I don't want to talk about it

The other day I was reading Sexy Videogameland when a particular part of one of Leigh’s articles grabbed my attention. “Sometimes I wish "people in the real world" were more interested in video games, so that I could talk about 'em with them. Other times, I wish they'd never talk about them ever-ever.” I found this very amusing because I’m the same way. I love talking about games, but I’ve found as I get to know more and more about them, who is making what, new trends and gameplay experiments, and what’s on the horizon that I’m less and less inclined to talk about games with the casual audience.


Anytime anyone new wanders into my living room, which happens fairly often, I have three roommates and a no knocking policy with all my friends (we’re too lazy to get up just to let our friends in), they immediately see two things. One is the giant mural of Hedonism Bot on the wall, whom I aspire to be someday. The other is my game setup, there’s a large TV sitting above all three current gen consoles and a giant receiver, which immediately tells the person that someone residing in our home likes to play video games. The first question out of their mouths, assuming it isn’t related to Hedonism Bot (he’s kind of distracting), is who owns all the gaming stuff. Once informed they proceed to tell me all about how much they love Call of Duty 4, or Halo, or whatever one game they play incessantly. This is great, I’m glad more and more people are discovering video games as a form of entertainment, but the gaming conversations I crave are generally not of that nature.

I’m not entirely sure how to continue this article without sounding like a pretentious gamer nerd, but we’ll give it a shot. As I’ve gotten more and more obsessed with gaming and its culture I’ve found fewer and fewer people to converse with about it. I suppose that goes with the territory of being knowledgeable about anything, but with games it has gotten to the point that I only know maybe one person that isn’t from the internet that can hold their own in a conversation. I’ll be damned if I ever run into another person in close proximity to me that knows what ludonarrative dissonance is all about. Well, that one is pretty damn abstract, I’m not even sure Slevin and Squash know what the hell that one is all about, but my point still stands. I’m so desperately lonely! ;)

Seriously though, it’s gotten to the point with me now that I just sort of tune out and let whoever is excited about Call of Duty ramble on for awhile and then we talk about something else. Even my local gamer friends, most of which have now moved away, tended to rely on me for their gaming news and weren’t all that interested in anything but the fun.

At the risk of sounding anymore elitist, I think I’m going to cut this article short. Let’s just conclude it with it being a good thing for the internet otherwise I’d probably never have found people with the same sort of common interest as me. Ironically, without the net, I can’t imagine I’d have ever even discovered the very thing I’m interested in. Without it, I’m sure it’d be another couple of decades before an intelligent discussion of video games became prevalent in academia and the published world.