“We play games. And you’re damn well going to know about it” were the first words written on this site. Yet, as much as I think that is a good philosophy, I can’t say it’s one I’ve lived by in real life. Sure, I’ll happily wander into my local Game and pick up the latest copy of “FPS with generic space marines jacked up on steroids” or something. I might even give advice to a parent looking for a game for their kid, or at least try to… “Championship Manager or Football Manager? They’re not the same?”

But the moment I step foot outside the premises, it’s back to not being sure whether I should admit to being a gamer. As if it’s a sordid thing. And an adult gamer? Surely that’s an oxymoron? This is how I’m aware non-gamers view this hobby of ours so this, to my shame, I neglect to correct. I once asked some fellow gamers “Should I put it on my CV?”. The answer I got was no, as it’s perceived as a childish pursuit or one for unsociable, geeky people who possibly sleep in front of their PCs or consoles … you all know the stereotype.

Now I don’t know about anyone else but I can honestly say I’ve never done that. I’ve never, to my knowledge, met anyone else who does that. Granted, gamers can be geeky - I admit I am - but we’re not all loners with a bad case of panda eyes and mad hair from days spent trying to defeat Sinister Cloaked Dude with nothing but an Enchanted Spoon of Uber-Badassery or something. Far from it. Games, in all the time I’ve played them, have given me such skills as resource management, teamwork and communication! And not just me, as a rather hefty study conducted last year by a group called Seriosity, in collaboration with IBM, shows.

Despite all that, I recall once being asked by a work colleague (someone I’d first met years before) if I still played games and answering “Not as much as I used to” - a true statement but one said with hesitation as I wasn’t sure of his view on games… It’s only the advent of the Wii and the massive growth in casual gamers that make me think it’s OK to say “My name is Michael and I play games”. Why, just the other day I was in Eason’s (to our non-Irish readers, it’s a newsagent/bookshop chain) buying GamesTM when I had the cashier enquire “Still gaming away?”. Of course the answer was yes, though I told a little white lie about having a DS… well, she did ask if it was on the computer or the Nintendo! I might now become a bonafide member of the Church of Nintendo and have Shigsy as my patron saint!

I do wish that I had thought of this idea but alas I overheard it in a shop the other day. Picture this, small independent games shop, Sunday afternoon, two staff and myself no more. In walks a father and his young daughter, approaches the counter and asks,

“Do you sell the wee controllers for the Wii?”

Like myself, on eavesdropping, the staff had assumed that he had meant a “Wii” controller for the Wii.

“Yup, we’ve got third party ones and official ones,” said the helpful assistant. He got them down from the shelf and showed them to the man and child.

“No, they’re too big do you not have any WEE ones?”

The penny finally dropped all round the shop. It turns out that the girl had got a Wii but was finding the Wiimote too big and needed a smaller version. When you think about it it is at the very most a basic request but one that is not fulfilled in the games market. A great many of us have kids, myself included, and if, like me, you encourage the kids to play games it is important in the first point of contact that the kids can hold and use the controllers.

When the Xbox first launched I hated the HUUUUUGE controllers that came with it and was pleased when the controller S launched, it was smaller, more comfortable and made gaming so much better. So I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for a child to want to play a game but not be able to because of the large controllers. With the advent of family gaming through the Wii it seems that this is the one peripheral that the Wii really needs. Not golf club handles or fishing rods or tennis racquets just a kids size Wiimote. Lets get that right first then maybe we can have mini-me controllers for all the consoles.

How much is too much? How big is too big? Can some things ever be big enough? Apparently not, if you believe the 247 emails in my spam folder, or Insomniac Games, makers of the Ratchet and Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man games.

I read recently on a Playstation blog that the upcoming Resistance: Fall of Man 2 will support 60 player multiplayer, and I found this shocking. From a technical point of view, it’s shockingly impressive, but it got me thinking - do we really want to play with that many people at once? I’m not actually sure that I have 60 friends in real life, let alone on Xbox Live or Playstation Network!

Obviously, for some games a large amount of players works very well; Warhawk on the PS3 works extremely well with 32 players as the maps are very big, allowing you the space to battle on the ground or in the air all across them. However, this is a case where the Playstation 3’s lack of an included-in-the-box headset works out well, as you don’t have to hear too many idiots chattering/arguing/singing away.

On the Xbox side, I heard today that Frontlines: Fuel of War also allows a massive 50 players in an online game, although I’ve yet to personally experience what 50 people with microphones in one game must sound like!

What worries me about any large multiplayer game is what I call the online gaming world’s DQ (Dick Quotient). I’d currently estimate that in the average 16 player game there is at least one dick , which means that you could have as many as five of them in one 60 player game. And as everyone who has ever played online knows, dicks wind each other up a huge amount, and thus the annoyance they cause to everyone else multiplies up exponentially. Hence two dicks in a room is not twice as annoying as one dick in a room, but four times as annoying. That means with five dicks in a room, it would be thirty-two times as annoying as just one. That’s an annoyance factor roughly equivalent to coming home to find your wife in bed with your best friend just as a crackhead steals and then crashes your brand new sports car. In other words, it’s pretty damned annoying.

Most of my favourite online gaming moments have been playing team games in Call of Duty 4 with 5-7 people that I actually know well and like, and I’m not sure adding another 22 to that team would really have helped the experience! But then perhaps I’m just an old fart who is set in his ways, and all da kids are down wid this, with their social networks, social gaming, socially getting pissed up on strong cider down the park…

Maybe I should add that I’ve never played World of Warcraft or any of these other MMORPGs as I don’t much like RPGs (unless we’re talking Rocket Propelled Grenades) so I don’t know how these compare to Xbox Live or Playstation Network. I’d love to hear in the comments an estimated DQ for those type of games…

Also, any suggestions on how to rid the gaming world of all the dicks would be greatly appreciated. Personally I say we should take off and nuke them from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.