Why Am I Still Playing?

[context: I'm talking about a youtube video I'd just watched which really challenged my mind and made me think about the subject a lot]

I mean it made me ask what are video games to me, and I think when I think of a video game I picture something very heterogeneous. Ludonarrative harmony is great and important but I think of something like an arcade-like experience and then a simultaneous "point". And I don't think the experience is there to justify the point, I think the point should float itself. Frankly I feel that if the point doesn't float itself then even if the experience works to justify it, the point is pointless.

and I was thinking like, I think this is math. The arithmetic, the algebra, the symbol rearranging busywork, that's the arcade experience. And the theorem, the proof, the 3b1b visualisation, that's the point.

But the thing is, you know, some people just don't like video games. They just dont like playing them and when you have someone like that, even if they would like the point part of a game, there's no point in making them sit through the arcade experience, to them a slog, just to show them the point.

And as a gamer this may make you very sad. Because yeah you could just recount to them the point, but it's not the same without its complement, they're missing out on what makes the point a real, flesh entity.

And as a mathematician this may make you very sad. Because yeah you could just recount to them the theorem, but it's not the same without its complement, they're missing out on what makes the truth a real, flesh entity.

And so I don't think I can judge these people who truly care about video games, not that I would, because even though math is more innate than video games and it's in everything we build and it's more practical, that's not what I love it for. I don't love math for the engineering possibilities that it opens up, though those are very cool and I appreciate them. I love math because I love math

I love math because I love a challenge, no I don't what the fuck? (Hedberg, 1999). I love math because sometimes it'll ask me to put in a ton of work for something that has no real purpose or practicality or even deeper implciations. and maybe at some point I can turn around and say, hey, wait, this is a massive waste of time, I could be doing things

But for some reason you don't, you never do. You keep putting in all that work and effort and tearing your hair out, and for what? Because you love it.

I'm not that into playing video games. I do it pretty often, but I'm far from a real gamer, I mainly play either flash games or emulated games. I would never claim to have had an actual videogame experience with any of the games I've used savestates in. The only game I've ever been able to call myself "skilled at" is The Simpsons: Road Rage. Today I stared at a sequence of algebra steps for 15 minutes, when I was already nearly late to therapy, just trying to understand it

I don't know why I love you either. but I know you love me back and that's all I need