Over Christmas break, I was playing hanging out with people, playing games, spreading holiday cheer etc. etc. My friend Sam's 360 bricked up, so fearing actual social interaction, I brought my Wii over for Guitar Hero, WarioWare, Bomberman, and Wii Sports action. Sam, who kicks ass at FPSs, was not pleased to discover that he got his ass kicked, pretty regularly, at almost all of the previously mentioned games. This prompted him to dismiss the Wii as being a solely multiplayer system, without any games of depth. Having already finished Super Mario Galaxy, and finding Zac & Wiki profoundly annoying (Sound effects do not a fun game make), I sympathized with this notion, although I really didn't want to. Equally strange was the notion that it didn't bug me, just bringing out the Wii at parties, having a good old time trying to figure out what eyebrows to use, and seeing what girls' Miis look like with mustaches.

To avoid branching this post to every conceivable conversation about video games, I will stick with this- why play them? For fun, yes. But is it just to waste time? How does escapism work into it? Are video games nothing more than more empathizable (made up word count - 1) movies? My favorite games have been fairly narrative endeavors (Zelda, Metal Gear Solid), but just as often I will default to playing one of the innumerable Tetris clones on Facebook.
Of the people I play with now, most seem to play to pass the time, and also for the potential to do "sweet shit" (their words)

Why do you play video games?