Video games often get a bad rap, being considered 'a waste of time,' often by the same people who see nothing nothing wrong in mindlessly watching boxsets on Netflix in their pants. Now there's nothing wrong with that, and in fact I like doing this too but let's not think it's better to be a passive observer in the real world than an active agent in a digital one.

Well, the ‘This Game Changed My Life’ podcast looks at how video games have had a profound impact in people's lives by sharing real life stories. So, over 10 episodes (at the time of writing) we have varied stories of a refugee using skills learned within games to travel across Europe from Syria after civil war broke out only to create a game about his experience, a young college dropout loving a physics based space game so much that it led to a real job at NASA, and a tale of how Elite Dangerous united an uncle with his autistic nephew who was slowly dying from leukaemia.

The podcast is at points funny, touching and sad but the stories are authentic and narrated by the people themselves, ably assisted by amiable hosts Aoife Wilson and Julia Hardy.