I am riding on the train to the city. I am listening to Calaveras, “Ready to Fly”. I’ve worked on my writing a little and I’m thinking about the #nygames conference. This is a conference for electronic games, the sort of games that sometimes get a bad rap. Yet as I think about it, my thoughts go back to a discussion I had with a therapist yesterday. She was talking about the importance of games as a bonding experience for couples and families. We need to play games together to relax, to have fun with one another and to bond.

Typically, when people talk about these sort of games, they are thinking about Scrabble, or some card game. They aren’t thinking about World of Warcraft. Yet World of Warcraft can also be a relaxing, bonding time for couples that don’t mind fighting together against members of a different guild instead of fighting amongst themselves. I’ve always been most drawn to electronic games that have a social component, and I hope to find interesting new developments in this area.

Likewise, casual games, which are not typically thought of when people lash out against electronic games provide an important moment of relaxation for a frazzled stay at home mom when her toddler gives her two minutes of peace. They can also provide an interesting marketing opportunity for brands that wish to reach those mothers that make many of the buying decisions for a family. Will branding in electronic games be discussed today?

Another interesting area of games is the educational games. My children grew up on them and have excelled. Although I always joked with them that they needed to be able to write any computer game before I would allow them to play it. I never held fast to that rule, but it caused them to stop and think more seriously about their relationship to computer games. At the conference last year, there was a great discussion by an iPhone game developer. I noted then, and in a recent post, that I would love to see broader discussion about building games for mobile platforms. I also hope there will be at least some sort of nod to the educational value of games.

The other complaint about electronic games is that it is breeding even more sedentary couch potatoes. I’ve only played Wii tennis once, but I got a great workout and got whopped by a teenager who knew the remote better than I did. Sure, there are games that are not social, that are not relaxing, that are not educational, or are not good exercise, but there are lots of good games that are.

Is it time to rethink our relationship to electronic games?