I spend, as I have much of my life, thinking about games, and I wonder what that’s about. What is it that drives some people to be engrossed with THAT hobby?

Board gaming is a huge industry today. It’s interesting that after a few decades of domination by video console and PC gaming, cardboard playtime made a strong resurgence in the last 10 years. And we’re not talking about Monopoly sessions. The explosion of interest in board game play confided with the emergence of new and richer products in the marketplace. The components improved. Strategy and tactics deepened. And game play moved from a casual periodic distraction to a life focus for many players. It’s been an interesting subculture to blossom of late.

For me, though, what pulled me in and keeps me thinking games?

There is certainly something about playing a board game with others. It’s a social experience. You compete against friends, but you are engaged together in the experience. Games give people an easy way to be together.

Games also provide adventure and escape from the tedium of daily life. And this is probably pretty significant to someone like me. I am a low risk person day by day. I’m not an adventurer or thrill-seeker in my daily exploits. I tend to like living itself fairly low key. Except in my mind. My mind does crave stimulation and challenge, and the design and the mechanics of game play engage that part of my brain that likes problem-solving and enjoys the engineering of risk-reward systems. That is, after all, largely what games are: synthetically engineered risk-reward systems.

I am a giant cognitive squirrel pulling the lever repeatedly to get a mental reward.

Certainly, addictive propensities play into the extreme game fanatic’s drive. If games are reward delivery systems, gratification mediums, they are not so unlike cigarettes or alcohol to some people. The law of diminishing returns kicks in: I must own more; I must play more.

This undoubtedly applies to me, which I am not fully excited about. And there are droves of others out there in this community like me.

But, games are fun.

Games are challenging, stimulating, transporting, addictive.

And fun.