Does Cosplay Have Any Practical Benefits?

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“Cosplay” is something that any nerd or geek has likely engaged with or at least heard about at some point or another. However, with its increasing popularity come more and more questions about why people cosplay and what they gain from the process and experience. Let’s take a moment to look further into this!

What Is Cosplay?

Cosplay is a portmanteau for “costume” and “play”. It is quite simply a process in which people dress up as their favourite characters - generally from a host of video games, comic books, anime, manga, films, and television programmes. People engaging with cosplay tend to purchase their outfits from cosplay stores or may go DIY and create the entire ensemble themselves.

Where Do People Cosplay?

If you’re standing in queue at a fast food outlet and a bunch of people dressed as Link from Zelda, Sailor Moon, and other popular characters suddenly pile in to make an order, or if you’re on public transport surrounded by a host of Batmen, Spidermen, and Wonderwomen, chances are that there is some sort of cosplay event on nearby. Perhaps the biggest events that people choose to cosplay at are Comic Con.

The Benefits of Cosplay

Getting a cosplay outfit together generally takes commitment, time, and money. So, why do people go through all of this? Here are just a few of the benefits that come hand in hand with a little cosplay!

Escapism

Some people revel in the opportunity to put themselves in someone else’s shoes for the day. While many people will simply dress up as a character, some will take on the character, spending their day portraying another person. It’s like an extended acting session or a mode of performance art!

Expressing What You Love

When you choose a character, you are showing everyone your appreciation of that character. Your costume can give others at an event an insight into your interests and preferences.

Social Aspects

Cosplay events bring people with a comparatively niche set of interests together in one close setting. This gives people the opportunity to socialise with others on a similar wavelength to them, making friends along the way. The cosplay community is constantly expanding.

Attention

If you have a great outfit, you’re bound to get a whole lot of attention. There’s something extremely satisfying about someone asking to have their picture taken with you. At cosplay events, you can be showered with attention and praise all day long.

When you look at the different benefits that come hand in hand with engaging with cosplay, it’s not all too surprising that increasing numbers of people are getting involved! Who knows, maybe this could prove to be your latest interest or hobby!

Managing Your Money as a Student

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If you’re in high education then your focus is most likely going to be on studying, yet at the back of your mind will be the ever present stress of money management.  Of course, some people are in the privileged position of having their parents take care of the finances of education, yet for many others, money can be tight and a genuine concern.

When it comes to managing your money as a student, there are two factors to think about, first is to reduce the amount you spend and budget wisely - for instance, you could use a best budget app to keep on track when it comes to managing your spending.  Then, on the other side of the coin is that of making money, which is what this article is going to focus on.

The challenge when it comes to making money as a student is that in most jobs you are having to trade your time for money - and with a limited supply of time, due to the fact you will be in lectures and seminars, then studying independently, time can be in very short supply.

This is where you need to start thinking of ways to make money that either don’t rely so heavily on the exchange of time for money, or pay better rates, meaning you can work less hours but still make enough money to survive.

Here are three aspects to consider:

1. MAKE MORE MONEY

If you can make more money per hour, then you can work less hours.  Consider setting something up yourself such as a micro business offering a service such as mowing lawns or cleaning windows.  It might sound basic, but let’s say you charge $20 for a lawn. In a day, you could easily service six clients which would be $120… meaning, you only need to do a day or two in order to make the same amount you would working many more hours in a conventional part time job.

2. USE THE TIME WISELY

There are certain jobs where you can use the time you have at work to simultaneously study, for instance, if you were to be babysitting when the children go to bed, rather than watch a film you could use the time to focus on coursework.

Similarly, some jobs such as night security or receptionist jobs in hotels, allow for plenty of time that you can use to focus on work.  Indeed, because you don’t have much better to do, you might be more motivated - plus you will be paid whilst studying, making it a win-win.

3. CREATE PASSIVE INCOME

Today, there are all sorts of ways to create passive income.  For instance, you could create a blog and start to monetize the blog with advertising, affiliate marketing, or by creating your own online courses.  You could similarly leverage a platform such as Udemy to promote your course and let them take care of all the advertising and marketing.  

