How A Gamer Is Born

While my blog thus far has mostly been DnD oriented, it would be wrong of me to not share my true passion: Video Games.

I’m still figuring out what my blog will be about as I don’t lead a particularly interesting enough life to tell you stories every week.

But, I will share with you a story many of my friends have heard. My dream job is to work in the gaming industry. When I was younger, I wanted to be a game designer, creating worlds and levels, sharing my great ideas and making them come true. However, I came to realize fairly quickly that everyone has a great idea.

Ideas are not hard to come by, what is hard to find is perseverance. The motivation to make your idea a reality. With that in mind, when I first went to college, I was a Computer Science major. I believed that if I learned to program then I could simply make the games I always wanted.

While I wasn’t completely wrong, what I did find out is that I do not want to be a programmer. The easy stuff is a lot of fun and I definitely enjoyed it for awhile. The way I look at programming is how I feel it connects to my personality. I am a creative type, I enjoy reading and writing and drawing, but I lack direction. The worst thing anyone could ever say to me is “Just draw whatever you want.” My mind just doesn’t like complete freedom.

But if you tell me to draw something in particular, that’s where I can do it. It’s honestly the reason I like random generators so much, they provide the direction when there is none to be found. And that’s how I think about programming, it is practical art with direction. You are given a starting point and told what it needs to do, but how you get from point A to point B is entirely up to you. It’s logical thinking working hand-in-hand with creativity to solve problems.

Now, I am in Marketing. Programming got complicated very quickly and I just couldn’t keep up. I’ve been told all my life that what I am good at is being a mediator. While I’ll never be the best in any one thing, I strive myself to be able to communicate with those who are gifted in that way. I’ll never be the guy who does great things, but I hope I can help others to do such things.

That’s simply my nature. And I’ve noticed it has dramatically affected how I play video games. I am always a support in some way, shape, or form. I enjoy it because you don’t have to win to have fun. It’s not about getting the most kills, or the most points. It’s about spending time with friends and striving to do our very best, helping each other to reach higher levels than what is attainable on our own.

Now, this quickly became a rant and for that I am sorry. As we know, dreams change as we gain more experience. While I still want to go into the gaming industry, I know I probably wouldn’t do a better job than others when it comes to game design, programming, and definitely not art, but what I can do is elevate others to their best. My current goal is to become a Game Producer. In particular, I would love for that position at a certain game company by the name of Blizzard Entertainment.

So where did this dream come from? Surely there are other places that a mediator, Jack-of-all-Trades such as myself can find work.

It all started when I was young…

My First Gaming Memory

I had to have been around 4 years old and I remember it so vividly. My dad loved to play Diablo in our office. My mom, worried that the game was too violent and graphic for my brother and I, told my dad not to play it in front of us. So my dad agreed, doing his best to hide the game from our innocent minds.

I honestly forget the reason, but my brother and I go into the office to ask our dad something (To play catch? The location of mom? What was for dinner?) and we open the door to find him playing Diablo. He kind of does a double take like you’d see from a movie.

He looked at us, looked at the screen, back at us, back at the screen, and finally just said, “So here’s how you play”

It was that instant that I fell in love with games. The rich lore, the way you can interact with a fictional world, the feeling of accomplishment you get from beating a tough boss.

This started a love for games that I honestly don’t know where I would be without the experience. Diablo turned into Starcraft and Warcraft, my dad teaching my brother and I how to play and letting us grow on our own.

From that moment I knew that someday I wanted to make games that made others feel the way I felt when I was a kid playing them for the first time.

As the years passed my brother and I got to experience games on the PlayStation 1 & 2, all iterations of the Xbox, the computer, and Gameboys. Gaming is my passion, each game is a piece of art to be cherished, whether or not if it’s a masterpiece or garbage.

Video games are created by teams of people, I assume, just like me and I can only hope that someday I can join their ranks and start the cycle anew.

 

Anyway, that should be the end of my rant. I need to talk about video games more on this blog, otherwise I might get labeled a nerd when I’m clearly a geek. I hope you enjoyed my personal story of how I became a gamer and would love to hear any of your stories as well.