Interacting With Our Lives and Culture

I wrote this back in April of 2010:

I'm really glad I'm making these decisions in my life to take risks. To some people it sounds like a childish dream to say "I want to make video games."

I've been doubting myself lately too, thinking the same thing--that maybe it is just a childish dream that has no purpose. Something very small that just happened is changing my mind though.

As I had all my music on shuffle, a song from Final Fantasy 7 came on. It is a song that plays during a couple touching scenes, I seem to remember it playing when Cloud and Aeris are riding a cable car at a festival or something.

Anyway, just hearing this song from a video game that I played when I was young is triggering all kinds of memories and feelings. It brings me back to a time in my life where things were very simple and free.

For some people, like me, video games are a big part of their lives. They are therapeutic and can be very soothing. They are also a sort of "landmark" form of entertainment. On a personal level for the players they can become ingrained as a trigger of a certain time in a person's life (hence, "landmark").

They can also be a landmark for something bigger.
Video games, their stories, their characters, and everything about them represent a time in history. Most video games are based on a creator's feelings, whether conscious or subconscious, on current events in the world or in their personal lives.

All forms of entertainment (video games, music, movies, books, paintings, etc.) are an important part of human culture and history, and no one should have the right to say that one is less meaningful than another. Some people say that video games can't be art, but that is that person's opinion and we shouldn't let that get in the way of something that we believe in.

I want to be a part of history, even if that is just 5 seconds of my name in the credits of a video game. In the same way I felt when I heard the song from Final Fantasy 7, there will be young adults thirty years from now who will feel that same thing about a game that I helped create.

Doing for the future generation what great game creators have done in my life will be more than enough satisfaction for me to know that I've done something worthwhile with my life.

Thank you to everyone in the video game industry!

P.S. The song is called "Interrupted by Fireworks" by Nobuo Uematsu in case anyone was wondering.