So here I sit on my 30th birthday, at work and completely unmotivated to do what I should be doing. Reflecting back on the past 3 decades of my life, I have realized that there are a lot of trends that you can see and it is really hard to believe how far things have come since 1981. I may have grown up on the outside, but I still keep the mentality of a vibrant teenager who wants nothing more than to have his parents drive him to a midnight release and play hooky from school the following day. Part of this mentality is what my wife loves about me and other times she will roll her eyes at me and tell me sarcastically that I love my games more than her (which isn’t true… mostly).
I can remember each of the major systems I’ve had over the years, from the Atari consoles to the NES; Genesis to the Playstation; GameBoy to GameBoy Advance; and now the Playstation 2 to the PS3. The technology has been amazing and we’ve seen some great failures along the way (ahem, Virtual Boy and Sega CD). I have seen giants like Sega fall from hardware and software A listers into software-only B/C list developers/publishers.
No matter what happens going forward I feel blessed to be one of the few generations that has been able to see the progression of games from pixilated messes with great gameplay into what could be mistaken for real life. The true aficionados will go back and continue to play those games, but those of us who grew up with them will always have a place in our hearts for those games that bruised your thumbs, egos, and taught you how to be resilient. There were no cheats, difficulty levels, or coddling to us in our gaming experiences. You either got good enough to survive or you died… A LOT!!! Perhaps this is what has changed the most in gaming in my mind, as developers aim to reach a wider audience and create an experience that could be more widely accepted and enjoyed by the general public.
A gamer that used to prefer the action/adventure genre, and completely swore off the FPS genre… I’m now the polar opposite. I find hack and slash games to be rather shallow and poorly designed on a whole. I don’t know if this is the fact that in my mind the genre peaked with the original Devil May Cry or if I’m just at a different stage in my gaming lifecycle. I find the online multiplayer aspects of games to be the most enjoyable parts of the games I play. This is where I am able to not only enjoy the game, but also partake in the social aspects of gaming. This takes me back to the days where there would be 2-6 of my buddies in my basement playing Loaded for the PSX or GoldenEye for the N64. I still tear up a little bit when I think back to those days and how we would play from the time we got home on Friday after school until my parents could no longer stand the noise and yell down “HEY KIDS, GET TO BED… GOOOOO… TOOOOOOOOOO… BEDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!” Maybe this is why I have turned to the “dark side” of gaming and fallen into the trance that is the military and overall FPS experience.
In the end, all of these memories and experiences mold who you are and what you have become. I guess that I would say I’m a gamer, always have been, and always plan to be. The coroner may have to pry some sort of controller from my dead, lifeless hands one day. However, games did not just provide me entertainment… no, they have taught me some great lessons in life. Keeping in mind that these things helped me through life and were also instilled in other aspects of my upbringing, I sincerely think video games help keep people grounded and also instill certain values. From the hand-eye coordination it takes to be able to play some of the games to the critical thinking and problem solving skills, video games have something more to offer than just being an expensive hobby or raising the censor’s eyebrows. In fact, I think of games as interactive books and movies and they tend to replace those activities to a point.
Keeping that in mind, moderation is a key concept in the video game world. Scratch that, moderation is key in ANY aspect in life. Too much time spent in any one activity will degrade the other aspects of your life. Video games are no exception, and it is purely up to the parents of the children to keep this in check. As an adult who plays video games, it is up to me to make sure I have everything I need taken care of and to not neglect the responsibilities and people that matter to me. When executed correctly, video games can completely enrich a person’s life and also provide a variety of benefits that may not be available to people otherwise. I don’t plan on quitting games any time soon, but I’m sure through reading this you already knew that. I’m looking forward to seeing what the current generation of consoles and even the next generation will bring us as gamers and the technology that will be available in total. Maybe in another ten years, I’ll reflect back and see that I am able to add these leaps and bounds in narrative again… maybe things won’t change too much… or maybe the gaming industry will collapse. That’s the crazy thing about life… you never know what is next… which also makes it a little bit like a video game... or does it???
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