The Game of Love

From competitive power fantasies to cosy cooperative titles, video games add a whole new virtual dimension to how we unwind with our partners - but is it all idle fun, or are there lessons to be learned here?

- SHARAN SANIL

As a child, gaming was pretty much a one-man-show, with cousins and little brothers having to make do with disconnected ‘Player Two’ controllers as I dove into dozens of well-remembered titles. Gaming is, after all, an unfathomably deep hobby to get lost in, and one that I was more than happy to explore in solitude. That is, until the last few years.

What once was (and sometimes still is) a serious, no-bullshit experience complete with checklists and competitive tournaments is now an idle afternoon spent with my partner, plodding through relived childhood memories of Pokémon, picking out dollar deals during the latest holiday season videogame sales, and sending cute virtual gifts in our latest multiplayer adventure.

It's been a deeply rewarding journey into the heart of one of my oldest pastimes, and in no small way has helped me detoxify what once was an unhealthily competitive, achievement-focused way of enjoying the world’s favourite interactive art form.

Ready Player Two

The intersection between dating and gaming isn’t particularly new, at least in the western world. People have been doing everything from sharing raunchy emotes to getting married in virtual worlds across the last 20-odd years. For Indian audiences though, co-gaming as a couple is a relatively novel pastime, although the few outliers reveal interesting insights about relationships as a whole.