ESL Questions Games
Games
From childhood favourites to esports and game addiction debates, these 75 questions about games cover every angle. Fun enough to warm up any class, and deep enough to keep advanced learners genuinely arguing.
Beginner
Do you like playing games?
What is your favorite game?
Do you play video games?
How often do you play games?
Do you like board games?
What games did you play as a child?
Do you play games on your phone?
Have you ever played chess?
Do you play games with your family?
What is a popular game in your country?
Do you like card games?
Have you ever played a sport as a game?
Do you prefer indoor or outdoor games?
Have you ever won a game? What game was it?
Do you like puzzle games?
How long do you play games each day?
Do you play games alone or with other people?
Have you ever played a game in another language?
Do you like games that are fast or slow?
Have you ever bought a game as a gift?
Do you like competitive games?
What game do you play most often now?
Do you like games that need a lot of thinking?
Have you ever played a game outside at night?
Would you like to learn a new game? Which one?
Intermediate
What was the first video game or board game you really got hooked on? What made it so addictive?
Do you think playing games is a waste of time, or does it have real value?
Have you ever stayed up much too late because of a game? What happened the next day?
How do the games people play change as they get older?
Is there a game you were terrible at as a kid but eventually got good at? What changed?
Do you think video games can genuinely teach useful skills? Which ones?
Would you rather play a game that is easy and fun or one that is hard but rewarding?
How do you feel when you lose? Does it depend on the game or the person you lost to?
What is the appeal of watching other people play games online rather than playing yourself?
Have you ever played a game that caused an argument? What happened?
Do you think there is too much violence in modern video games? Does it actually matter?
What makes a multiplayer game better than a single-player one, or is it the other way around?
Have you tried any games from other countries that you had never heard of before?
Should schools use games more as a teaching tool? What are the risks of that?
What is the difference between a game that is fun and one that is just frustrating?
Do you think esports players deserve the same recognition as traditional athletes?
How do you feel about games that are free to play but push you to spend money?
Have you ever played a game that changed the way you thought about something?
What kind of person does well at strategy games? Are those the same skills that help in real life?
Is it possible to be too competitive when playing games with friends or family?
Do you think online gaming brings people together or pushes them further apart?
What game would you recommend to someone who says they hate games?
Have you ever played a game so many times you completely lost interest? What killed it for you?
Do you think luck or skill matters more in your favourite game?
If you could design your own game, what would it look like?
Advanced
Games are the only mass entertainment where failure is built in as a feature. What does that design choice do to the people who play them?
The line between gaming and gambling is getting harder to draw. At what point should regulators step in, and why haven't they done it already?
Esports is now a multibillion-dollar industry with teenage professionals and burnout rates that would embarrass a law firm. Is that progress?
Game designers openly admit they use psychological techniques to keep players engaged as long as possible. Is that craft or manipulation?
Some of the most thoughtful explorations of ethics, history, and human nature in the last decade have been in video games rather than novels or films. Does that surprise you, and what does it mean?
Parents worry about their children spending too much time gaming. But every generation panics about the new medium: TV, comic books, rock music. Is gaming actually different?
Speed running, min-maxing, modding. Gaming communities have built entire subcultures around mastering systems. What does that obsession tell us about human psychology?
China limits under-18s to three hours of gaming per week. Is that a reasonable public health measure or state overreach into private life?
Professional gaming careers peak in the early twenties and are often over by thirty. What does a former esports athlete do next, and who is responsible for preparing them?
If a game is genuinely beautiful, emotionally affecting, and thought-provoking, does it qualify as art? What is actually at stake in that debate?
The most popular games in the world are free to play and monetised through attention and microtransactions. What does that business model do to the games themselves?
Games simulate war, crime, and violence in extraordinary detail. Does that normalise harmful behaviour, or does it provide a safe space to explore it?
Traditional games like chess, Go, and backgammon have survived for centuries. What do they have that modern games often lack?
Virtual reality promises to make game experiences indistinguishable from real ones. If that happens, does the ethics of in-game behaviour change?
Gaming disorder was added to the WHO's list of recognised conditions in 2018. Was that a genuine public health milestone or a medicalisation of ordinary enthusiasm?
The communities around competitive games can be deeply toxic. Is that a design problem, a moderation failure, or just what happens when you combine anonymity with high stakes?
Games designed for children are now regularly played by adults, and games designed for adults are regularly played by children. Does that category collapse matter?
AI has now beaten the world's best players at chess, Go, and poker. Does that devalue human mastery of those games, or does it tell us something useful about intelligence itself?
Some games are designed to be impossible to finish. What does it say about a player, or a designer, that endless engagement is the goal?
The global gaming market is larger than film and music combined. Why does mainstream culture still treat it as a niche hobby?
Play is considered essential for child development. At what age does society stop treating play as legitimate, and is that the right call?
Games increasingly blur the boundary between the virtual and the real, through in-game economies, real-money trading, and digital ownership. What legal and ethical frameworks do we need for that world?
If you could only play one game for the rest of your life, what would you choose and what does that choice reveal about you?
What would it mean to take games seriously as a cultural form, the way we take literature or cinema seriously?
Is there a meaningful difference between a game that is fun and one that is good?