Looking from the inside out.

This is going to be a bit of a difficult post to get right. The best way for all of you to really understand, is to start from the beginning. It might get long, but it is necessary to get the full picture.

As most of you know by now, I'm a gamer. I really love games. I love the challenges they put forward, I love the intricate story lines they have, I love the fact that I'm not just spectating, but I'm there making a difference in a plethora of  virtual worlds. And last but definitely not least, I love how today's games are all about the social aspect. Long gone are the days when most games were a single player experience. From terrible Facebook games like Farmville, to the constantly growing and evolving market of MMOs, social gaming is all around us.

Typical small LAN Party setup

Now, I recently got a house mate to stay with me, lets call him Mark We've been friends for quite a while, and have a lot in common. One of these things is the love of games. He might not be as avid a gamer as yours truly, but he still enjoys playing the big titles on his console. Mark, also has a lovely girlfriend that I get along pretty well with. We knew each other for a while before my house mate moved in. She knew I loved games, she knew I played games.

Around the end of October I had to travel to the UK for a week to take care of some work. It was a lot of hard work, and I was glad to get back home. My mates were also pretty glad I got home as my house had become the new place to meet up and game together. I have 3 pc's permanently set up, so quick LAN sessions are easily organised. The weekend after I got home had been set as a "welcome back" LAN Party. I was excited, they tend to be a lot of fun. Saturday morning, the first couple of guys show up. They knew I had pc's already set up, so they didn't get anything except drinks and munchies. The gaming began.

At some point, my house mate's girlfriend - lets call her Sharon - came over to visit her man. My mates and I were already deep into some dungeon, slaying baddies and co-ordinating  with what seemed to be a foreign language for Sharon. She just stopped in the doorway of the room we were in, and stared at us, confused. I smiled at her, she nodded and walked away trying to understand what was happening.

This is the sound of game talk...
 to non gamers

An hour or so later, a female friend of mine (we're calling her Velly) , also a gamer, showed up ready to join us. Unfortunately, she didn't bring her pc with her, so she spent the first 45 minutes staring at us, and giving tips and calling us names when we made mistakes. At this point Sharon was watching the usual Country's got Talent, Country's next Top Model etc etc with Mark. Occasionally I'd notice that she would be looking at us with the face of someone who had just seen a six armed monkey making sweet love to a pink crocodile. Then when Velly got up and announced "Fuck it, I'm off to get my pc" Sharon's jaw hit the floor. She looked at Mark with what I can explain best as an incredibly confuzzled look, and asked "did she just leave to get her pc?", "to join them?", "to play games with them?", Mark nodding as she asked each question.

The weekend went as planned. We all got our fix and had a great time together. But that look on Sharon's face has been stuck in the back of my head, and has made me think. First of all, how many people are completely ignorant to the fact that games even exist? Or what a LAN party is? And why is it that she was most shocked by a girl gamer? I do understand that I live on a tiny island where most people fit into the same box, but with all the media coverage games have been getting in the lately, I would think that at least people are now aware of this increasingly popular aspect of modern society!

This is where the argument starts to get difficult. You see, during that weekend, we, as gamers, were being judged. We were being looked at as if we were strange animals at a zoo. This has happened to me before, on multiple occasions, but for some reason I only started to think about it after seeing Sharon's reaction to it all. I tried to see what it looked like from the other side of the fence, and started to compare activities on either side.

So in my eyes, what happened was that I spent a great weekend, with great friends having a great time together. Working as a team to pass hard obstacles thrown at us. Learning how to better ourselves by constantly trying to tweak and perfect our method and style. All in all, a fantastic team effort that only made our friendship stronger. Now if you had to look at the last couple of sentences you could easily mistake it for a corporate "Team Building" session that people pay a lot of money to organise. Yet, adding the term "video game" suddenly makes it incomprehensible?

This is bad for your soul. Avoid it at all costs.
Ask your friends to help you stop playing it.
Seriously.

Last night I decided I would stand in their shoes for a while and see what its like on their side of the fence. I joined Mark and Sharon on the couch, and we started watching a movie which turned out to be not too great. We stopped it and changed to a Series that they watch regularly. I hadn't seen it before and I was open to new things. 10 minutes into this series and suddenly it dawned on me. I am watching, a staged Reality TV show. A show about mundane real every day life, that is not real. At this point I voiced my slightly harsh opinion about watching mindless TV and said that I'd rather be gaming.

This is when Sharon said "your games are a staged reality as well, so what's the difference?" Unfortunately I could only come up with some gibberish about gaming being interactive. I wasn't happy with that response and it kept on ticking in the back of my head, when it dawned on me that besides the interactive part, the whole point of gaming is  to break out of the of the mundane, real, and ordinary parts of life! ( This does not count for games like Farmville, where the whole idea of the game is to do the most mundane and shitty repetitive parts of life, perfect for people with addictive and compulsive personalities. I don't really consider software like that to classify as a game.)


Games are all about adventure, magic, exploring the unknown and in many cases, better yourself as a human being! Many studies have been done about this topic and now gaming is being used in medicine, teaching, and even physiotherapy. What I'm trying to say, is that there needs to be a little education here. The gaming community needs to start reaching out, beyond its comfort zones and showing that real gamers are everyday people. The stigma that the word "gamer" has picked up over the years, always associated with the zit-faced pre pubescent teenager with no life and no girlfriend, staying home alone to play some game all night is not correct.

If you haven't played it,
WTF are you waiting for?

Today gaming is a ridiculously ludicrous business. It is out selling the music industry, and also making big blockbuster movies change their release dates not to coincide with video releases. (Grand Theft Auto 4 seriously dented Iron Man's opening weekend box office income). When it comes to value for money, there isn't much better than gaming. Case in point: A game called Fallout 3 , you buy for 20-30 euros, and have at least 100 hours of gameplay! Never getting bored, never ceasing to feel that sensation of you being out there making a difference.


To try and conclude this longer-than-usual ramble, I want to send an open invitation to all of you non-gamers. There isn't any need to stand outside the window peering into our strange world, you are welcome to come inside. You don't need expensive gaming rigs, you don't need to go out and buy a console. You can start small and work your way up. Gaming is a great experience that deserves to be shared with others. There is a game for everyone, and I'm sure that once you find that game, you will wonder why it took you so long to realise! I'll gladly give out as many hints and tips you need to get started, all you have to do is ask :)

Thanks for reading!

*names are obviously all changed so i wont get a black eye from anyone ;)