With a little help from my friends

My game shelf is full of A-list titles. "Call of Duty 4," "Gears of War 2," "Fallout 3," "BlazBlue," "Fable 2." These games all performed well, both commercially and with critics. And they performed pretty well with me, for sure: big-budget games make up a sizable chunk of my admittedly middling Gamerscore.

I haven't slid "Gears of War 2" into my Xbox in a long, long time. But call me up on any random weekend evening, and you'll probably catch me playing "Rock Band." What makes this so? Why do we play what we play? Where, in other words, does fun come from?

A recent paper presented by researchers Russell Beale and Matthew Bond at the September Human-Computer Interaction conference in Cambridge suggests that successful games - and, at least somewhat by association, fun games - are marked by three distinct traits: they're cohesive, they're varied and they promote social interaction among players.

Interestingly, the study found that sharp graphics, a compelling storyline and even good game play took second fiddle to these three traits. This means that a game's multiplayer features, for example, are central to its success.

Well, I could have told you that. But this piece of information points to something very resounding about video games: they are about people. They're about being with friends. They are about togetherness, not seclusion.

Perhaps this is a hard sell to some of you. Perhaps the gamers you know spend most of their time alone, mute, playing "Halo" behind little hillocks of Keystone cans. And that's fine, but perhaps you should take a closer look: When my friends play video games, they're chatting, they're laughing, they're jumping and hollering and high-fiving and hugging. They're behaving like friends, in other words.

The games I play, the games I come back to again and again, are the ones that draw these friendships out. I can't stand seeing movies in theaters because there's nothing intimate about silently watching a giant screen in the dark. I don't like "Call of Duty" because it's just me, my Xbox and a bunch of anonymous racists via headset. I spent all weekend playing "The Beatles: Rock Band" because I got to sing and scream and make fun Ringo Starr's stupid face.

When my friends and I get together - we live in adjacent apartments, "together" is practically our default state of existence - video games tend to weave themselves into our conversation. But we don't talk about that one headshot kill we got on Dust or the time we hit the leaderboards in "Ninja Gaiden Black."

We talk about the founding, rise to stardom and tearful breakup of punk-rock outfit "Two for Tomorrow." We marvel at the plucky yet ultimately futile efforts of the Tippy people to found a sane civilization in "Spore." We talk the stories we've told together, the worlds we've watched unfold. Games aren't just entertainment; they're our own group mythology. That's why I play.

So I probably won't ever boot up "Gears of War 2" again. But some games, a very few, will keep coming back - and, more importantly, my friends will still be there to enjoy them with me.