In The Closet

People here at Ready Up love games. It’s undeniable. We’ve got people who love the music of games so much, it’s practically all they listen to on their iPods. We’ve got people who dress up as characters from games. We’ve even got lonely hearts looking to meet people with the same interest in games. We have people with houses full of consoles, collectible figurines and strategy guides.

In short, we love our games, and we’re not afraid to shout our love of them from the highest mountains.

I say ‘we’, but actually, I don’t count myself among that group. You see, although I am happy to declare my love of all things gaming and game related on Ready Up, I’m not really the same in real life. You see, you are reading Ready Up, a site entirely dedicated to games. This means you either love games, or you’re a massive masochist who is just here for the punishment. (You pervert). So yeah, I love talking about games… to games people. Meet me in the pub at a Ready Up meet up and I’ll talk games until you’re either bored stiff or blind drunk.

My problem is that I still fear the stigma attached to games and gaming by “normal” people. That’s why I consider myself to be a closet gamer. You won’t see me wearing any items of gaming clothing – because I don’t want to look like a geek in public. I don’t think people who wear gaming apparel are geeks, but I do think that others do, and I don’t want to be tarred with that brush. If I meet someone new I will never bring up games unless they do first – because if you do bring it up to someone who isn’t interested you can see that look of almost-pity appear on their face, and I hate that.

Writing this down, though, makes me sound really quite lame. Why should I care what other people think of me? The fact is that I do, though, and most other people do to at least some extent too. Anyone who has ever checked their hair in a mirror knows that they aren’t doing that for themselves. It’s for everyone else around you, and what would they think if your hair was a mess?

I have to say, though, I do greatly admire the people with the confidence to just say “sod it”, and do what they want. The cosplayers, particularly. I think I would rather die than appear in public dressed as Mario, but I love the fact that people do, and have a damn good time with it. Fair play to them all.

Fortunately, though, I think the tide is turning. I used to feel a little bit self-concious if I was playing a game on my iPhone on the train, but the other day I was on a train and EVERYONE was playing a game on their iPhone. I would have looked out of place if I wasn’t. Hopefully the rise of mobile gaming is helping to turn the tide of negative opinions on gaming, and sooner or later I can come out of the gaming closet, and scream to the world at the top of my lungs –

“I’M A GA…. MER.”