Let’s say you have a course sold via Udemy that you receive $25 for, each time it is sold.  It’s very possible to sell a course 100 times each month, meaning you would be bringing in $2,500 per month without having to trade your time for money - as you are leveraging the asset you created.

Can Gaming Teach Valuable Life Skills?

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Are video games a waste of time? Or could they actually be setting kids up with valuable life skills?

Whilst there’s no denying that some people spend way too much time playing video games, the idea that it’s a completely mind-numbing activity is a load of rubbish. Gaming requires lots of concentration and tests our cognitive abilities – there are even studies that suggest it can make the brain bigger.

Can this added brainpower be used to perform other skills better? Research would certainly suggest so. Here are just a few examples of life skills that can be developed through gaming.

Problem solving

Games are all essentially puzzles – they require an equal mix of creativity and logic to complete, which are the key ingredients required to solve problems.

Many games teach the fast decision making needed in high pressure situations by giving players lots of information and a short time to process it and make good use of it. This extends all the way from basic games such as Tetris that require the player to fit together shapes quickly all the way to highly detailed games such as Call of Duty and Forza. Such skills can help people to act faster and more efficiently in an emergency by quickly processing and reacting to the information around them.

Gaming can also teach problem solving on a more longer time scale. RPGs that require players to select builds and skills can help teach forward planning. This can help people to prepare for problems in advance.

Some researchers have gone so far as to recommend gaming as a useful tool for improving the spatial problem solving required for engineering. There have also been many instance of gamers solving scientific problems to finding new planets that could support life to helping find a cure to AIDS by resolving enzyme-like structures. Should gaming be something more of us are putting on our CVs?

Multi-tasking

Video games require players to do multiple things at once. As well as mastering the controls, games require players to pay attention to multiple pieces of information on the screen as well as potentially communicating to other players over a headset.

Studies have been made into this and have found evidence that this could be improving our multi-tasking skills – in fact, one study using a game called NeuroRacer on a group of 60 to 85 year olds for a few hours was found to improve the multi-taking abilities of its participants for six months afterwards.  

Multi-tasking is something that is required to complete many tasks in life from driving to cooking to looking after children. Gaming could helping us to pick up these tasks more easily without us even knowing.

Teamwork

Gaming has long been viewed as an anti-social activity, simply because it prevents people from going outdoors. But modern games are actually encouraging socialization by allowing players to communicate via headset. Not only can you play with your friends, but you can also meet new people playing online and develop new relationships.

Many games require people to work together under pressure to meet a common goal. These are the very same teamwork skills required in many workplaces.

Studies such as this one support the fact that co-operative games can build a sense of teamwork. However, these studies also found that playing video games purely competitively can harm these teamwork abilities. This suggests that if you want to become a better team player, you need to stop choosing free-for-all modes.

Empathy

The idea that video games are turning us all into psychopaths could also be utterly false – video games could actually be doing the opposite, helping us to develop our sense of empathy.

Studies using the game Crystals of Kador, found that video games could be used to develop empathy - this game requires players to play as a robot that has crash-landed on a foreign planet and who must build rapport with aliens on the planet in order to make a recovery.

This is of course only one type of video game - the same might not be so easy to prove with a game like Mortal Kombat - however it could be true of other games such as Mass Effect that require you to build relationships with characters.

Perseverance

Video games often require a lot of perseverance. Getting through those challenging levels on the hardest difficulty often requires tens (if not hundreds) of attempts. The only way to beat the game is to try and try again.

Perseverance is a valuable life skill – if you fail, you need to have the strength to get up and start again. There are many times in life when we may fail repeatedly such as trying to get a job or trying to give up a bad habit. Could the persistence required to keep trying in gaming help us to not give up when it comes to these real life challenges?

Few studies delve into this, although gaming has spawned an entire philosophy of living life like a video game – the idea that you can keep working to improve parts of your life as if leveling up a character.

