Recharging With Games TWO Very Different Ways

People play video games for a ton of different reasons. Sometimes we play to experience art or go on an emotional ride. And sometimes we play to just have fun. But for many folks, myself included, sometimes we play to take care of ourselves. To forget about the world or have a moment away from what's troubling us. To calm down. To have a way to think about anything else than what's been doing circles in our minds. Of course, this might not be the hardest core or rage-inducing gaming topic that will come across your YouTube feed today, but I do think it's an important one nonetheless. And something we rarely see many folks talking about, specifically from a design perspective. So today, let's do it. Let's talk about self-care games. SEO be damned. Thanks so much to Trade for always satisfying my need for an amazing cup of coffee. Self-care games are personal. They're different for everyone. For example, for James, they're city-builders. They're non-violent. They engage his mind. And they're generally slow enough paced

where they let him be, rather than amping up his adrenaline or stress. On the other hand, my self-care games are kind of the exact opposite, but you know, more on that side of the coin in a little bit. Now, when James started asking around about playing games for self-care to a small group of friends and colleagues, his original goal was to find out if he was just an oddball for whom games could be a soothing way to take care of himself, or if other folks did the same thing. But what he found out was almost everyone he knew had their specific self-care games. For some folks, it was an old beloved title from their youth. Something that they could zone out with or use to simply go back to happier times. For others, it was something more gentle, with characters they loved, or something very task-oriented that let them just move from one micro goal to the next, thinking about the small achievable thing in front of them, rather than the larger looming issues in their external life. And this got us thinking about how we might be able to build games to better enable this. Because in all of James's years as a designer, it's something that he never heard of as a design goal, a method of engagement, or

a core part of play. Now, of course, that's not to say that there aren't people out there thinking about it and building games to be the best self-care games that they can be. Actually, I think I saw a few of those at PAX East, but it just means that overall, it's not part of the mainstream, not part of general design thought. But, if self-care games are in fact personal, then how can they be designed for? Well, that then led us to the question of whether self-care games are personal because they have to be, or if they're personal because we don't really design for them specifically. So, everyone is left to find whatever they have that for them best fits that box. And while I think it's a little bit of both of those things, if we look to the world of food as I so often do, I think it's pretty safe to say that a lot more people eat ice cream as a comfort food than broccoli. And there's a reason for that, right? Ice cream is sweet, soft, and takes no preparation to eat. So, I do think that there has to be that for games, a reason people gravitate towards one thing rather than another. Well, as he started to explore, James found a few

things. First, that nostalgia can play a large part. Heck, it's why some people's comfort food is naan and curry, and others is chicken and grits. But, this nostalgia also can come in the form of familiarity rather than nostalgia for a specific game. While he did have some people tell him things like, "I replay Pokémon Red or Final Fantasy I", he had way more people tell him things like, "Oh, I play JRPGs." The important thing here being that it was a genre that they were very familiar with, and that's where their positive associations lied. Though this doesn't always have to be the case. For example, James plays city builders then he told me that he doesn't have any specific positive associations with them from his past, except maybe that they make him feel like a small child building an imaginary city out of Legos, which could tie into that thought just from a a angle, you know? Regardless, many people he chatted with about this wanted games that they didn't find taxing. This could mean games that were simple or narrative-driven, or it could be games

that were incredibly complex, but that didn't require that many decisions per second. And I think that idea was key. If it felt like work, if it required you to move at its pace and not yours, it was less likely to be played as a self-care game. Pause for real time was important. Not having to learn too much was also vital. Again, this doesn't mean that the games they played weren't complex. They were just things that they already knew well, or that had a good enough tutorial in a genre that they were already familiar with, that they didn't have to have too much new information to memorize to be able to play. But then he ran into a smaller, but still very significant number of people who were the exact opposite of all this, aka me, baby. As I listed the games that I played for self-care, an odd number of them outside of single-player trance-inducing bullet hells were actually competitive multi-player games, which I honestly never clocked before we started working on the script for this episode. And this perplexed me at first, but then we did some more digging, and we found that the folks like me were looking for something

different than the low-decision folks. Because while the people going to slower-paced games were often looking to have something that let them find peace, the multi-player folks, such as myself, were looking to externalize their emotions more. To, you know, get it all out by fighting all day, or burning through them by pushing themselves to even greater levels of mastery in something. And then James pointed out that that's kind of like people who go to the gym as a form of self-care, which I never understood until right now. However, no matter the style of game people were playing for self-care, one thing that seemed consistent across the board was that everyone wanted a quiet place to play undisturbed. Though, who knows if this is because we know a lot of introverts, or because it's essential. But, having someone who's not playing come in and interrupting them, or having a messenger ping, tended to ruin the experience of a game as self-care. Heck, sometimes they told us it made them feel even worse because those interruptions made them realize that they couldn't even get the time away that they needed to take care of themselves and I feel that concept in my

very bones. So, what does this all mean, right? What is the grand conclusion that we can draw? Well, none yet, really. I mean, this is just some initial data from a sample size that is way too small and some musings from James and myself. But, if we had one takeaway, I think it would be that games are a powerful tool for self-care and there might be better ways to bolster that. Okay, you know how a lot of games have that message at the start that says something like they're better with headphones on. Well, James imagines a screen saying something along the lines of, "This game is best experienced in a quiet place all to yourself." He also thinks that considering the decisions per second in your game and creating a gentle learning curve are both vital for anyone wanting to make a more peaceful self-care game experience. Whereas, we're both not so sure if you can build for the externalizing emotions self-care form that I engage in, maybe those games are more of an outlet for stuff than a way to put things into it, if that makes sense. Who knows? That was definitely going to need a lot more study before we can find an answer beyond just build

some good competitive multiplayer and some of your audience will use it for self-care. Hi. But, that's the whole thing. We need more data. So, in that spirit, do you use games for self-care? If so, what games do you use? Do you have any thoughts on why? And the most important question I will ask you at the end of this episode, does anyone want to come play an impromptu Mortal Kombat 11 tournament with me, huh? What? Come on. I want more self-care and blood. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm sorry. That was a bit much. Um, I haven't had my coffee yet today, you know how it goes. But, there's Trade Coffee to the rescue for me and everyone in my general vicinity. All right, everyone, take five for beans. We've loved working with Trade because myself and most of the EC crew drink a lot of coffee and we're always on the lookout for new roasts, specifically from independent roasters using ethically and sustainably sourced beans. So, yeah, telling you all about Trade's coffee delivery service is kind of a match made in caffeinated heaven for us. Now, their whole thing is to enable you to not only make the best cup of coffee at home specifically to your tastes every day, but also helping you to discover new favorite coffees with

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the business, but you'll also be supporting us beans by making us look really good to a sponsor we enjoy working with. Thank you so much for that. Once again, that is drinktrade.com/extracredits. The link of course is in the description or you can click right up there if it's easier. Thanks so much for listening and seriously, happy brewing. You're going to love this stuff. A million big old thanks to Skyler Homes, Kuya Coy, Joseph Blaine, Dominic Valenciana, Casey Muze, Arclight Games, Angela Valenciana, and Ahmadzia Turk for being fantastic legendary patrons. Hey.