Philosophy and videogames… but which philosophy?

It is possible to say that there are as philosophies as philosophers, but this statement is quite risky because makes impossible philosophical exchange. Also, it is convenient to identify tendencies on philosophy, for instance, idealism, empiricism, rationalism, etc. These types are not unique and they do not include every single philosophy, but these types allow us to deal with philosophy as a whole. Consequently, it is possible to ask us what kind of philosophy is the best. However, this question is meaningless, because there are not any criteria to prefer any philosophy over other. Similar thought has been argued by Heidegger:

Plato's thinking is no more perfect than Parmenides'. Hegel's philosophy is no more perfect than Kant's. Each epoch of philosophy has its own necessity. We simple have to acknowledge the fact that a philosophy is the way it is. It is not for us to prefer one to the other, as can be the case with regard to various Weltanschauungen. (Heidegger, The end of philosophy and the task of Thinking p. 375)

Thus, we do not choose what philosophy to do with videogames. On contrary, it is your own experience with videogames which chooses its own philosophy. If you want to think videogames from an Atomistic point of view, indeed it is possible, results could be quite weird as well as useless. Hence, it is better to attend what kind of philosophy emerges from videogames.

If we pay attention to gaming, it is obvious that experience is the hearth of the interactions between game, player, gameplay, story, etc. Actually, videogames are more experiences than toys, and it is important because aims the main character of videogames, which are not there just for fun, but they imply a particular relation with reality, that is, a particular experience. It is usual to hear that people who plays videogames are escaping from reality. The same idea could be told about art, literature, reading, etc., but this idea reveal such poor conception about reality. Reality is not just the external world from myself: I am a physical body geographically situated in certain country and the reality is more than my own surrounding space. Reality aims to possible experience, reality is everything that could enrich my experience. In this meaning, there is more reality on Homeric’s Iliad than in my little room because there are more experience condensed in Iliad than in my little chamber, where I live. So, this is our thesis: We do not play videogames to escape from reality; We see my little pony to escape from reality. We do play video games for the experience. Thus, just like Homeric’s Iliad or any art’s exposition on any museum, the main point is the experience’s enrichment. I do not claim that any videogame is equal to Iliad, I do claim is that videogames are condensed devices of experience, just like epic poetry, and play them bring to us more experience than just stay there in the living room. 

There are many philosophies to think experience, from empiricism to pragmatism, from hermeneutics to complexity theory. However, it does not depend to us which one is better than other in order to think videogames. Instead we should pay attention to what dimension of gaming experience to think about. Again Heidegger shows us the way of thinking philosophically about:

Thought of what holds us, in that we give it thought precisely because It remains what must be thought about. Thought has the gift of thinking back, a gift given because we incline toward it. Only when we are so inclined toward what in itself is to be thought about, only then are we capable of thinking. (Heidegger, What is called thinking?)

In this order of ideas, we should not to decide which philosophy is better or worse to think the gaming experience, but we should to attend what appears to be thought about videogames. Hence, if we ask us what kind of philosophy to think videogames, we should answer: any philosophy of experience. Thus, we play videogames, we read books and we visit museums; however, these activities have deeper implications. So we get an enriched experience, and our own experience of reality is wider, deeper and more universal, that is, more human.