An argument could of course be that gaming teaches too much perseverance and that it develops addictive behavior over things that aren’t necessary for human survival. Just as there are times when you shouldn’t give up, there are other times when quitting is the healthy thing to do, and games don’t do this – they’re designed to make us keep playing!

Dealing with Freshman Year Homesickness

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Regardless of how excited you are about starting college, you could still be struck with homesickness, especially if you have never been away from your family for any length of time before. You suddenly find yourself in a situation where you have to make your own daily routine, you have to adjust to college life and make new friends. All this with no mom, dad or sibling to give you a hug and tell you that you can do it.

Homesickness Is Normal

Homesickness is a natural reaction to a sudden change that takes you away from all that you are familiar with. Everyone has thoughts of home, but for some people, it becomes an obsession that sees them crying a lot and not able to concentrate on the work they should be doing. For some students, it is so severe that they seek teen depression treatment to help them through the first few months. It’s far more common than you might think.

You should not think you are weird or strange because you are missing home and once you accept that everyone is feeling it to some degree, you will be on the right road to dealing with it.

Get To Know Your New Surroundings

Part of feeling homesick is being in strange surroundings. Get to know the campus and the surrounding area by walking around it to find out where everything is. Remember, you are not on your own in feeling this way and you may well find that others would like to walk with you, as they need to discover things as well.

Get Involved

At home. you were an important part of a family and now suddenly you are one of hundreds. To overcome this feeling you need to get involved in college life.  There are often volunteering opportunities, you could become involved in campus politics, or join some of the college clubs.  Filling your social time with meeting people who have similar interests will make you feel less lonely and help you to make new friends.

Keep In Touch With Home

Keeping in touch with your family is an important part of helping you to miss them less. Hearing one of your parents on the other end of a phone each day can be very comforting to start with, but eventually, as you start to feel better, you should try to wean yourself off this habit. When you are feeling low it is great to know they are still there for you if you need them, but at the end of the day, you are making a new life of your own. They will always be part of your life, but you should not make it so that you cannot cope without daily contact.

Talk To Your Friends

No matter how much you are told, it might not sink in that you are not the only one feeling this way unless you talk to your friends. Then you will understand how others are suffering too, and may even be able to do things together to ease the burden of homesickness for you and your friends.

This is an experience that many freshmen go through and part of the secret is to stay positive throughout. Eventually, you will get used to college life and not having your family so close and as it becomes part of normal life, the feelings of homesickness will start to diminish.

Mobile Games That Give Your Brain a Workout

Mobile games are brilliant. They are a great way to escape your stress and leave the real world behind. They give you a way to meet new people and have some fun. They can be fun, exciting, terribly frustrating and incredibly addictive. They can even improve your concentration. Now that we’ve all got a phone in our pockets, we can play games wherever we are. We can lose a few minutes while we wait in the doctor's surgery, or we can spend hours giving them our full attention.

Games like these range in styles and types. Some, like online Bitcasino games, give us a chance to earn a little money while having some fun. Others are simple and addictive, a great way to kill time. Others are more serious. You can play shoot ‘em up games. You can play classic arcade fighting games. There are platform games and building games. You can even play mobile games that give your brain a bit of a workout. Here’s a look at some of the best mobile games that force you to use your mind.

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Lumosity

Lumosity is a proper brain training app. It focuses on games, tasks, and puzzles that each train different areas of your mind and different thought processes, giving you an all over mind workout. You can personalize your account for how much time you’ve got, and Lumosity will set you challenges each day.

Words with Friends

Words with friends is a bit like good old fashioned scrabble. But on your phone and with an added social element. This incredibly popular word building game is easy to play but forces you to think in a way that you might not usually. Now that we all rely so heavily on autocorrect and spell checkers, actually stopping to think about forming words is something that we rarely do, so despite its ease, this game can give your brain a great workout. It’s also pretty addictive, so you’ll be keen to play it as often as possible, and it’ll never feel like a chore.

Flow Free

Free flow is such an easy game at the start. The graphics are simple, there’s no flashy bells and whistles, but it’s a game that gets you thinking, and progressively gets harder as you play.

