As of next week I will officially have been gaming for 25 years! I'd really like to sit here and wax lyrical about it, but I have decorating & DIY to do this weekend. My wife however purchased a Nintendo t-shirt which stated "Everything I need to know about life, I learned whilst gaming" (or something like that). The good thing about having such a long view is that I can better appreciate the technological advances, the really marked improvement in graphics & audio capabilities of various platforms. I've seen some excellent hardware fail, mostly through lack of sufficient developer support or poor marketing strategy. In that time I have also seen the rise, decline, rise, decline and rise of the console! I don't have as much time now to devote to gaming, mainly because I have many more pressing considerations. The opportunity to sit and play a game has been reduced to whenever the TV is free or I can clear enough work to reward myself with perhaps and hour here, or an hour there. When I do get that time and I find a game that captures my imagination (currently Uncharted) then I get as much, if not probably more enjoyment from it than I did as a pre-teen kid back in the days of the 8-bit microcomputer! Luckily, I have grown up along side an industry that has through the years slowly carved it's own niche in the world. Once upon a time 'Gaming' was viewed as the pass time of spotty, nerdy kids who couldn't get a girlfriend and had no social skills. The chances of stumbling across female gamers were slim to zero! Like me, the gaming industry has matured, grown in acceptance and is one of thee leading pass times in a multi-media age. You're as likely these days to be standing in the queue to buy a games title next to a female as you are some dude in their 50s picking up 'Bioshock' or 'PGR4'. The boundaries have broken down considerably. It's also great to see that even after 25 years a games title such as 'Bioshock' can come along and offer you an entirely new perspective and challenge. Hopefully, I'll get to witness the next 25 years of gaming through the eyes of a proud father engaged in actively whumping my kids asses on various games titles! The truth being, that my nephew (aged 10) is already kicking butt! In moments of personal reflection I sometimes feel sorry for those who started later up the gaming ladder than me, who never experienced the joys of loading a title from cassette, dealing with azimuth issues, cleaning the heads with neat alcohol or adjusting pinch rollers! It was akin to having a classic car whereby you are 'part' of the process. That was what turned me onto hardware! Through the necessity of maintaining the computer in order to wait perhaps 10 minutes for a games title to load! It was a "Zen" like life, proving that 'Good things come to those who wait'. Well, I've been waiting 25 years and it's all good thus far! The worst things to happen in those 25 years was the demise of Atari and Sega pulling out of hardware production. What next, eh? See you on the battlefield.... <Incidentally, the very first gaming computer I owned is still fully functional, still reads cassettes and may indeed be dragged out of it's original box this coming week!>
Wow, already 25 years? Congratz man! BTW, I'be been gaming for about 15 years and I hope to keep doin' it for a long time... It looks like yesterday when I used to spend tons of time with my old NES... Wait a minute, it WAS yesterday!
Wow, your wife got you a pretty smart T-shirt then. I wouldn't know half the things I do if it weren't for gaming. rock on
Awesome man :thumbsup: I read your thread and thought...wow...25 years...and then I realized that next year I'll have been gaming for 20 years *sigh*
