Okay, shorter blog post this time. I’ve had very little time to do much lately, but I really wanted to get a few of my recent thoughts on paper… err…
Just the other day I recalled a time in my life, during high school, when I played a lot of games. I didn’t much care for school, so little time was devoted to homework and studying. I had a job working 30 hours a week, but that still left plenty of evenings open for my digital escapades. On weekends, my friends and I would LAN it up frequently.
But one of my best friends, though equally enthused about games as me, didn’t have the time to devote to them. He played them on weekends with us, but during the week he had too many other responsibilities. After working hard in his advanced classes in school he would study martial arts among other things while helping take care of his younger siblings. On top of all that, he had a network of friends over the Internet who relied on him for support. He just didn’t have the time.
I don’t remember exactly when or exactly why, but I remember telling him once that he was “Not a gamer.” I wasn’t trying to be mean; I just noted that he didn’t really play games. Isn’t a gamer someone who plays a lot of games? It seemed to me like he only played them because his friends did. I remember he sort of laughingly retorted “You take that back!” I forget the rest of the conversation.
But here I am, a recent grad, now struggling myself to find time for games. In the past few weeks I have been juggling school (now that I took it seriously) with my responsibilities to my student organization, looking for a job, preparing for graduation and preparing for moving out, all the while trying to squeeze time in with friends I’ll hardly ever get to see again. Somehow, somehow I managed to play through the last few missions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all of Portal 2, but it wasn’t easy to fit in the time when I had papers to write and exams for which to study.
I’m still friends with the man I accused years before of not being a gamer. He, too, is very busy. His life is a balancing act between work and starting University soon and his girlfriend. Though like me, he also manages to find the time, somehow, to get in some gaming. Late at nights he plays Starcraft II and currently has his eyes trained on the Master league, working as often as time permits to get there.
Given this, I could say that what really makes a gamer is not how much time one spends playing games, but the fact that they work it into their lives. However, I don’t even think you need to go far to earn that title. Justin and I don’t fit gaming into our busy lives because we’re bored and it’s kind of fun. We do it because we love it. We love gaming. We love the thrill and we love the satisfaction of painting walls with gray matter or razing structures with legions of troops. We love the community, and we love the camaraderie. That’s why I was wrong so many years ago. That’s why him and I are gamers.
