With the release of Planescape: Torment (a game which I have never played but am anticipating to get my teeth into), I am once again compelled to the question of why is gaming so satisfying and special as a genre of entertainment. But it isn't really another means of entertainment, just like film and literature it can mean so much more. Games are just as deep and compelling.

But I can't quite seem to be able to express what is so amazing about gaming (or particular games). So what is it about them that is just so simply brilliant? This I ask of you, fellow GOGers. Maybe you are more able.

It is likely because it is a more interactive form of entertainment. Instead of enjoying the story as an observer (such as in film or books), you are an actual participant who has some degree of control in regards to the story. Thus, making it more easy to immerse ourselves into these worlds and find them so enjoyable.

This seems especially true of older games though, where the environments and writing were often given quite a bit of care, making the experience even more believable and fun.

Yeah it's probably a lot to do with what Kurina said. It's like an interactive piece of art, and this type of art speaks particularly great things to most of us here.

I love gaming. I've been thinking about this a lot lately too, why gaming is more personal to me than movies or even music sometimes.

I think it's because just thinking about gaming brings back dozens of memories you have of great games, that actually put you into these worlds that aren't possible in real life and let you experience them as if they were. It's like a playground for big kids, and people with more insatiable imaginations.

Also a game lasts a lot longer than a movie. A typical gaming session is 1-2 hours for most people, if not more, and that alone is the average length of an entire movie. So you get to keep revisiting this place again and again, spaced out over days or weeks, and it becomes more of an integrated part of your life for that time. And so it has more of a lasting impression. With movies, you have to focus more on the specific details which make it good or memorable whereas with games it just becomes your reality while you play, and it runs at the same pace as your own life instead of being cut up into only the best parts and arranged in order like a movie.

Don't get me wrong, I love movies and music and don't mean to downplay them, but these are some of the reasons I'm just so excited to spend my life being a gamer.

Books, music, TV, film - all are (almost totally) non-interactive. You can only involve yourself in them as an unwitting onlooker (or listener).

Now I don't need to tell you that games are different.

Is that "all y'all" (plural), simply "y'all" (singular), or a completely different dialect where "y'all" is the plural? 'Cause I may be interested in reading that.

Just an abbreviation for "you all." I lol-ed, by the way.

Agreed, here too.

While I agree with you completely, this is true for books as well. What then differentiates books and games is that in games you can sometimes experience the world in the first person as the protagonist... you are not just a passive observer. Mind you this is not the case always, so I would not say this is a rule. But of course one might consider those kinds of games interactive novels rather than games.

To sum it up. Length, first person experiences (the extention of reality or alternate reality) and interaction.

Is that it? :) or would someone like to add something more?

On the books/videogames similarities, it reminded me that I want to play a text adventure.
Are there any that are easy to set up, are there any modern text adventures?

It makes pushing buttons fun.

Gaming is fantastic form of escapism. It also gives that satisfying feeling when you accomplish something very quickly. And in multiple doses. And that is used by game creators so they will tingle our pleasure thingys in our brain so we would play their game. And by play I mean pay.

Try the Hitchhiker's Guide Adventure Game.

Thanks! I'll try that.