The moment I first picked up a controller, I knew games were for me, firstly because of the way that solid black and red joystick fit snugly into my hands, and then the way the console pumped out those crunchy Atari melodies. My first experience with a video game was a sensory one. Enjoying this new experience, I basked in the frame of my TV for hours, transfixed in equal parts of awe and wonder. I was four years old and over 20 years later very little has changed.

I fell in love with video games instantly, not out of some primeval need to destroy, or the desire for addictive enjoyment. I wanted to understand how this seemingly magic concept worked, to pick apart this package of hardware and software that someone had made and try to figure out what made it tick.

What makes games tick

Even now I can’t help but wonder; how did someone manage to tumble together the perfect combination of challenge and fun and shrink it into my living room, created so carefully that even a child could understand how to use it? In the years since my first forays into gaming, it became less of a way of passing time and more part of my personal identity. I noticed a change in people’s perception of me. Describing my hobby takes more explanation than most - as a simple sentence “I enjoy playing games”, but describing it as simply this does my lifetime’s of gaming experiences a great disservice - as you describe a love of games you can see the connotations are already building in the mind of the other person.

Like my inner child, I still enjoy the wonder of how a game is put together; the craftsmanship, intelligence, and dedication that each new game requires. Designing a new experience takes more time and sometimes more expertise than other mediums. When I admit to enjoying games, it’s a shorthand for an appreciation of all these factors: the artistry of concept sketches, the brilliance of soundtrack, even the minor details intended to go unnoticed, the often smooth experience guided by rigorous testing scripts, the careful lighting choices showing me the way to go, sometimes it’s hard to forget that I’m being guided through an adventure by the thousands of tiny decisions made by an almost invisible team of hundreds.

As I understand more about games, I can’t help but build on these feelings of amazement and wonder from childhood as our games become more and more capable, able to please, scare, or anger us in equal measure.

And this means gaining an appreciation of all the things that annoy too: the foibles in menus, the design decisions leading to awkward controls, the hundreds of little problems with a game that, regardless, still lead to an experience of some kind. Be it profound or disastrous, the discovery of each game is a pleasure in itself. It’s always puzzled me how something that takes so much hard work to create, and so little faith to enjoy can be so negatively perceived by others.

Negativity

Part of the problem is that games are often taken at face value, a tool for the socially inept, the very opposite of what any person should aspire to - an unhealthy, lonely and unchallenging lifestyle. As we’re locked in the glow of the screen, people can confuse concentration or wonder with illiteracy or laziness. It’s such a shame that we are often challenged about the productivity of gaming while we’re partaking in it, and frankly it’s an unfair approach.

Video games have an unfortunate legacy of negativity, quite unlike any other medium. It is the bad aspects of our community that are magnified out of all proportion, we receive an unfair amount of scrutiny compared to other “okay” activities, with gaming’s detractors often leaping at the first chance to whip up moral panic over a tiny detail of a game which is not outwardly reflective of the complete output of the gaming sector. While not always unfounded in the vast spectrum of issues that games attempt to convey, they are issues monitored by a community of technically agile and (largely sensible) adults capable of holding developers and publishers to account like never before, mainly through their impassioned choices as a consumer.

A hobby like any other

The crux of the issue is the interactivity of games - a feature much lauded when something dubious appears in a game, but quickly forgotten in its day-to-day context. The connection between game and gamer opens a pathway for so much more: the way that playing games can influence our personality - for the better - the benefits that the social aspects of the gaming community bring, the many friend based, co-operative experiences or random encounters brushed over by the inexperienced eye as just another character moving on the screen.

Gaming is something that we’re fiercely protective of. We rise to the bait when we’re questioned, but it’s worth remembering that the scheme of things games are at the heart of what keeps many of us productive. They offer those little moments of pleasure or challenge that we spend all day waiting for - the target for the day - the happy little focus for the evening. Ultimately, games propel us forward, whisking us through the hectic rush of the day into the arms of an interest not too dissimilar to any other. Just one of many hobbies that keep the world ticking along.

So despite the negative perceptions gamers often receive, I still think four-year-old me chose extremely well.

Tags: atari, community, Editorials, gamer perception, gamers, identity, lifestyle, moral panic

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