Some gamers can be pretty annoying, every now and then. We judge and belittle each others’ choices of favourite system or genre, we argue amongst ourselves to the point of rage-quitting rage as to what games or aspects of games deserve praise or scorn and we occasionally believe that there are moments in our own playthroughs that are truly of more significance and enjoyment to us than any of the thousands of others that have played it, experienced it and loved it.
I’m ashamed that I am guilty of that kind of snobbery, every now and then. If you dislike Bioshock you are dead to me. If you don’t play any first-person shooters I will assume it is because you fail miserably at them and mock you for being shite. I’ll roll my eyes at a person who only owns a Wii calling themselves a gamer, I raise my eyebrow sceptically at teenagers who claim to be huge retro fans and I have completed Mass Effect so many times in so many different ways that no one, absolutely NO ONE can appreciate it the way I can, goddamnit… ahem, sorry.

I started gaming at the age of nine. Right now I own every current generation console and more and I spend around 25 hours each week playing games. I also write blogs and reviews for a videogames website and every now and then get to shmooze with industry types at events.ย But! I’ve never played a Metal Gear Solid game, or a Zelda one. I’m currently playing Final Fantasy VII through for the first time, I can’t stand Aeris and the combat bores me to death. I’ve never owned a fourth gen console. I can only grasp the basics when discussing graphics cards and I don’t know the name of every single game engine ever made.

I love videogames, they are my passion and I am nowhere near a gaming guru but I am no more or less ‘qualified’ than anyone in this world to decide what is or isn’t, quite simply, fun. We love games so much that they can make us act like assholes, however valid our point may be. We will fight like cats and dogs to prove or disprove claims of brilliance or ingenuity and revolutionary concepts. We are compelled to voice our feelings because the games we feel passionately about have had such a strong impact on our very souls. And that’s exactly why we shouldn’t argue about games. We’re misunderstood enough by non-gamers and labelled wrongly by the media far too often. We’re not all clued up on the mechanics of gameplay and design or always able to perfectly articulate why certain forms of entertainment appeal to us. ‘Because I love it’ or ‘I just really enjoyed playing it’ should be enough justification in any conversation as an explanation to why a person claims a game is the best they’ve ever tried. Whether it be an FPS, MMO or Barbie Horse Adventures, taste or preference should be irrelevant. Opinion matters and we are all, of course, entitled to our own but we gamers should at least be able to understand the enthusiasm, if not the reasoning behind any kind of adulation.
You adore some games with all your heart, geeks, and that’s why I adore you. Seeing your wide-eyes and frantic arm gestures and hearing the passion in your voices while you talk about moments you considered to be sheer brilliance brings a huge, silly grin to my face. Getting stupidly excited over something that you love is what being a geek is all about, and we should be sharing that with each other. Games weren’t made for you, or for me, games were made for us.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.