Video Games Aren't Real Life, But That Doesn't Mean They Aren't Connected
How Breath of the Wild inspired me to climb, and what it says about acknowledging the time our children spend with video games.
Patrick’s Note: I’m at Disneyland this week, but Ash is here to help! Chime in with topics you’d like Ash to cover in the future. You can see more of their work at the bottom! Also, if you’d like to pitch me on something to be published on Crossplay, I’m open to it. Back to Ash…
Video games can seem like an isolating experience, but in reality, video games are often an extension of our real-life desires, interests, and hobbies. It’s probably not surprising, then, to discover the children in our lives have similar connections through their interest in games. The last time I made this connection so explicitly was thanks to Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
I have a complicated relationship with the outdoors. I grew up playing outside but not playing sports, and in adolescence I felt an antagonistic relationship with outdoor physical activity. I did enjoy video games, though; in video games I could explore “nature” but in a way that felt safe and controlled. There was much less fear of failure, compared with real-life outdoor exploration or sports.
In adulthood, I began to explore the hiking trails accessible from my apartment. At first, I just wanted somewhere to walk that wasn’t paved. Then, I felt comfortable with a small loop, and began to expand. Soon, I was trying to explore all the trails on the nearby mountain, looking out for familiar landmarks, judging the trail conditions, and feeling seasoned.
If you’d asked me why I enjoyed it, I likely would have said it was good exercise, it made me feel accomplished, and I liked that it felt easier and easier over time. In other words, I had found a way to cultivate intrinsic motivation through hiking, similar to how I already felt intrinsic motivation for playing video games. What I hadn’t considered, however, was my love of video games could expand my newfound interest in hiking.
After a couple of years, though, my local mountain had begun to lose its appeal and I wanted a new challenge. I had spent the last couple of years playing Breath of the Wild off and on, and sometimes when I was running out of stamina climbing a mountain, it reminded me of how I felt trying to get up the final hill on my local hiking trail. Even though my local hiking trail was technically a “mountain,” it was a low mesa; it wasn’t the same as the big mountains in Breath of the Wild.
Living in Colorado, with high peaks only an hour away, I started to think: if I liked hiking, and I liked exploring mountains in Breath of the Wild, would I also like exploring high peaks in real life?
In August 2019, I took on my first “high peak”: a fairly easy class 1 “13er” (a mountain summit above 13,000 feet) named James Peak. I enjoyed the sunrise view on my way up, and the yips of nearby pica on the trail, but it was on a ridge line that my view of hiking transformed.
I got to the edge of a ridge and looked over. Below me was an alpine lake that I was viewing from above. The only other time I had seen this was in Breath of the Wild; I didn’t even realize alpine lakes like this existed on my local mountains. I gasped and said “it’s just like in Zelda!” Suddenly, those feelings of exploration, freedom, and accomplishment I felt in Breath of the Wild were now flooding my brain during this hike.
Sometimes we make these connections organically; adults especially might notice connections between TV, video games, movies, books, and their real life interests. Kids, though, may not come to this realization as easily. That’s where we can step in and show them that crossover.
But showing them the crossover between games and real-life interests requires that we first acknowledge the validity of their gaming interest.
This doesn’t mean we think it’s the best thing they do with their time, or that we allow it without boundaries. It simply means we understand this is important to them, and we treat it as a part of their life worthy of validity, just like other parts of their life. Why is this important? Because if we don’t treat their interests with validity, we may send the message that we resent or dislike that interest, and that sets up for a power struggle.
Plus, when we see their interest as valid, we can suddenly allude to it, reference it, and use it as that crossover. That can’t happen if we are resentful of their interest; if I dislike that my child plays or likes soccer, I’m probably not going to talk much about soccer.
“Sometimes we make these connections organically; adults especially might notice connections between TV, video games, movies, books, and their real life interests. Kids, though, may not come to this realization as easily. That’s where we can step in and show them that crossover.”
[Note from Patrick: One variation on this idea in our home is trying to find connections between screen time and their interests outside of screens. My oldest loves drawing, so we’ll scroll through different drawing apps, or I’ll let her use the fancy Apple Pen for my iPad Pro. Yes, it’s screen time, but it’s drawing important connections between her worlds and interests.]
If our kids like an exploratory game like Zelda or Minecraft, we could connect that to determining a route, picking a destination or path on a map, comparing views of a landmark from different vantage points on a hike, or even just noticing our surroundings.
We can even make these connections in the grocery store. Look for a fruit that looks like a Voltfruit, a Splash fruit, a Hylian shroom, etc. Is this going to magically make our kids suddenly interested in hiking or cooking? Not at first, and maybe not at all, but it shows them that we are paying attention to their interests, and their interest may not be as narrow as they previously thought. When our kiddo was a toddler, crossing streets safely was often a struggle. Explaining that cars are fast and dangerous didn’t really help, but when my spouse compared crossing the street to playing Frogger and dodging cars, suddenly our child understood why we had to look out for cars, and the power struggle melted away.
Next time your child is lagging on the way to the car, toss an invincibility star at them a la Mario Kart, pretend to get hit with the banana they throw, or whatever else you come up with. Chances are it’ll surprise them, bring some laughter, and maybe even increase some connection between you and your kids.
Ash’s Other Work on Crossplay:
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