The simple premise is a grid of colored dots. There are two of each color on the grid, and you have to join them to each other using colored lines or pipes. The catch is that you can’t go through other lines to do it. So you have to find creative ways around the board to link your dots. The first few grids are easy, but it quickly becomes much more challenging.

The Room

The room is more visually appealing than the other games on this list. It’s a beautiful game, with much more complexity than a simple puzzle game or brain training app. But, the challenges offer the same great mind workout. It’s an adventure game, with a plot and story, that uses games and puzzles to forward the narrative. Think grown-up Professor Layton.

Challenging your mind as often as you can is proven to reduce your risk of memory issues and mental health problems. Things like learning a new language and reading are great, but playing games on your phone that make you stop and think can be equally effective.

7 Clever Tricks To Improve Concentration When Studying

Trying to concentrate when you’re studying is so difficult. There is a long list of things that can distract you and you probably won’t work that hard to avoid them if you don’t want to be studying in the first place. It might be your phone or social media, or even just staring out of the window. Whatever it is, you just need to find a way to maintain your focus and be more productive. There are quite a few different ways to do this. Finding the right work space is a start, but if you’re still struggling, you can try some of these handy tricks.

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Shut Off Your Phone

Your phone is one of the biggest distractions there is because there are always notifications popping up and you won’t be able to resist picking it up to check it. Once you’re on your phone, it’s easy to waste half an hour without even realizing. That’s why it’s a good idea to switch it off whenever you’re trying to study. If you still need the phone on in case you get a call, you can download some great apps to stop yourself from getting distracted. You can block everything apart from phone calls and shut off all of the notifications. If you try to open your phone and start procrastinating, it simply won’t let you once you’ve activated the app. You can turn it off, of course, but it’ll make you wait for a minute and then ask you again if you really want to open your phone. Most of the time, you’ll realize that you don’t really need to use it anyway and get back to work.

Take Regular Breaks

The biggest mistake that people make when they’re studying is thinking that if they have fewer breaks, they’ll get more done. But you can only concentrate and work effectively for a short period. If you carry on working after that, you’ll still be working but you won’t be productive. But if you have a small break and then come back to it, you’ll get a lot more done. Don’t think that working for 8 hours straight without taking a break is going to help you get more done. You’ll just end up getting stressed out and that’s the worst possible thing for studying. You need to take regular breaks and do an activity that relieves stress. When you come back to work afterwards, you’ll be a lot more focused.

The Right Background Sounds

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Some people prefer to work in silence but some people find that even more distracting and they prefer a bit of background noise. Picking the right background noise is essential because it can do more harm than good. Music with lyrics in it can be a big distraction so if you are going to listen to music, something instrumental is best. You can also listen to specific music designed for focus. Certain tones and melodies impact the brain in different ways so there are pieces of music that are composed with the sole purpose of improving concentration. If you do a quick search on Youtube, you’ll be able to find plenty. Get yourself a decent quality pair of headphones from this website so you can shut out any other noise from the outside and focus solely on working. Listening to the background music for video games is another tip that sounds pretty odd but it really works. The soundtracks are designed to keep you engaged so you play for longer so they’re actually great for improving concentration.

Meditation

You probably haven’t considered meditation before and most people associate it with spirituality and religion, but it’s actually a useful tool for everybody. Meditation is a great tool for relaxing and de-stressing when you aren’t studying, but it’s also great for improving focus beforehand. The Calm app has loads of guided meditation programs that only take 5-10 minutes. There are ones for relaxing and reducing stress as well as ones that improve focus. If you do this before you sit down to study, or when you find yourself getting distracted, you can get back on track. There are some great ones that help to improve your sleep which is very important when you’re trying to be productive.

Dress For Business

The clothes that you wear have a big impact on your attitude. If you’re wearing pajamas, you’re not going to be in a working mindset and you might find it harder to stay focused. But if you dress like you would if you were going into an office to work, you’ll be a lot more motivated. That doesn’t mean you need to put a full suit on every single day but you should take pride in your appearance and you’ll find it a lot easier to work hard.

