Since I was a kid I have always loved games, and when I didn’t have anything I needed to do, you could (and still can) find me playing games somewhere. At the start games were just for entertainment, it was a way for me to have fun, bond with friends, and relax.
As I got older I started wondering what was it that made games so dear to me. There are endless answers to this, as every game has its strength and weaknesses. So lets dive a bit deeper into this rabbit hole here are some of the things I love about games:

Placement doesn’t matter:
Games and the internet make it possible to connect yourself with billions of people, not that I have an interest in billions for me it was important I could connect with my friends. It didn’t matter if I was at home, at school, or elsewhere I could speak and talk with my friends. We could laugh, make jokes, and have an interest we could talk for hours upon hours about without it getting boring.

Be part of your own movie:
Games can also be a way to be part of a bigger story. Depending on the game you either follow a set storyline or make your own adventures (sometimes even with your friends!). It’s like watching a movie, but instead of having to just sit back and follow the main character, you are the main character; you decide what happens! Do you go in shooting like in an action movie? Or do you try to solve hidden puzzles like in a crime movie?

The competative aspect:
You are always competing against someone, and it always feels nice to win. I believe most people agree with that, it’s a way to boost your self-esteem or make bad things not seem as bad as they are.
Competitive games give you a more, almost feeling like an endless, amount of people to compete against. As someone who strives to be better, and tries to improve oneself there is no bigger or better challenge than this. By honing your skills and improving your tactics you can “measure” how good you are compared to other players, usually in some form of ranking system. As you get better you play with and against better players, which shows different tactics, some better and some worse. Sometimes you feel like you hit a wall, that tactic can’t be beaten and you struggle. But after having been infuriated enough times you finally find a way to beat said tactic and you feel amazing. Then you push onwards into the next wall.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is by far my most played game of all time, at the time of writing I have 5250 hours in this game, that would be 218,75 DAYS of playtime. and I have been playing this game for more than a decade at this point and I still enjoy it. As I mentioned above, it’s about hitting a wall, finally understanding what you did wrong, improving, and seeing the results of your improvements.
I have been doing this for so long, and at my peak, I had reached the top 1,5% IN THE WORLD in this game. I was talking with a professional team and had I continued for a bit longer I could have had a shot of joining a professional team. However, at that point, you need to make some tough decisions and some serious time commitment to make it the last part of the way. I had just started a new school, and my classes, homework, and learning your new classmates took a lot of my time, so I sadly didn’t get good enough. Therefore my top achievement was third place in the biggest tournament in Denmark, where we lost to two professional teams sitting together with their coach behind them. So as we were 5 who only had played together for two weeks, I see this as a major victory.