3. 'Games Show You Nothing About The World'
Be honest, has anyone here ever walked past shelves full of Train Simulator 27 and wet themselves with excitement at finding out there's a passenger cam? No? That's probably because it's a mundane experience which we could go out and see right now if we wanted to. Unless there's a secret option to unleash Cthulhu in the path of unsuspecting commuters there isn't really anything new to look forward to with a game focused on realistic events. The entire point of playing most games is that they're a means of escapism - for a few hours we can get lost in worlds where fearsome dragons roam the skies and Keith from accounts isn't regaling us with that insufferably twee anecdote about his grandkids for the fiftieth time. Games like Polarium, Universe Sandbox and the Portal series encourage us to use lateral thinking and even improve our problem solving skills which we can apply to real-life situations, like simply walking away from Keith and his stories rather than gouging our eyes out with the nearest available biro out of sheer boredom.