In a minute!
By f0zz

Off the back of a forum discussion in which Hardeep is chastised for a devotion to gaming by his uninitiated pals, is it proper that we allow it to fill up the empty spaces of our lives? What purpose does it serve? Can we argue (as Hardeep did) that we are at least flexing muscles that might otherwise become atrophied by endless vicarious pints pulled at the Vic?

Those who don't 'get' gaming clearly think we should be doing something more worthwhile than exploring the ruins of Rapture. In this case, Hardeep's blissfully ironic mates seem to have no problem watching eleven grass-burned chaps chase a 'corky' nine hours a day for five days straight, although as Mr. Nath says:

"Surely the perfect afternoon would've been playing Bioshock with TMS in the background?"

Most of us, I think, can readily apply the formula Dio came up with as we were forced to confront our obsession that day.

Good Gaming > Shit TV / Shit time down the pub / bad footy match / whatever
Good TV > Shit Gaming.

As the discussion evolves, a consensus is soon formed, summed up succinctly by Ahchay:

"Yes, it's a complete waste of time. Just like watching films, going to the theatre, reading books or listening to music" etc etc. I'd *hate* it if gaming had to have a point. It's entertainment."

Russ agrees, but, like a Buddhist novitiate in the throes of epiphany, adds the shouty caveat: "AREN'T WE ALL JUST WASTING TIME UNTIL WE DIE?"

True. Unless we turn out to be a pan-galactic superspecies living in a mortal zeitgeist of ourselves on the basis that we will embrace the void of omniscience more readily when we ascend to that higher consciousness. That though, is quite literally, another story.

I want to explain it like this: I had a bit of a clearout at work the other day. In a filing cabinet drawer lay approximately two thousand sheets of pink paper (don't ask) filled with the scrawl of my day-job. I filled them up, spending eight hours a day doing so, day after day. I still do. There are many more to take their place when they are gone. Perhaps the older ones were important once, but not any more. Putting them in the skip was quite depressing; the knowledge that I needed the space for similar magnitudes of them even more so. It's what puts bread on the table, and that's pretty much it.

I fill up sheets of white paper too with scrawl. At home, at night or early in the morning, before everyone gets up. I like to think the white sheets cancel out the pink ones. Sometimes the white ones count for something. Sometimes, they get filled up with games, a love of them, insights about them, stories about them, and they get printed here, amongst other places.

But games now. Nobody ever says 'I put all my time and effort in and I'll never get it back.' Nobody gets abjectly depressed by games, not even the bad ones. Games are the counterpoint to the mundane stuff we have to endure. Games are the conch we fill up with our perilous dreams, the drug that offers reality-softening sanctuary; a benign dependency demanding no heavy cost. Games only really matter to those who invest in them, and whether we are hardened entrepreneurs or dyed-in-the-wool misers, we all put our argot there, hoping for some sort of return, measured in the coin of our fancy.

We could wank on about aesthetic appetite or some bullshit, but it's silly to even talk about it because that's not the way we think. The fact that we invest this level of expectation, that we are clearly committed to something offering a spiritual, rather than physical reward makes people not similarly enamoured sceptical; scornful even. Why do it? The answer to which is, of course, why do anything?

But games. Games are my white sheets full of type, needing to prove that something lives on after us, something we were a part of. Something we helped shape. Even the old ones come back, to be worn again like an old favourite overcoat. That smell you thought you'd forgotten, the experiences you had wearing it. Buttons, behind the eyes, waiting to be pressed. Games never go away, that's the abiding surprise of growing up through generations of them. They seem to have forged a place of their own, in a time of their choosing and will return, if asked, to share them with you again.

To spurn them is to hasten the death of imagination. We might become married to pink paper. We might not rise up from the reams of drudgery and spoon in the broth of games for the soul's sustenance. We might even scoff at those who put them before us, saying, "Drink." What else should we do? Our forefathers came home from war, not knowing how easily their witnessed horrors could propel them to irascible fame. We've not been built out of that adversity, but, yearning for our own recognition, the chance to pit our skills, we achieve it through games. Nobody gets hurt.

So perhaps when we are brought to book over our 'wasteful' hobby in future, we should recite this mantra, while a joystick cradles our modesty, and some rousing Empire brass plays in the background.

Except the bit about pink paper won't make sense. But then, to them, it never did.

2007

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