By Swati Misra:
One fine morning as I was travelling in the metro, on my right I found a lady with her infant baby on her lap, vigorously playing Temple Run on her I-phone. As I turned left, I saw a fifth standard girl (as her ID-card claimed her to be) do the same. I wonder, what makes people get so much addicted towards a ‘Temple Run’ or maybe a ‘Subway Surfer’ for that reason? Is it just the game or maybe there is something unnoticed about it.
Games like these have nothing new to offer. It is the same process that goes on again and again and has no end to it unless you flunk somewhere on your way. Moreover, these games are not gender or age specific. So, what is it that makes you run all the time without a finishing point.
The fact is whenever you play a game you associate yourself with the protagonist. As the protagonist starts, you see yourself running on the path, collecting coins wherever available, jumping and crossing hurdles just to make sure you don’t fall as it would start the entire process again. And when you fall, you land up being the most disheartened person in the world. Well, don’t you think you are very much familiar to this entire logic much before the game was introduced. Yes, you do! I do! All of us, we do! As it is something we all face in our lives everyday. We run for everything – the basic necessities of life, food, clothing and shelter and the not-so basic necessities like vehicles, luxurious amenities and everything that looks fascinating. Meanwhile, we try to collect anything beneficial that comes on our way and try to overcome all hurdles, strongly marching towards something that does not exist at all. Yes! The end does not exist. It is just a ‘wishes’ circle’ that goes on and on. At one point of time you will have to fall and then start it all over again.
These games have given people a route for ‘Escapism’. We don’t have control over the events in our life but yes, we do have a lot of options in the game. We can see the hurdles beforehand, we have immense power to overcome them and we can even utilize other options like score booster, more available coins, speed boost etc. thereby making us even stronger. Unfortunately, we don’t have any of these advantages in our real life because our life itself is unpredictable. We can’t rise after death in reality but in the game, we can. Moreover, our life never gives us a second chance to rectify the errors and perform better next time. But yes, the game does.
All I intend to say is that life is definitely not a subway surfer track or a temple run path, but then there is a projection of reality with added desires. Desires to achieve anything and everything, desire to remain unaffected by any crisis, desire to have immense power and desire to exercise control in our lives. Unfortunately, we don’t have any of these, so we resort to playing such games and escape from reality for a short span of time. This gives us relief and a pinch of happiness that we desire somewhere deep down in the heart.
So, being addicted to such games is definitely not your fault. It is the genuine tendency of the game. And very soon there will be a time when it won’t interest you too much, just like real life. It just tests your ability to run. How much and how far can you run? That’s it!