So, I got an idea for what I’d write here that I had roughly planned out in my head. But then I thought to myself “Nah, maybe another time”; anyway, thanks to a related tangent – one of my specialities, you know - I came up with this. 

For (almost) as long as I can remember, I’ve played games - I can’t even recall how or why I first got the urge to pick up a joypad, only the when and where. It was the late 80s or early 90s and I can tell you, with near crystal clarity, the details of where it all began; I was in this cavernous electronics shop with my mum on Townhall Street in my hometown and was bored out of my tiny little head. Waiting about, I spied this staircase and was intrigued about what lay at the top… so I got this itch to go and investigate as soon as she was distracted by the shinyness of a microwave or something. It never happened; instead my eyes were drawn to this box, directly in front of those mysterious stairs, with the world’s smallest gamesrack alongside. Pester power kicked in with great results and I walked out the proud owner of a Mega Drive 2, Sonic 2 and Powermonger!

Unfortunately, gaming never seemed to be a huge thing where I lived; I couldn’t, for instance, go over to a mate’s house to play Streets of Rage before we ended up beating each other round the virtual head with sticks. The only times I encountered other gamers was years later, in grammar school, whether through beating someone soundly in a system link game of Tetris or occasionally swapping old games like Micro Machines or Italia 90. What I do know is that games kept me out of some serious trouble with some dubious types, most of whom are now criminals.

The only awareness I had, for a long time, that there were gamers beyond my part of the world was through the likes of Bad Influence and Gamesmaster. So I knew that I - with my geeky, bookish, gamer ways – was not the only one who played. Then I stumbled across the internet in the late 90s, during my PlayStation years,  where I found that yes, there were loads of people who liked all the same things I did! Anime, check; reading, check; sci-fi, check; videogames, CHECK! Fast forward to the middle of this decade aka my 360 years and I found the same sort of people; only this time they weren’t just UK folk. No, I discovered gamers from such diverse places as Hawaii, Thailand, South Africa… Even Norway! That’s a powerful thing to know.

So from using games as a means of escape and imagination, the same reason for my love of books, it became a means of belonging to a group. And that’s one of the reasons I continue to play; that and just sheer love of games.

What about you?