RPGs. Sure, there's a "beat the Big Bad" component to RPGs, there's also the social element to those sorts of games.
Back when I was a kid, we approached playing AD&D as if it was The Party versus The DM. Who became the DM in our campaigns rotated, but the resulting competition was always the same. The DM tried to kill us, and we tried to outwit the DM.
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| The high point of any Party vs. DM competition was ALWAYS The Tomb of Horrors. Let me just say that of the two options above, there are no right answers. IIRC, one will destroy you utterly, and the other one will merely strip you of all your gear and clothing. From TSR Hobbies via The Alexandrian. |
Understanding the concept of a shared story or a shared plot with the DM not as an antagonist but rather a facilitator came about much later, but old habits do die hard. It was then, when I was an adult, that I finally realized that merely killing things and beating the DM wasn't nearly as much fun as a well crafted story that both we as players and the DM participated in.
Sometimes it's part of a big story arc like what you'd find in a premade module, or sometimes it's something we purely make up as we go along. Or maybe it's something that we work on in creating a world together, but what I found to be the most fun is the story and my participation in it. Perhaps I'll never write a novel, but this is the closest I can come to actually doing just that.
Sure, I love puzzles, but I recognize that they're just that. The long term enjoyment, however, comes from the stories I participate in. Given my love of reading, I guess that's not that much of a surprise.
So... What drives you? What do you play for?
*Despite complaints from players otherwise, I sure as hell go into Alterac Valley in WoW Classic wanting to win, and the constant losing in Battlegrounds by the Alliance during the Mists of Pandaria expansion just wore me down to where all I was feeling was anger. That was when I knew it was time to leave WoW.