Get Some Plants

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Putting some house plants in your room is a great way to brighten the place up but it’s also good for productivity as well. Studies show that it improves your overall mood and increases productivity by up to 15 percent. It also helps to clean the air and improve air quality in your study area which is always a bonus. Creating a comfortable and inviting workspace is important and this is one of the easiest ways to do it.

Exercise

Exercise is important for your general wellbeing and it can really help you to improve your studying as well. A regular workout will improve your overall motivation and energy levels which make it easier to study. You should also consider doing a workout immediately after you’ve finished studying. Research suggests that exercise improves brain function and helps you to retain information. If you do a workout immediately after you’ve finished studying, you’ll remember a lot more of the information the next day. Exercise is also a great stress buster so it’s the ideal way to end a hard day of studying.

Staying organized and creating a good workspace are both important when you’re studying but if you’re struggling to concentrate, you can use these simple tricks to improve productivity.  

New Students: How To Master College Life

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Going off to college could be one of the best times of your life for so many reasons. Such as, you get to study the subject of a field you are dying to get into, connect with new like-minded people and for some, you may even have the freedom of living away from home. But the experience you have is entirely dependent on what you do to make it awesome. Which is why a little preparation goes a long way in helping you to ease into college life and tackle college work with confidence. With the central premise of college being to help you gain your next stepping stone in life to a better career or business venture, the way in which you handle your college routine will have an impact on the duration of your college life.

College Tours

Initially, you will most likely have no idea where your classes are, the library, your lecturer's office and so on, which is why helps to get familiar with your campus and to locate where your chosen ideal study spots might be. Leaving this to last minute or the day you start college spells a recipe for disaster, as you may be a little rushed, and it won't make the best impression on your teacher to stroll in late to your first class.

Schedule

Up there with locating your classes at the top of your priority list, should be you keeping a program of all of your classes to hand daily. Usually, a diary or an online phone planner app will do. This will prevent you from attending crucial workshops and lectures that could dock your grade and in turn help you to take responsibility for your own schedule and time management to master your college life.

College Work

Getting to grips with your college work from the get-go and dedicating time to your studies or to organize a research paper writing service in advance will prevent scraping or worse missing crucial deadlines. A good rule to follow when trying to suss out how long a particular project or piece of coursework might take you to complete is to add an extra 25% of time on top of this. This will allows time for life's unpredictable mishaps to prevent leaving you in a rut which could leave you struggling to complete your college work in a restrained time frame. For instance, your laptop could stopped working before you hit save (always save a backup copy), a bed bound illness could make it impossible for you to complete your work or a family emergency might throw you of your studies. Your extra 25% safety net will either help you overcome these hurdles or give you extra jiggle room to improve your college work further.

Bask In Student Life

Taking time to have fun and let your hair down is a right of passage when you’re attending college. To you this might mean joining the chess club, starting a band or going to house parties, whatever the fun,  you should do it a lot. The reason being is because it will make your college experience truly memorable, you will meet and connect with new and exciting people and in turn, find out more about yourself. This doesn't mean staying up and drinking all night before a test, however in moderation and away from deadlines, fun can help relieve stress, encouraging you to be more creative and inspired to think when writing your presentation or paper.

By injecting some organization, time management, and some fun from the get-go you can take control of your college life and subsequently mater college life as a new student.

5 ways reading makes your life better

With all our modern technology and so many entertainment options at our fingertips, there is little wonder that many of us are turning our back on the written word. We are missing out on so much, however, because reading can be a great source of entertainment. There is nothing quite like getting lost in a book, you can be gripped for hours. There are also so many other benefits to reading, it can literally change your life. Read on to find out what reading could do for you.

Reduces stress

Studies have found that reading can reduce stress levels by up to 68%. The study also found that often reading worked to calm participants down faster than any other method. It is thought that reading works so well because it offers you a true escape from the real world. A good book literally offers you a sanctuary.

