Why play 'single player' games?

I'm on xmas vacations and am totally enjoying this! Because I have time for gaming! Isn't that awesome?! Holidays means also the family and so I told my little brother I was playing Skyrim.
My brother isn't really what you would consider a gamer but he does play some from time to time.

So he asked: 'Is it a mmo?' I replied: 'No it isn't, it's a single player game.'
He said: 'Oh, means that you don't play with other people? Now why would you do that?'
Surprised I asked back: 'Why not?' He looked at me and said: 'Duh, what is the point of playing video games alone? You can't pvp others or even compare how good you are doing.'

Then I went back home and this made me think a lot. When I was a kid, I was totally happy sitting on the floor playing a single player game that I couldn't even finish in 40 hours. I do play mmos and multi-player games but I still enjoy from time to time playing alone. So I did tell my brother that sometimes I like to interact with other ppl online but sometimes I like to play alone, live an adventure with dragons and swords and fancy stories. Still, he totally did not understand 'why'.

Maybe I am getting old? Well I know that's a fact. But does every game to succeed must be 'connected'. While I do not deny that now, everything is connected together. The company I work for is working hard to achieve this, to be able to start a game on your pc, then continue playing the same game on your iphone or ipad. I must say that the current generation of kids were born like this, connected to everything. It's a good thing to be connected and to share but at the same time I find it scary at times.

A few days ago, one of my friend's pc fried. He then texted me: 'I am so bored, what am I to do?' Then I asked: 'Why? surely there is plenty to do, you have a guitar, you draw, you sing, you have plenty of friends you can go visit, I'm sure you can do just about anything yes?'. He then said: 'Yes but i have no internet.....' All this does show how much we are connected, how much we are dependent of our computers, of the internet, or our iphones, ipads, blackberry and such.

Now don't get me wrong, being connected is awesome~! Just don't forget friends and family and who you are when you aren't connected.

On that note, I'll go slay more dragons.