Ernest Reid
Science & Technology Editor
That’s what game critic Ashly Burch hopes to prove with her new project How Games Saved My Life (HGSML). She is well known online as the quirky title character of popular gaming web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? but her new website is quite serious. Through user-submitted testimonials, Burch celebrates “the positive, life changing power of video games.”
Burch thinks video games can emotionally heal their players.
Burch launched the blog because she believes in the artistic merit of video games. “[The] medium isn’t just violence [and] objectification — it’s compelling and beautiful and it deserves respect,” she wrote. “I want HGSML to be a resource [for] those that champion the ‘games as art’ cause.”
The project also aims to foster community between gamers online.
“It sounds cliché, but I really do hope that HGSML reminds readers that they aren’t alone,” Burch says. “It certainly helps remind me.”
Burch speaks from experience. The site’s first post details how Harvest Moon 64 helped her manage childhood anxiety and the intense stomach pains stemming from it.
The light-hearted Japanese game was “the only thing that [soothed] me,” she posted. “Without [Harvest Moon], my stomach would have suffered much more than it did.” Her N64 cartridge is a precious childhood keepsake. “Some people have security blankets — I have a farming simulator.”
Her writers aren’t escaping their crises through video games. Burch admits that “there are some harmful, popular stereotypes that all gamers are shut-ins — but that isn’t true. There are certainly some people that literally live within their games, but [it’s] a very small percentage of players.”
Video games help players enter their lives with new perspectives.
“People may start in a virtual world […] to heal themselves or to understand themselves,” Burch says. “But they take that knowledge with them out into the real world, to improve their everyday lives.”
She cites Morgan McCormick’s piece about accepting her identity as a woman. As a transgender gamer, consoles gave her a space to be a female in. “Even when I couldn’t play the girl,” McCormick writes, “video games [began] to tell stories about three-dimensional women I could appreciate or look up to.”
Burch says “the stories are poignant in their own ways” but a piece on Fable 2 was especially memorable. Author “Anthony” mentored his eight-year-old brother as he played through the Xbox 360 game. Playing Fable 2 taught the younger brother moral decision making.
Anthony recalls one key moment in the plot. Faced with sacrificing his character or his character’s wife, the brother chose his wife: “My wife won’t like to see me old,” the eight-year-old says despairingly.
Burch thinks this is remarkable: Fable 2 cultivated “a greater sense of compassion” in a child. “Cynics [say]…games are immoral and teach impressionable children bad values,” she comments. “Here is a story that directly combats that notion.”
Video games become key moments of our lives, just like other mediums. Burch points out how many people credit films for changing their lives or helping them through a difficult time. “No one responds negatively to that sort of claim,” she says.
“Video games should not be any different.” Burch continues, saying games have the ability to affect us far more than film or books “because of their interactivity.” In films or books, “a spectator is moved through empathy.” Games are different: “in a game, the narrative isn’t unfolding before you, it’s happening to you.” This quality can make the video game far more compelling.
Burch also points out how many games are social. Today, video games “form bonds [and] spark relationships. I think that’s incredibly important,” she emphasizes, “and it isn’t something that can be achieved as easily [in] other mediums.”Many stories Burch receives aren’t even about a game. They’re often about a person someone met playing a game, she says, “and how that person saved their life.”
As a critic, Burch thinks games are more than entertainment. The video game can be an impacting and life-changing medium, she explains, and it is troubling that this isn’t a universally accepted claim.
People don’t take games seriously. Many think “they are immature [or] disgusting at best and dangerous [or] harmful at worst,” Burch says. “We really need to change that perception. That’s what I’m trying to do with How Games Saved My Life.
