Brussels
April 28, 2011
Game Freak!
People think I’m a game freak. This is mostly because I always tell them that I’m a game freak. And it’s true.
I don’t from the truth. I’m proud of being a gamer. I’ve met great people through computer, video and board gaming.
I am convinced I would have gotten involved in gaming much earlier than I did if I had been born five years earlier. Many of the guys who invented the gaming industry are exactly five years younger than me. Men like Richard Garriott, from Houston and Austin, who came up right after I did.
Why is that five years significant? Because when I was still living at home as a kid, the home video game console industry was still quite primitive. We’re talking Atari. Colecovision. Intellivision. It was easy to ignore.
Then when I moved away from home, I ended up in New York. And in the early 1980s, Times Square had these fantastic video game arcades. I spent thousands of hours in them, playing Q*Bert, Qix, Arkanoid, Crystal Castles, Dragon’s Quest, Space Ace, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (“Soon Kali will rule da world”), and others. At this point, the home video gaming systems were getting better.
But I didn’t realize it. When I saw the early Nintendo system, and saw friends playing Super Mario Brothers on it, I thought, “That’s a stripped-down version of what I play in the arcades. I’m having the higher quality experience.” And I turned my back on the consoles.
Mistake. The thing is, I was right at the time. But the situation soon changed. Games like the Ultima, Wizardry, Zelda, and Metroid series began to change everything.
But I missed it.
I didn’t get back into gaming seriously until the end of 1998, when I finally got a nice home computer. One hour with Riven: The Sequel to Myst and I was hooked forever.
At first, all I played were adventure games, like Riven. Soon I began expanding to other genres, most notably role-playing games.
The thing is, adventures were the shortest games. That, combined with the feverish pace I played – I literally counted the hours at work until I could run home and fire up Sanitarium or Broken Sword – meant that for the first few years I completed far more games per year than in later years when I was playing a higher percentage of non-adventures. Check out how the numbers dwindle:
Games finished by year
- 1999 78
- 2000 69
- 2001 36
- 2002 25
- 2003 25
- 2004 31
- 2005 9
- 2006 15
- 2007 12
- 2008 18
- 2009 33
- 2010 11
I can’t believe I completed seventy-eight games in 1999. Amazing. Now, because of World of Warcraft, I finish very few games per year. But I still spend a huge percentage of my leisure time gaming in one form or another.
I understand that not everyone can be a game freak like me. But I feel bad for people who refuse to even try them. They’re really missing out. Games now are an extremely sophisticated, interactive, frequently beautiful form of entertainment (and even social interaction). To ignore games completely is like being an American in the 20s or 30s and refusing to go the movies: You’re missing the best popular culture and technology have to offer. So there.
The ONE EXCUSE I will accept is the one my friend Amy gives: “I know if I started playing them I would love them too much and play all the time and my life would be ruined.”
But for all of you Phillistines out there who turn your noses up at a hobby you do not understand – a thrilling, beautiful world of fantasy, science fiction, war, strategy, adventure, and storytelling – it’s your loss, pal. We’re having way more fun than you.
