Due to my excessive workload, covering for the work-shy Wotta, Kovacs, Nofi and Tuffcub as I do, I like to enlist TSAians’ help in getting content onto the site. A little while back I managed to talk foxhound_solid into writing something to ease my burden. Wait, why are all the TSA staff giving me dirty looks? Hey, guys just joking around…guys…wait, no not that…woah, guys I take it baaa….
2010: The Decade Gaming Became Accepted?
It’s a Sunday, Valentine’s Day to be honest and I am strolling around the supermarket with my girlfriend, picking up a few bits as we don’t have plans until the evening. As we stroll in I am looking round secretly chuckling at the sights I am taking in; as we all know, Freak Shows seem to audition in supermarkets. We enter the salad area and there I see that a huge cut out of Super Mario Wii overshadows pretty much everything. We proceed round and as we near the toiletries I see a cardboard stand full of Xbox 360 Classics at stupidly welcoming prices [Halo 3 £6.00].
I rub my eyes and continue to be steered by my girlfriend through the barrage of trolleys, which are like heat-seeking missiles being steered by Zombie-esque, pretend versions of people. But, thankfully we manage it as we weren’t out the night before. Had we been it would have ended up with me in a scruffy pile, moaning incessantly, saying I simply cannot go on, folded to the ground whilst opening some Branston Pickle Mini Cheddars and a bottle of Coke Zero, continually shaking my head from side to side whilst frowning.
So we get through the barrage and what am I met with? A PS3 Wall with classics such as the Darkness at £5.99. At this point I am having to remind myself that I am actually strolling around “More Reasons to Shop at Morrison’s”. We stroll through the electronics area which is completely covered by games, peripherals, Blu-rays – I mean everything we could want was available. To mention though, I was looking for the Foo’s Greatest Hits which wasn’t there. Everything else but this was there – ‘Elephunk’ by the BEP’s was there, Michael Buble’s Crazy Love was there, Rhianna’s whining Rated R was there, but the Foo’s no not at all.
Anyway, we make a dash for the checkout and have to dodge some pretty determined looking Old People with Trolleys. When I say determined, I mean to the point that they were giving me the eye whilst gently throwing and catching their grenade sort of determined. So we decided to quit whilst we were ahead and take the aisle a few tills down. Now this really got me thinking. There was a point where gaming and all it stood for was honestly for the little ones, and the idea of anyone else doing it, let alone it being something big businesses wanted to get involved with, was a non-starter.
Those sections we passed in Morrisons were busy and I mean really busy. All the games were being picked up by people of all ages and the electronics desk was so busy I couldn’t get near it to ask for the Foo’s Album. It was strange yet cool to see people of all ages amidst all of this and across all genders. Two ladies who looked like sisters in their mid-thirties (nowt wrong with mid-thirties – Ed) were picking up Professor Layton games and I heard one of them say that she was after this game as the first one she completed was brilliant.
Now, me being 29 and a gamer forever and a day – with a solid life plan of continuing to play until I am too old to do so and then I will have someone to play for me under instruction whilst I watch and take the credit. It’s a great thing when you stop and realise that the gaming world we were once the only members of is now everywhere. Every shop I go past, every advert you see – it’s there, our favourite pastime being hailed and pushed in front of people who in many cases may have never ever thought of looking at gaming.
2010 for me is the year where it has become a solid, accepted and respected form of entertainment. The level of game-play and depth has pushed the barriers and now it shows that due to the high level of polished titles out there. The world has seen a glimmer and thought “What’s that over there, what is it?”, and the intrigue has led to people getting involved.
Things like Arc and Natal in many ways have been inspired by the trend – obviously as well as the colossal sales of the Wii – of people trying gaming for the first time. I think that good things will continue to come from this as well as the rubbish, but with the gaming world being so widely spread now some moments of genius are sure to crop up. With what is shaping up to be a great year for all gamers, it’s great to see it being received and sold as the great hobby it is!
What do you think, TSAians? Is gaming finally gaining the acceptance we all know it deserves?