How have the games helped you?

[Auticorn]

I'm just curious to know... how have the games helped you? Lets here those stories!

As for me, and I was telling a friend about it... the games have helped me with my anxiety and stress levels. I can play Pokemon and easily forget what I'm stressed about. It gives me a sense of calmness when I am playing them. It's a lot more effective to me than if I was to play some other game. I think it's also because I've been around Pokemon since before Pokemon Yellow came out. I can spend hours on end playing Pokemon and forget what's going on around me.

 

[Mab]

I probably wouldn't have made as much progress as I have in either programming or pixel art. Not that I'm particularly great at either, but I'm passable and that's probably due to my early interest in the Pokémon games, ROM hacking and later in fangame development. Both the official games and other fangames have been a huge inspiration towards me learning about the aspects of game design. Had I not joined PokéCommunity and gotten into the games I'd probably still just be doing HTML.

Also, I'm super indecisive about buying games and normally lose interest after a few days, but with Pokémon that hasn't happened. Very few games can withstand the test of time in my eyes, but the Pokémon series is one that has. Normally when I'm pretty bored looking through my Steam library at the dozens of games I haven't opened for the first time yet, or that I haven't played in 2 years, I just change my mind and load up a Pokémon ROM. Nice to have games you know you'll always enjoy no matter what.

 

[Lunar]

I suppose the Pokemon games haven't really helped me as such, but in them I've found a world that I can get lost in and forget about any potential worries I might have. I'm going through a tough time right now so I guess the games are helping me now more than ever.

 

[kingdenas]

I remember playing Pokémon games to run away from problems, but that was not the only thing Pokémon games have helped me. I learned A LOT of english by playing Pokémon games (ofc playing other games and having english classes also helped me) and I'm happy for it.
Pokémon has not given me many "real life" Poké-fan friends, I only have 2, but I don't talk with them too much. What it did give me, was an incredible experience in this community. I really love being here, and if it wasn't for Pokémon, I would never encounter a place like this =D

 

[Altaria]

To be honest this is gonna sound cheesy as hell but I've made so many online friends through the game and I know I'll always be thankful for that. I never really had any IRL friends that played the game so I never had many people to geek out about it with.

It's also helped distract me from anxiety/tough things going on, many a time. Not to mention really get me into gaming, because before Pokemon I never really cared much about video games.

 

[Mister Coffee]

Pokemon has helped me find cool and fun people.

So first of all, Pokemon has brought me to this community in which has allowed me to play my favorite game with a bunch of people who feel exactly the same way about it as I do. Doing a play through, trying to set up dates for trading and battling, communicating on an active thread every day about all of the fun things were doing and updating our progress. This whole community is how Pokemon has helped me. (This is also a shout out to all of you, if you are on this forum and you love pokemon, you have unintentionally contributed to pokemon helping me. :D )

Pokemon has also helped me find friends in my day to day life. I personally do not talk about pokemon in public unless someone else talks about it, or if I know someone plays it. At one of my older jobs, I actually started there as pretty quiet but then one day I walked in and a co-worker of mine was talking about a competitive pokemon team they were building, they had an issue with solving a weakness in their team (sorry that I can't remember the specific conversation it was 2 years ago). I suggested a particular pokemon, the best move pool to set up for it, and then I explained how it solved his weakness.
I became friends with that guy and the other two guys he was explaining the situation to for the entire time we worked together. They were cool dudes while I knew them and the guy who started the conversation frequently came to me for team building advice after that.

When I started playing Pokemon GO, it introduced me to my now best friend who lives in my same apartment building. He plays X version and we are constantly battling and trading since we met, it also turns out we share a lot of other cool hobbies such as MTG, various table top games, and we play a lot of the same video games. I'm grateful that pokemon has introduced me to such a cool best friend, and I know that if I stick with it, I am bound to meet many other really cool people who also like pokemon much like I do.

 

[Imperator161]

Pokemon helped me socially back at the franchise's peak. I don't know how that balances with years of trying to hide the fact that I still played Pokemon, but I first got into Pokemon in an attempt to make some new friends in a difficult social situation, and while that particular case didn't pan out so well, it did help me bond with a lot of other people in the year or so afterwards. It also serves as an outlet and a stress reliever. It's nice to have something so reliable and comfortable to turn to, and I play Pokemon a lot before bed because it helps me fall asleep more quickly.

Pokemon improved my business instincts a bit, too. Back in summer 2007, I spent a lot of time working out trade deals, trading, breeding, and shiny hunting, and the experience helped me refine my quick decision-making and negotiating abilities. Perhaps more relevant, Pokemon got me interested in researching topics of interest in depth and testing new theories (related to glitches and the like), and that passion for Pokemon discovery and knowledge has translated well into a similar thirst and curiosity for knowledge of real-world and career-relevant topics.