Whats the attraction?

I'm often too tired to read or watch TV, so games help me escape while keeping my mind engaged/active. They've also helped me with my hand/eye coordination over the years.

What about games where you look after your own little farm and help the community, or games where you drive trucks, etc ...?

I dont play with others only single player mode. I'll come back later & explain more

Ohh, team work, big no no, theres no I in team, I'm told, but there is a me if you mix the letter up!

Co-op is short for co-operative. Multiplayer where you're working as a team rather than against each other. Can either be "couch co-op" (in the same room) or online. A good example is It takes two (https://youtu.be/ohClxMmNLQQ) or Little big planet.

D you lst me there, what are co-op games? I know what solo ones are, I think thats where you play alone and some are multiplayer games.

As I have PTSD theres no such thing as good adreniline, adreniline means danger, fighting for my life and freedom, I'm borderline adrenal burnout, so if I get in a situation where adreniline is involved theres massive amounts of it, way to much for the situation, my brain and body can no longer make the distiction between a spider in my bedroom and someone who means me physical harm. It also takes days to come back from an adreniline release.

I used to play D&D, proper old school pen and paper, this was before computer games became sophisticated enough to even begin to compare with what the mind could conjure. I don't do sport and am not competitive to be bothered about the outcome, i'm more of a you have it, if its that important to you person, I just can't be bothered, I find competitive people overbearing and boring and the PTSD starts to flicker as competitive people are unpredictable and sometimes dangerous.

With Sims, do you have to have people live in your spaces? When I was little, my Dad built me a dolls house and I loved it, but everything had to stay the same and I remember having a massive freak out when somebody put some dolls in there. It was my house, not the house of these miniture invaders!

I wonder if part of the problem is that being an only child, I never really played with others much, and in common with many only children, my parents would buy me board games, so as I had something to play with my friends with when they came round. Only I rarely had people round and when I did, we didn't play board games, so I sort of learnt to play board games by myself. I still sometimes play scrabble by myself, I don't compete, just make good words from the 7 tiles your'e allowed in one go.

I know this is a difficult thing to answer, and I ask the question in the OP, because I genuinely want to understand, I guess I feel like it would be useful to have a mask that would enable me to engage, however briefly or imperfectly with these online worlds. But in order to create a mask I need facts, I need to know what the attractions are as well as what the things, games, metaverse etc actually are. 

For me, it's a way to keep my mind active - particularly now I'm older and retired. According to research conducted in 2017, video games "help seniors with cognitive training and reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's".

I like to play RPG (role playing) games - they provide puzzles to solve and in the case of assassins creed Odyssey (set in ancient Greece), Origins (set in Cleopatra's Egypt) and Valhalla (set in England at the time of the Vikings) they also gave me lots of historical information about what it was like to live in those times. Sometimes there is a choice between good and evil - like in BioShock, where you can choose to harvest genetic material from genetically modified little girls, or save them all. And sometimes it's just playing out a fantasy, like being able to do magic and defeat evil in Hogwarts Legacy.

I also enjoy Sims 4 which is a life simulation, and allows me to build and decorate homes, restaurants, museums, etc. It satisfies a creative urge.

Computer games is a very broad category. It's like talkimg aboit "sports" or "books". Different genres and activities invoke different responses, and different people like dofferent ganes/sports/books.

Fast paced games and shooters are about the adrenaline rush. You might not be moving like in sports, but you're using a lot of similar mental processes, and it triggers the same adrenaline response as a "fight or flight" as a result. "Move from A to B while dodging enemies and reacting to any you encounter", describes a number of sports and video games.

Strategy games are more about mental stimulation, same as people doing puzzles like sudoku. It's a workout for the mind, and helps you learn new ways to problem solve.

There's simulators, which are probably more about occupying/redirecting the mind with slower and less intesive/important tasks.

You've also got solo vs co-op vs competitive games, obviously for the social aspect, and couch co-op vs online.

Lots more not covered.

Metaverse I think is a bit of an odd one. The idea is straightforward. A digital universe to match the physical one as much as possible, and possibly go further. In theory it might have worked well in pandemic. People could have "met" and been more experssive than on video calls, and taken part in activities that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. All without the issues of illness transmission, commuting./business travel, etc. Unfortunately I think the technology was and still is far too young. The all-in-one headsets are a big improvement (no computer required), but there are still a lot of restrictions on movement, expressions, sensory feedback, interactivitiy, etc.

RPG = role-playing game

Not sure what to say to that….i don’t agree with your remarks but everyone is entitled to their own opinion 

I suppose you could say the same about books and tv too, if you want to take things to their extreme?

Yes video games are used by military intelligence to delete people empathy by desensitizing them to gun and knife violence

What are RPGs? Although I don’t play computer games, I understand the value of time set aside for immersion and escapism. 

Is this a serious comment?

Yeh I don't think video games are good for health 

I was very much on the outside looking at other girls playing at school. I would never want to go back to that time. I used to play chess in the school chess club, but that was pretty much structured time rather than free play time. I much preferred to be outside among animals when I was a child. 

I don’t particularly care that I don’t enjoy computer games. Lots of autistic and non autistic people don’t play and it is perfectly usual. It’s certainly not a case of “everybody is playing games”.

Computer games has been more or less a lifelong passion from the early days of the Ingersol sport games through to modern PC games like Civiilisation. For me I am only really interested in single player RPGs and strategy games. I like the immersion and escapism elements combined with having to use your mind to solve a number of quite complex things. It’s a lot of fun and most have sunk a ridiculous amount of time over the years. 

I was reasding about the amount of sexual assaults on female characters/avatars or whatever in the metaverse and that any policing is even worse than in real life. Not a place I want to visit.

I've looked at computer games and apart from being totally unable to use the controls, I've not seen the attraction, I'm terrible at puzzle solving too, I remember when WoW came out and everyone was raving about it and watching people play, nah didn't get it. It was all to bright and colourful to me.

I don't understand a lot of the things people enjoy either, like sport, or chess.

I feel very much like the little girl I was, an only child watching other's playing and not knowing if I wanted to join in, if they'd let me, or how to join in?

I can’t explain the attraction of computer games, but I have been addicted to them since Hunt the Wumpus back in the 1970s. Their addictive quality is precisely why I don’t allow them anywhere near my computer. (I do make an exception for computer chess.)

I think you need to distinguish between single player games, where you are playing against the computer, which are solitary and for entertainment, and multiplayer games where you play against other real people, which are also entertainment but also a shared experience.

With other people they can be on the same room, or online. But you can interact and sometimes talk to them.

You can also play for money if you are very good,. So it can be a means to earn money.

The meta verse is something different. The best way to think of it is it is an online world, where you have a set of your details, likes, friends, photos, interactions, just like in the real world. They may be the same or there may be differences. You may have a slightly different persona.

I think people may want to return to the real world as the emotional connection online is not the same.