Three Reasons Why My Husband And I Play Co-op Games

My husband, Casey and I both grew up with two brothers. Growing up with brothers can mean playing sports and wrestling, but for us it meant playing too many video games!  Casey and I still love video games and we have plenty that we play by ourselves. However, we love playing cooperative video games together. From Portal 2 to Overcooked, we love them all!  We have found that over the nine years we have been together we enjoy ourselves the most when we play co-op games.

Here are three reasons why we play cooperative video games!

Team Building

Casey and I are a team in everything we do, so why should video games be any different! We love that we get to work together to complete levels. There is a sense of accomplishment with every level we beat because we did it together. With other video games, one person wins and the other loses. That can kill some of the fun of playing after awhile. But with co-op games, you win and lose together!  Losing just means you have to work harder together as a team, and we are motivated to try again. Playing co-op games helps us work on our individual strengths and how they benefit the team. We have a wide range of games we play that really test our ability to work together!

Communication

My favorite thing about cooperative video games is the level of communication needed to get through the game. When you are playing against someone you don’t share any strategies and are always trying to get ahead. However, in a co-op game you need to talk everything through and work together. Casey and I have been playing co-op games together for so long that sometimes we don’t even need to talk to work together. We know what the other person needs and are able to help them without discussing it first. It is fun to see this not only work in the video game, but in our lives too. It’s the same as when we are cooking together and move around the kitchen in sync without saying a word!

Too Competitive

Our competitiveness is by far the biggest reason we play cooperative video games. Since we played mostly with our brothers growing up, we were used to competitive video games. Siblings, especially when we were young, are not the best at working together in a game. Instead, we would often argue and get upset. When Casey and I first started dating, we would play a lot of competitive video games. However, the fun would fade and one of us would be happy about winning and the other upset about losing. We always had a difficult time finding a game that seemed fair between us. I have always been better at puzzle solving games, and Casey is better at action games. We were using our strengths against each other instead of working together.

We realized early in our relationship that we are too competitive to play against each other. It’s much more enjoyable and better for our relationship to work together in games. So, we put away 007 Goldeneye, and starting playing cooperative games instead!

If you love playing video games, or even board games, and want some cooperative game suggestions, just let me know!  We have plenty of great games that we love to recommend to other couples!

A Story About My Husband and Myself

Part 1 – How We Met

Part 2 – When He Proposed

Part 3 – Why We Play Co-Op Games

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Alecs Kay Photography is a Portrait & Wedding Photographer in Fargo, ND

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