Games, no matter the serious or competitive nature, rely on a level of whimsy that turns them into joy. In that way, I love that I get to play games with friends.
The initial draft for my final content article was based on a more depressing topic—I’d written about a paragraph on the ways that we can’t influence the progression of gaming monetization or predatory business practices before scrapping in for something more upbeat. Writing about the sad parts of the gaming industry isn’t fun and often isn’t very educational in any way, something I recognize was an issue with some of my previous discussion. If I was to actually write a “final” article for this challenge, I wanted it to be on something I truly believed with a call to action that I thought mattered. I think I came up with a good one.
The plot of this article begins in a simple way: whimsy and joy in games. I’m sure it’s a familiar concept; for a lot of people, you want to play games as a fun escape from other work or as an enjoyable hobby. For some, I assume there’s a joy within a lot of other emotions as well—the tense atmosphere of competition or the hopelessness of a difficult and brutal experience. There’s a level of this that I understand and sympathise with, but I want to argue the absolute necessity of a level of whimsy and goofy nature to apply to most games with the intent of finding a way to enjoy yourself. The phrase “it’s just a game” is almost never spoken in good faith, but I want you to internalize it when you consider what you’re going to do.
A lot of this comes from a recent experience I’ve had with “Valorant,” a hyper-competitive tactical shooter I attempted to get back into in early 2025. As mostly a solo player, there was this grueling and serious tone to every game I took on that started to eat at my enjoyment. Even with some friends joining, I found I kept myself stuck in this competitive mood in which I was playing the game to prove something to myself. This was unhealthy for me, even if it did improve my KDA. It was a realization I only had once I reconnected with a friend this April and started playing with her. She’s a much better player than me, having played in Game Changers and solidly being semi-competitive in 2024 and being surrounded with a couple of these people when she’d queue up with me. As a solidly silver player, I was a fish out of water as soon as I tried to take any amount of honest gunfights.
But it was way better than playing alone.
These friends were happy and goofy, using their honed skills not for a victory but as an avenue to simply be funny and whimsical. The games were filled with enough laughter that my face would hurt, and I cannot remember what our win loss ratio was because the results screen was never a focus ever again. The absolute joy I felt playing this game with people I love was enough to rekindle a love for it, something I wouldn’t be able to find though just winning games. It was this almost unserious nature of gameplay in the face of incredibly competitive nature that created the enjoyment that I had.
Considering this is my argument that you should have a less serious relationship with games, I’d like to preface that this is not an excuse to be upset with people who are playing to win within a game. Games with competitive natures are naturally designed with the idea of winning them, and my argument isn’t that you need to intentionally sabotage yourself in order to have fun. Playing a game casually can include moments of suboptimal play, but it mostly consists of natural actions that are intended for winning but not committed to victory. Enemy teams or random players are likely going to have less intent to be silly and often focus on a victory, but this perspective doesn’t give authority to be upset with someone who is playing seriously. It’s a constant thing I actually run into in Valorant despite our whimsical play—when running defaults or taking our time to slowly take a site, the enemy team will complain that our playstyle is too serious for an unrated game. My response to this when I see it is a simple one: “Valorant player when Valorant players play Valorant.” The point is not that a game is meant to be played in a whimsical manner, but that the ability to play it in that style is a bonus and good way to enjoy it.
It is here that the article takes its turn—while I mentioned that I’d be arguing for this whimsy in video games, the phrasing I used was specifically to find a way to enjoy yourself. In this same way, I also specified attempting to internalize that phrase: “it’s just a game.” This is less about playing the games you enjoy the way that I tell you, but more about giving you an avenue to consider how you interact with them and perhaps find a new way to enjoy them. I’ve enjoyed more of this with the “Marathon” Alpha, playing differently solo and with a friend after he got into the Alpha with me. Solo becomes focused on some of the gathering and serious tension that are common in extraction shooters, a different but unique experience. With a friend around, there’s a lot more exploring and trying new things while we enjoy chatting and running around. The two faces of the game can interact with each other and my failures in solo play can lose gear I could have paired with a friend, but I can enjoy both independently as I choose. Valorant has similar experiences—their Premier gamemode is a great way to bring a team and play with a competitive nature, dropping the jokes and clearing comms as you fight your way through the playoffs. There’s plenty of other examples—For one, there’s many angles to how I enjoy fighting games considering my article explaining competitive experiences, and I chose to bring friends to my outlast trials escapades considering my enjoyment of horror with other friends to be scared alongside with.
This article is a discussion of the lenses we use to interact with media, specifically in the ways we play games in different forms for different types of experiences. In that way, I should find a way to end this article right now. It’s my last content article and the end of a long project I’ve written for the purposes of job hunting when my classes end this June. It was this ending I hadn’t planned as I wrote this article: With the focus on whimsy and friendship in games, I realized there was no way I could finish this article without proper thanks to the people who make this happen.
There’s a lot of them who deserve this: My best friend Snack who’s been joining me for almost every game I’ve played, my girlfriend Swiss for joining me alongside other 2 player experiences, and many many more. A lot of them fit into categories I want to share in order to give them at least some recognition without turning this to a wall of names—my Destiny 2 friends at Delirium Rise, my horror game friends for Lethal Company and R.E.P.O, and my Pathfinder friends including my DM and fellow party members. The list might be endless, but this article is truly dedicated to one person.
I mentioned an unnamed girl that helped me find joy in Valorant once again earlier in this article, and I want to give her a spotlight. Her help didn’t just inspire this article, but 2 years ago she inspired me to make this style of daily writing for a month that I chose to reprise for this portfolio. She’s a close friend and brought joy back to my life this month, constantly supporting me through this project and giving me a lot of motivation. To Amber, a treasure I’ve been able to enjoy this month after a long hiatus, I’m glad to have you alongside me as we continue to laugh and smile.
And for everyone else, I hope you cherish your friends and games as we move forwards to more gaming developments. The next time I cover it, I hope to be working under a publisher.
Until then, I hope you’ll stick around for more from me.