I am the Game, You Don't Wanna Play Me

            “All you study is games. You need to get in the real world.” How many of us out there have heard that phrase at some point in our lives, in one variation or another? It’s an accusation thrown at adult gamers and I’m sure some younger ones as well, especially when they’d rather play games than go socialize with their friends. I’m not here to defend them, but seeing as I am twenty-one (almost twenty-two, hehe), I’m pretending to be an adult so I’m obligated to that side of the track.

            Before I graduated and even now, when I play games during daylight and I am spotted by my mother with a controller in my hand, I get that. It makes me laugh because compared to many, I’m only a half-ass gamer. I don’t play as much as others and I don’t chomp at the bit to get the latest games like others do. To a jobless graduate like myself, dropping $60 on a new game is hardly EVER in the budget. I’m lucky if I can adopt a new book when I make the mistake of going into a bookstore. My gamerscore is mediocre at best, pitiful at worst. It’s not the lowest on my friends list, but it’s not in the mid-range either. So yeah, I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means. So how can my mom think that’s all I study?

            I think it goes hand in hand with the idea that cartoons are for kiddies. Adults who play games must not have accepted being adults yet. We’re not in the “real world” and all I want to know is how the hell are people defining the “real world”? If we’re in the real world, does that mean we take no enjoyment in the same things we liked as children, even if they’ve been updated to better suit our adult sensitivities? As in, I see actual blood and guts when I shoot something on a game?

            My thinking on the matter is that if you pay your bills, interact with people outside of the online world, and just have a life away from your console of choice, it doesn’t matter. And next to that, it’s nobody’s business how you chose to spend your spare time. If it’s reading or playing board games, watching Archer and Family Guy or shooting things in the face online with your friends, it’s no one’s business but your own. As with many other things though, people feel it their divine right to stick their nose in your business and make judgments on how you live your life. I’m Pagan, I don’t play that game to begin with.

            I will continue to play video games. When Bear and I move into together and consolidate our belongings, we’ve already discussed whose Xbox is going where. Mine is going to be in our bedroom, his in the living room. So if he wants to game into the wee hours, as he is wont to do, he can and I can just go to bed. He’s more of a gamer than I so that just makes more sense. And if we’re paying our bills and living life our way, anyone who comes into my house and casts a disdainful look at that beautiful  Gears of War 3 Xbox, nuh-uh. Get your head out of your ass or move on and go visit my cousin.

            It occurs to me that people who look down their noses at gamers have not grown past playing games either. They just do it in a social setting with weapons of gossip and rumor spreading. Think about that for a minute. There may be another blog just in that idea.