Improves analytical thinking

Reading actively stimulates your brain which causes an expansion that helps you to think in new ways. You can actually grow your mind every time you pick up a book. Analytical skills really help you when it comes to problem-solving, something which employers tend to cherish in their workforce. If you are looking for a promotion or new job, it might be worth picking up a book first so that you can develop new skills to show off to potential employers.

Increases vocabulary

When you read you are exposed to so much more vocabulary. Even if you are reading words that you have already come across, they tend to seep into your consciousness more and more as you read them and you will find yourself them using them increasingly in conversation. You could make yourself look more business savvy at work by reading some corporate achievement books and letting that business-related language seep into your brain.

Improves memory

Reading really is a great workout for the mind. When you pick up a book, you are asking your brain to operate in a number of different ways. It needs to use vision to concentrate on the words, process what the words are and add things to your learning bank if you haven't come across them before. Using your brain in this way helps to keep your memory sharp, just like using the gym keeps your muscles in shape. There are many ways to help improve your memory, but giving your brain a good workout should always be at the top of the list.

Helps with prioritizing goals

Sitting down with a good book can really give us peace, even when the to-do list is screaming at us. The thing is when we are in the middle of the hustle and bustle of modern life we can't think straight and planning can end up being counterproductive. Escaping for a bit, into another world can help centre and bring some peace from all of the pulls that we have on our time. Through this peace, we can effectively plan and prioritize what is important in life.

4 Inescapable Truths of School and College

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You need to know what to expect from school and college, as well as what you can do to make this a more pleasant experience in the future. There are so many elements that are involved in the process of navigating school and college, and you need to know what plays a part in making this more enjoyable, and improving your capacity for learning.

There is plenty to consider in this regard, and the more you can do to make the most of your time in education, the better. Everyone has a unique experience in education, and the thing to remember is that you need to have an open mind. These are some of the inescapable truths you are going to encounter in the world of education, and you need to be ready for them.

1. Learning is the Focus

You have to remember that learning is the principal focus of being in education. You are not there for a holiday, you are there to learn, and this has to come first. If you can get into this mindset, you should find it easier to develop a love for education. Learning is so important, and the right education can get you many more opportunities when you start pursuing a career.

2. You will Make Friends

Another thing to think about is that you will make friends in school and college. This is something that it is important, and it can have such a positive and profound impact on the rest of your life. There are a lot of things that happen as you move through the years of education, but making friends is one of the constants. In fact, you might even find that you make friends for life.

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3. School Spirit is Essential

It is really important to have school spirit and to be a part of the community of your school or college. This is something that helps everyone come together and benefits the institution in the process. Things like LED signs for schools, the school paper, and numerous sporting events all combine to help capture the essence of school spirit. Try to involve yourself in this as much as you can because it’s going to help you find school much more enjoyable.

4. There will be Some Stress

There is no doubting that you are going to experience a degree of stress when it comes to school and education. You have to make sure you are focused on improving the ways you learn, but you also need to try to reduce stress as well. You also need to know when you’re doing too much in terms of study, and when you have to cut back. This is something that you should get sorted as soon as you possibly can because it will make learning much better for you.

Think about how much it takes to improve the college and school experience. It’s not something that everyone will take to, that’s for sure. But, there are certainly opportunities that will allow you to make the most of the situation in the long run. Use the ideas in this post to try to prepare you for the world of school and college, and make the most of the experiences you might have.

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In An Age Of Photo-Realistic Graphics, Why Do We Still Love Card Games?

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Just this summer, the video card manufacturer Nvidia unveiled a new technology that finally made the holy grail of photorealistic gaming possible. The technology, ray tracing, accurately plots the path of individual light rays, bouncing them off surfaces in 3D environments, making shadows and textures far more convincing than when using conventional rendering techniques. It was a giant step forward, and finally brought us to the cusp of the era of photo-realistic gaming; fantastic news for the existing video game industry, as well as emerging technologies like VR.

But despite the impressive improvement in graphics technologies, many “gamers” are finding themselves drawn back to simpler times. Rather than investing in big budget video games, they find the allure of simple cards much more appealing. What’s going on?

