Fantasy and escapism, predominately. I like exploring places in-game that I cannot go to IRL.
Skyrim lets me play in the far arctic north, an environment that I have always felt drawn to but have never lived in or near. Regular winter snows in Pennsylvania were as close as I've ever gotten. Plus all the magic and armor & weapons make it even more of an adventure.
Pokémon satisfies that same call to adventure that I can't stop feeling, in combination with allowing me to collect lots of little things along the way. Plus, my team ends of satisfying the feeling of hanging out with friends, as I give little personality quirks to each of my Pokémon that I use. "I'm out in the wide, unknown world, but I am not alone."
I played WoW for a long time, and that one was fantasy worlds, magic & armor, collecting things, and making small incremental progress towards an over-arcing goal. It also let me engage in teamplay and, having very few friends due to my inability to make lasting connections with others, it let me scratch that itch fairly regularly with dungeons and raids.
Other games like Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Starbound, and the like give me a creative outlet for designing the world around me in a way that I like. I don't play it anymore, but The Sims was my first video game that I really sunk time into, and it's when I realized that I just liked the process of designing, building, and looking at things I built, then redoing them to fix my "mistakes."
Fantasy and escapism, predominately. I like exploring places in-game that I cannot go to IRL.
Skyrim lets me play in the far arctic north, an environment that I have always felt drawn to but have never lived in or near. Regular winter snows in Pennsylvania were as close as I've ever gotten. Plus all the magic and armor & weapons make it even more of an adventure.
Pokémon satisfies that same call to adventure that I can't stop feeling, in combination with allowing me to collect lots of little things along the way. Plus, my team ends of satisfying the feeling of hanging out with friends, as I give little personality quirks to each of my Pokémon that I use. "I'm out in the wide, unknown world, but I am not alone."
I played WoW for a long time, and that one was fantasy worlds, magic & armor, collecting things, and making small incremental progress towards an over-arcing goal. It also let me engage in teamplay and, having very few friends due to my inability to make lasting connections with others, it let me scratch that itch fairly regularly with dungeons and raids.
Other games like Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Starbound, and the like give me a creative outlet for designing the world around me in a way that I like. I don't play it anymore, but The Sims was my first video game that I really sunk time into, and it's when I realized that I just liked the process of designing, building, and looking at things I built, then redoing them to fix my "mistakes."