I&#x27;d like to add my 2 pence to the notion of gaming to relax.<p>For someone who isn&#x27;t a regular gamer, it isn&#x27;t a relaxing thing to do. It&#x27;s frustrating to have to master new controls, and every new game mechanic requires some kind of mental gymnastics, not to mention the hand-eye co-ordination to master.<p>For people who have, or do play games with some regularity, it is a great way to relax. New control schemes have a very shallow learning curve, and it&#x27;s rare that a regular gamer encounters an entirely new game mechanic.<p>For example, my father in law was playing a COD game after not having played video games for many, many years, and was stuck at a certain point. After watching him sit through a brief cut scene, and then furiously mash the buttons on the controller, I intuitively realized what he was doing wrong. He was trying to &quot;play the game&quot; as he normally did, but didn&#x27;t notice the little button icon at the bottom of the screen to signify a quick time event, and had never seen one before either. As a result, he was hitting the wrong button, only to watch the cut scene finish with his character dieing (he admitted to having sat through this 20+ times).<p>I myself, will often play games for a few hours after my wife has gone to bed, and on more than one occassion, I&#x27;ve complained about not having the energy to do anything prodcutive after the evening meal, and she likes to say something to the tune of &quot;but you play video games for hours?&quot;. For her, playing video games is a tense, mind racing activity that requires lots of thought and manual dexterity. For me, it&#x27;s little more than an interactive story with the occassional challenge (and they&#x27;re usually bested after a second attempt, even at harder skill levels) and allows me to tune out for a bit before bed.