What is the ultimate goal of a gamer?

What is the final step on the path of a gamer? It might seem antithetical, but it's the fact and realization that you don't need games at all to make you happy. At the very least, you don't need to keep buying new games to keep you happy. A real gamer can play the same game in a multitude of ways, being creative and creating challenges for himself or herself.

Games have always been a tool for the stimulation of happiness. In time, we have become addicted to them, and relied upon them for happiness. This is not the ultimate goal of the gamer. We are people, first and foremost, and so games don't define us. Consoles don't define us. Videogame-companies don't define us. We define ourselves, and one element of our own self-identification is in the games we love and play, and not the other way around.

Some people may view people who play Nintendo-games, for example, as overgrown adult-children, but this is not true, nor fair. Some people may stereotype all Xbox-gamers, for example, as American men who like first-person shooters. This is also untrue and unfair.

A gamer uses games to explore his or her nature, and to expand his or her knowledge and experience through the virtual experience afforded by videogames. By contrast, for example, if you watch a horror-movie, are you considered a murderer or victim? Of course not.

Don't lose yourself when you play games or get steeped into the culture of a particular videogame-system or company. Remember that your ultimate goal as a gamer is your own personal expansion and evolution.

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