Since this is my 10,000th post here on GAF, I decided I wanted to do something... different. Something special. This topic is dedicated to all the GAF members & lurkers out there that actuallythe games the rest of us play, praise, deride, and discuss. My hat is off to all of you. This is a long topic, but please read it. Consider it your gift to me, for achieving 10K posts~~~~~~~~~~~~About a year ago I was conversing with someone when the topic of my work came up. I mentioned I work in the video game business, for a company that publishes websites focused on games. They asked if I was a big fan of video games in general and I said yes, absolutely. But then they asked me something that caught me off guard:"Why do you like games so much? What is it about them that is so attractive to you?"I didn't have a good answer for them, at the time. In the following months I've continued to turn this question over in my mind, and Idon't have a very good answer, to be honest. But that isn't going to stop me from trying, here in this topic.Actually... that isn't 100% true. Things DO happen in the real world to spark the imagination. It's just that, in the end, that spark will end up being extinguished, rather than nurtured and encouraged. A perfect example:The other day during a typical Wikipedia crawl, I landed on a piece on the Great Lakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes . I read that Lake Superior is over 1300 feet deep. 1300!"Jesus, that's amazing!" I thought to myself. "There could be ANYTHING down there, at the bottom!"But the truth is... there's nothing down there. Because that's how the real world operates.But in a game, a mysterious, deep lake isworth exploring. There willbe something there, waiting to be discovered.It might be a dangerous eel in need of a teeth cleaning:Or an entire underwater dungeon might be waiting to be explored:Or there might just be no further reward than some treasure:I think a lot of people "grow out" of games when they reach adulthood because they don't need video games anymore to feel powerful or in control of the world around them. When you're a kid, saving the world, being NFL champ, defeating the Nazis... it's pretty obvious why games are attractive.But when you're older and have kids of your own, have real responsibility at work and are just better able to shape the world around you... there's less drive to drop into the world of Albion and wander around, rescuing strangers.My theory is that those of us thatgrow out of games into adulthood (ie those of you here on GAF and working in the industry)... we're the ones that didn't lose that spark of imagination. When we hear about some incredibly deep lake, or deep-space discovery, or recorded ocean sounds of unknown origin, our brains light up and we think "wow!" But... the real world lets us down in that regard, in ways that games almost never do.I know oftentimes on GAF we can be cynical. Yes the Eely Mouth bossfight in Mario Sunshine had wonky camera issues. Yes raiding that underwater dungeon in WoW can be a pain because travel time takes so long. Yes treasure hunting in Wind Waker can be pointless. But I think deep down we all derive a certain amount of thrill from these and other set-ups... because in games, you really, truly don't know what is going to be inside that lake or around that next corner.In some ways, that explanation is a little bit of a cop out. Several of my favorite games of all-time feature no exploratory elements of any kind.In those cases, instead of having robust game worlds to explore, they all have robust gameto explore. It really isn't that different. Experimenting with a level in Monkey Ball or Advance Wars... ferreting out the perfect way to exploit the stage layout and game systems to achieve my goals... that type of game exploration isn't too far removed from crossing an overworld in Zelda or an RPG.It's always a little sad when you finally do wrap your head around all of a deep game's systems... a subtle shift happens. It ceases being about possibility ("this game is so deep!") and becomes more about exposing all the game systems' bare parts and how they fit together, and exploiting them to accomplish your goals as quickly and easily as possible.It's no surprise, then, that the most acclaimed and beloved games of all time (and the bulk of my top 10) are games that allow the player to explore game worlds AND game systems... both intertwined in a beautiful mix of genius design:It's a cliche, but I don't know a better way to put it: when you pop in a game cart (or disk), you're transported to another world. I have a tiny stack of misc. DS games on my desk, and I marveled the other day at how this little 2-inch stack contained untold-number of challenges, mysteries, stages, battles, characters... entire worlds.My time spent in dracula's castle, in Midgar, in Ironforge, Brinstar, Hyrule, on Halo rings, tropical islands... this has not been time wasted. These experiences have enriched my life, not detracted from it.So to all of you that create these worlds and these game systems in the pursuit of putting a little bit of adventure back into people's lives... in the pursuit of ensuring that spark of imagination isn't extinguished by the boring and unsurprising "real world" but is instead rewarded... my hat is off to you. You have all accomplished something monumental. Something important.Those of you still reading this topic, I encourage you to say "thanks" to the men & women behind your favorite games, as well. GAF is a popular place... the odds are at least one of them is reading