great stories in just 50 gb

Lately I have been lamenting that I didn't have enough time to read books. Because, you know, reading is important, and when you don't get to finish at least a book a month or even once in half a year, you feel like you've let yourself down.

But it doesn't mean I'm not developing via other means? When I don't have time to read, maybe I'm doing something else. Mostly playing video games, of course, also playing D&D and just working on other random projects. Those, too, are the means of learning new stories and developing oneself.

I feel like games don't get enough credit for this and often left out of the queston of self-improvement entirely; and instead blamed for everything ever. It's so very unfair, because there are people, developers, who put immense amount of hours and effort into telling a story that you will finish in maybe 150 hours of gameplay and that fit in just 50 gb of space on your computer. But in those 150 hours you will learn as much as any book might teach you. Relationships, plots, choices, eye candy - there is so much games offer. The majority of my creativity and imagination has been built off video games since I was a child, and books were only a pleasant contribution when I could sit myself and enjoy a story through pages.

And what a fantastic means of storytelling gaming is! There are puzzles, RPGs, shooters, walkers and simulators. You either create your own story or you journey through one already written for you. You take the game and turn it into a skeleton of your own adventure, you "headcanon" additions on top of it and create variations and branch the story off. Perhaps, games steal a bit of the visual imagination, but only a little. Artists visualise concepts that they come up with while gaming, writers build whole new stories with their own vision, and none of those stories are the same.

I just find it fascinating and so very underrated and admirable.

Yes, I also played a lot of Dragon Age lately to lead me to those thoughts! :D