Memoirs of a Gamer

Hey you, looking at the screen. Perhaps you can provide a definition of a gamer. If your answer is, “one who plays games,” you fail to grasp all that has become synonymous with the term. The stereotypes and the rare. The many and the few. The problematic entities that both nourish and hinder the video game industry.

Astonishingly enough, gamers have evolved from human beings, who, after being stimulated by the glowing movement of Pong, otherwise known to gamers as the Big Bang, slowly succumbed to the power of technology. They were still humans in every sense of the word, but their time became more and more preoccupied with the arcade. Then, years after the failed attempt of the Magnavox Odyssey in achieving popularity in households, a home version of Pong was released in the Christmas season of 1975, which assimilated gamers by the day. Soon, more and more video games and consoles went into the market, and the gamers grew, until the video game crash of 1983.

But the gamers were persistent in having their lifeline back, and so the generations continued into the third and fourth, producing Nintendos, Super Nintendos, and Sega Genesis (Geneses?). Gamers, now with a vast wealth of entertainment in their homes, filled their days sitting on the couch, staring at the luminous essence of their televisions. These gamer were often, and still are, stereotyped as obese, feeble-minded men who lurk in the basements of their parents, much like the Humboldt squid in their respective environment, buried far from human contact and away from prying eyes. Gamers can only be seen scurrying out into the blinding light to grab the latest games and quickly retreating to the comforts of their make-shift bases underground, consisting of nothing except the fundamentals; a television, a console, a couch, games, and Doritos. Devoid of socialization, they combat their loneliness by plaguing forum boards and chat rooms with their biased and skewed opinions of anything and everything, ignoring the simple truth that bounces in the back of their minds: No one cares.

While the truth is that the majority of them might not have been so obese, many of them did stay at home, as their hobby required so. As for the child gamers, they were still required to engage in society, going to school, making friends, and fulfilling their obligations of learning. However, their free time was still spent playing video games. This is where the idea, video games are only for children, was born from. Non-gamers, who can only assume by observing child gamers, came to this conclusion.

Now, due to the alarming rise of popularity in video games, the term gamer have come to encompass many, calling for subcategories. The following terms grew even more prevalent after the release of the Nintendo Wii, which has been often thought to only target casual gamers, people who spend little time playing, preferring games designed with low levels of difficulty. This is a complete contrast to the hardcore gamers, whose skills are quite proficient to finish any game the industry releases, since they spend a large number of hours playing. Then we have the retrogamers, who play vintage video games, and the import gamers, who are willing to play video games that are not even made in their own language. And let us not forget the few cyberathletes who walk among us. Considered professional athletes, they play to get paid. This is not a sign of a golden age for gamers. This only further extends the social stigma that plagues them as they squabble amongst each other.

Casual gamers care not for artistic endeavors in the video game field, and more of them could hinder the growth of video games. An increase in the number of hardcore gamers also pose a threat, as their opinionated nature tends to butt heads, a trait taken from their earlier brethren. Retrogamers would rather stay in the past, and more import gamers could mean a death to their country’s industry. As for cyberathletes, the prospect of being paid for playing video games tend to make them more spoiled than child celebrities. And all the while, non-gamers are looking at them, thinking, “How immature.”

Can we blame them? The signs are everywhere. Gamers still plague message boards, infecting them with their tiny attempts at interacting with others. They are still willing to wait hours in line in the freezing morning to pay an absurd amount of money for a circular disk. They even humiliate non-gamers at the arcade, seeing it as an opportunity to show how l33t they have become after wasting hundreds of dollars playing the same game over and over, when all the non-gamers really wanted to do was to have a friendly match. And simply don a headset and listen in on a Xbox LIVE conversation to hear gamers who sound like children. Children who are adamant about being your father, reminding you constantly of the corpulent activities your mother partakes in. And every word you throw back at them will be taken as blasphemy as they shout at you of your sexual preferences. Gone are the times when they basked in the day sun chanting, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” This “pussy generation,” as Clint Eastwood would like to say, has taken advantage of our inability to reach into our televisions and/or monitors, grab their skinny necks, and wring out their lazy, irresponsible, and stuck-up attitudes out.

Ultimately, we might as well just beat ourselves up, for we are them. Our tunneled vision of ourselves shrouds us from the realization that we are not as great as we think, that our opinions and discussions are quite idiotic and a waste of time in comparison to the more important matters of our country. Yet, if we don’t even bother to discuss whether Prince of Persia should be considered a leap forward or a step back, who will? Perhaps, if we weren’t so gung-ho about gaming, becoming mad at the simplest counterpoints to our arguments, and instead, play games for the fun of it, while appreciating how far the medium has come, maybe then the world might, ironically, take video games seriously.