TKO Creations

I kinda touched on this during my pair of #GamerGate posts… but that really was just a surface thing.

Today, I think I’m going to delve a little bit deeper (and probably upset some people in the process), but eh, whatever.

The real reason I don’t consider myself a “gamer” is because… well… gamers really strike me as very angry people.  It doesn’t even matter if the issue is important (in the sense that issues in video games can be important) or trivial.  Go anywhere on this wide web, and all you see is rage.  Either they are up in arms over which console is the best, or about the best graphics card, or this game is exclusive to this platform, or something was changed in a patch, [x] game is getting a sequel while [y] isn’t… go to any official website for any developer, 4chan, 8chan, IRC… anywhere… and just take in the sheer amount of vitriol, rage, and venom from every corner of the gaming world.

It’s a concept that is pretty much entirely foreign to me; getting so emotionally torqued over something so… benign.  If I don’t like a game, I just don’t play it.  If I don’t like a console (and to be honest, if not for gifts from family, I wouldn’t have had a game console since the Playstation… the first one), I don’t buy it.  If I don’t like what a company is doing, I don’t support them.  It seems like the perfectly rational response to something so very insignificant.

It looks increasingly to me that to be a “gamer” requires a level of fanaticism that I simply don’t care to have for something so small.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t intend this as a judgment.  People do plenty of things that make no sense to me, but that’s why we’re are different.  I’m sure there’s been no amount of people who look at me and wonder why I’m still writing in a world where writing is slightly less valued than a panhandler on the exit ramp of a freeway.  I ask that question of myself honestly.  But that’s the reason folks.  The anger seems silly.  The bitterness and rage that boils gamer blood on a daily basis is a stress that I simply don’t want, and actively avoid.

This entry was posted on October 21, 2014 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Grumblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.