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Game Hard or Die Trying

The Pursuit of Happyness

This guy is serious! He probably sleeps with a controller in his hand. There couldn’t be a better picture of a hardcore gamer on Unsplash. Lol. Photo by MIN HIUS on Unsplash

I wasn’t always this way–a Gen X gamer trying to influence and open people’s minds to the potential of gaming.

As a child and even as a young adult, video games were just a quick hobby—something to do when there was nothing else to do and an activity to bond and share with friends and my cousins. The isolated or shared experiences would come and go, and then it was time to move on to the next thing.

Yes, it was fun, but I didn’t dwell on it. I definitely wasn’t writing about gaming back then–I didn’t even know that was a thing people did.

I just wanted to save the princess, defeat Shredder, exit the Matrix, and so on, and then I moved on with my life. Video games were just something to pass the time and nothing more.

Looking back, I can see the universe was trying to tell me something. This hobby was trying to get me to embrace it completely. Video games kept on popping up during my adolescence and then some.

I arbitrarily acquired and played on consoles in the early to late aughts, trying to relive my childhood glory days playing on Atari and Nintendo.

From the original Xbox to Game Boy Advance to PS3 and the PSP, those were moments in time when the hobby sucked me…