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Video games and other forms of interactive entertainment have been a life long obsession for myself and from the day I could gold a controller, I now struggle to recall one in which I have failed to do so.
Based around stories and key characters, much like stories and movies, games thrust the viewer into a second reality, yet in this one, they must now take an active role in order to achieve the desired outcome. As with other stories and character driven tales, video games, irrespective of the content, tend to have both a beginning and an ending. That is, until now.

Gone are the days when one would buy a game, play it through and toss it too the back of the draw never to be played again.
Like with all good entertainment, videogames are evolving and are doing so to suite the needs, wants and demands of the consumer (this means you, if you are a gamer, like myself).
The first step in this process can be recognized through the introduction of the RPG (Role Playing Graphical game), in which the player would often take the lead of a party and through hours of game play, would discover what ever they had set out to accomplish.
With the dawn of a new generation of gamers, this idea of games taking over 100 hours or more to finish has been taken even further. That is to say that many of today's new games can never be completed and technically there is no ending which maybe reached.

This notion of an un-ending game is reflected by what is often known as the MMORPG (Massively Multiple Online Role Playing Game). Essentially, these games are not built around one specific task or demand of the player, rather they are built to generate a countless number of activities in which the character and player might participate.
Often in these games, you the player, are represented by what is called an Avatar, this being a virtual image of yourself, which is yours to customize and control throughout the virtual world.
Many modern MMORPG games have been developed around a vast world, in which the player many spend hours a day exploring. Furthermore, these worlds are often designed to simulate an alternate reality and as such, there are often a variety of things one might engage. With a vast majority of such games revolving around a fantasy or sci-fi setting, this may include, questing, mining, farming, hunting, exploring, shopping, socializing or even waging war on other players.

The idea of the ever present online world is now a reality and there are a number of games which can easily make claim to providing such an environment for the player to explore. Many philosophers would agree that alternate perception and artificial stimulation are experiences many have wanted to discover for countless centuries. Essentially, not only do such things appeal to the inner child, by also the escapist locked deep within all of us.

Learn more about this author, Michael Grantham.
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