When the Witcher 3 released in 2014, reviewers praised the game’s immersive environment, compelling storyline, and beautiful quests. But read the reviews carefully, and you soon discover that almost all of them talk about Gwent - a card game within the overall game - speaking of its addictiveness and depth. CD Projekt Red - the game’s developers - say that they introduced Gwent as a side activity, hoping that people might enjoy it. But they didn’t realise just what a reaction it would provoke. Seasoned game reviewers who had been pumped for the main title found themselves obsessing over which cards they had collected and who they’d beaten. For some, it became a passion, and they were driven to collect all the cards in the game and construct the most powerful decks possible.

Other game developers have cottoned onto this phenomenon. Blizzard, for instance, created Hearthstone during a dry spell for the company, mainly as an experiment. The game, however, has since become one of the most popular, with millions of players logging on to do battle all over the world. Yes, it’s pretty, but it’s not exactly cutting-edge graphics.

Many Gamers Began With Cards

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Perhaps the reason for the success of card games, in video form or not, is that they help take gamers back to a time when they first discovered fantasy gaming. Many were brought up on the d100 dice from Dungeons and Dragons, or the innumerable strategies of Magic: The Gathering, and want to relive those heady days. Some couldn’t afford expensive gaming computers in the early days and had to make do with their physical analogues.

But there is something more profound about card games which just can’t be emulated in real-time combat situations. Turn-based games create strategy in a way that continuously-played games cannot.

The ancients knew this, of course. Both Go and chess use turns to generate strategic action. So too do other great video games in history, most notably the Civilization series, and some of the Final Fantasy games. In Civilization, the turn-based nature of the game means that players have to think carefully a number of steps ahead and take into account what their enemies are doing. In Final Fantasy, the space of possibilities is smaller, but the principle remains - combat choices depend heavily on predictions of what opponents will do next.

It’s this predictive nature of turn-based games that makes them so appealing. You never really know what’s going to happen because you don’t know your opponent’s hand or how they make decisions. But ultimately, you can refine your strategy to outwit other players, even though you may fail on the odd occasion.

Card Games Become A Cult Classic

There’s also the fact that some card games are becoming cult classics and collectables. People love to complete their Warhammer or other tabletop gaming collections, just as they do other things. Shops now dedicate themselves to providing a wide selection of gaming materials, ideal for even the geekiest of players.

Warhammer is an interesting example. Over the years, game developers have created numerous real-time strategy games based on the original franchise. And although those games are successful, they still haven’t built the cult following that the table top versions have. Warhammer is a classic example of a game that never had to go digital. There’s still a place for physical objects in today’s gaming landscape.

Card Game Bring People Together Physically

Read any business blog, and you’ll encounter experts who talk of the importance of physical proximity, even in an age of free video telephony. Card gamers will tell you a similar story. Yes, they love playing Overwatch and Battlefield with randoms on the internet, but they also like getting together with friends and just playing a round of cards. It’s the being together that’s as important as the game itself.

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In the old days, a simple LAN party would suffice. But with such convenient online gaming, the last thing that people want to do is lug heavy gaming equipment around to their friends’ houses. Much better to pack a box of cards and props, and have fun the old-fashioned way.

The Explosion Of Card Game Options

The number of options, both digital and physical, for keen card gamers has increased dramatically over the last few years, with themes ranging from high fantasy to space. Star Realms, for instance, is based on fleets of spaceships, bases and freighters, immersing players in the far reaches of the cosmos. What’s more, the game also has superb deck-building mechanics and AI, making it both a challenge and highly engaging.

Other games, like Dream Quest, take a different tack. The digital card game combines cartoon graphics with a dungeon crawler feel, making it unique and exciting. As you explore new dungeons, you can find treasure and unlock interesting cards with special abilities.

In short, there are now dozens of options out there for gamers, both on mobile devices and in real life. Photo-realistic graphics might be great for shooters and other twitch-based games, but no matter how good graphics get, they can’t emulate the essence of a good turn-based strategy. For now, it looks as if card games are here to stay, regardless of how good technology becomes. Which card do you want in your deck?