Hey there everyone!

@Kallie112358 & I hosted the first Gamer Outreach discussion today on the adult side in the Guided Discussion room. It was one of the best discussions weve had the pleasure of joining in on (let alone hosting) and we both want to say, before anything else, thank you. You were all absolutely energetic, engaging and entertaining! To put it plainly, you were simply fantastic.

Todays discussion was all about your FAVOURITE GAMES. What you like about them and why. We wanted to really talk to our members about why they enjoy gaming and the response we had from each and every one of you was thoroughly enthralling and really encouraging. We had an outstanding turnout of roughly 58 participants!

So without further adieu, here was our discussion!

The first question we asked was sure to get everyone talking! CONSOLE or PC?

And gosh golly did it! There were so many answers from PC to XBOX. PLAYSTATION and even SCRABBLE! Far too many to count -- so we took it to a vote! And the winner? PC with a massive 13 votes to 2 (multiple votes not counted). Absolutely astonishing!

Our first question was to find out what our favourite games were - and were we in for a treat when we heard some of the games! We had a lot of answers ranging from board games like Monopoly, classics such as Tetris and PacMan, all the way to modern generation games like Fallout 4, GTA V, and Elder Scrolls Online! Here is a short list of some of our other favourite games:

The Witcher 3, Minecraft, Numerous Elder Scrolls Games, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Nancy Drew, Rainbow Six (the franchise), Life is Strange, Game of Thrones, The Fallout Franchise, Legend Of Zelda, Bioshock, Fifa, Pokemon and so many more! Its so hard to not keep listing all of the games! They are all so brilliant!

Moving on to our next question, we asked people why people find these games so good? What keeps them playing? Draws them in?

The general consensus surrounded the main themes of gameplay, story, and character. Participants liked games that had good graphics but ultimately, we all agreed that people preferred games that made them feel more emotionally invested. People love the settings and story of a game; the worlds they can get lost in. One member aptly put that they like the fact that they can relate to characters.

Some other really great answers were: "Immersion and replayability", "Because they are CLASSIC!", "Sense of accomplishment from achieving certain goals", "because my son plays them with me while we are on teamspeak", "Having fun with friends is a big one. Relaxation is another reason", "...the social aspect. My guild is amazing. I've met amazing people there and talking in voice chat with them has helped me get over some of my social anxiety. i love mmos because the people you play with totally change the game", and "I love games that pull me into a world and get me lost in that world and the characters story.. So when a game does that it's a home run for me". There we so many to choose from, it was hard to limit to just a few!

Our third question was all about which character from your favourite video games you would love to meet. And, again, some fantastic answers! At first, people were stunned; what a question, SO MANY; people didnt know what to put! There was so much choice! But here is a list of some of the characters that we chose as our favourites: Mario, PacMan, Spyro, Okami, Lunar Lorkhan, Shay Cormac, Sonic the Hedgehog, Geralt of Rivia, Crash Bandicoot, Mehrunes Dagon, Lara Croft, Agent 47 and so many more! When asked why, answers ranged from, I want to meet the hitman because he's hot, because she has great... eh athletic .. abilities, because he's freaking awesome and sarcastic, and he would be awesome to go out for a drink with!!!

We flipped it around for our fourth question and asked which characters they would never want to meet and the answers continued to amaze! Some of the characters were: Ganondorf, Kratos, Wario, Bowser Jr., Lara Croft, Chris Walker, Diablo/Baal, Hades, Dr. Robotnik, Dante, Patchwerk and countless more!

Our fifth question was all about the real world. That is, what aspect of your favourite video game would you love to take into the real world and why? The answers blew me and Kallie away completely!

Here are a small selection:

"Spirit healers from wow", "super powers", "character customization", "Pip-boy", "Stars from Mario", "MAMMUTS... hairy elephants basically", "My horse in Ultima", "Money cheats", "House prices in monopoly. For London", and "Oh quicksave and quickload too! Like when you mess up you just reload a save, no worries".

Our sixth was, again, flipped right around! What aspects of the games we play do we never want to see in real life? Bad AI, Lag, Non-Responsive NPCs, the bosses in Dark Souls, cheesy lines in character scripts, and having to level up to unlock certain features. I think we can all agree we wouldnt want those!

On to our seventh question now and we asked what people would change the names of their favourite games to to better fit what the game was about and the answers were better than brilliant!

Minecraft - Digital Legos, Save the princess, or die trying. - Mario, Pokemon - Catch animals and make them fight for you, Super Smash Bros- Nintendo (and other third party characters) Fight Club, fable - do what you want but mostly you will be bad 1st time then good 2nd, you won t believe what you can do with this gun, door makers hate it - portal.

Our next question revolved around game genres! Specifically, what genre would we play forever if we had to stick to one?

Role Playing Games (RPG), Strategy Games, Platformers, and Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games were among the top picks with First Person Shooters (FPS), Simulation and Puzzle games coming up closely behind! Some of the notable mentions were Dungeon Crawlers and Sandbox games!

Our ninth question was all about a genre you didnt like! Dress Up Games were the winner! With Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), Puzzle Games, FPS, Horror, and Walking Simulators (DayZ, perhaps?) were among the other top listed!

And one of our final questions was would would you live in your favourite game world for a week if you were given the chance?

Immediately people said yes! Some said no, and some said only if they had unlimited lives!

Some of the answers we had were:

"I'd live in the Mushroom Kingdom and hang out with the Mario gang. Playing Mario Party, going kart racing, etc", "I would live in Skyrim I think, I don't think I could survive fallout", "I think if I lived in amnesia or outlast I just starve to death in a wardrobe", "I d [be] the a vase in the legend of zelda probably", "OMG pokemon would be awesome", "... I d love to live in the sims for a week", "Skyrim or Morrowind , they are nice to look upon, The last Witcher is pretty too"

And that brings us to the end of this discussion!

Both Kallie and I really hope you all thoroughly enjoyed this discussion and we want to say thank you from the very depths of our hearts. All of you really made this discussion one of the best weve ever had and I personally cannot wait to host some more discussions with the team! One of the biggest questions raised by participants at the end was about getting a dedicated Gamers Group Chat Room -- this is definitely something that is being looked into so keep your eyes peeled!

If you want to take part in the Gamer Outreach team, please check this forum post: http://tinyurl.com/GamerOutreach!