I would like to introduce my experience with video games. There are many things I love about them– the music, the stories, the graphics, the game play, everything.

The Beginning.

My father was a tech-junkie born in the wrong generation. As a kid he dabbled with what he could: taking apart radios, TVs, etc. When the 80s rolled around, he started playing video games. When I was born, The Legend of Zelda had just been released in America. When my dad was in charge of watching me, he said he would usually sit me on his lap and just play Zelda. Not sure if that wins him any Babysitting awards, but that is beside the point.

The first video game I can remember playing is Zelda and Zelda II. When I grew a bit older, my brother would get game systems for his birthday ( I got My Little Ponies and Disney swag). As a 4-year old, Super Mario World kicked my ass and it was very frustrating.  I never watched TV, and I played outside and with friends plenty — but when I was inside, I would play video games for fun. I never particularly thought of myself as a “gamer” until I got to college — Video games were always just something in our household that was there for some entertainment, like movies.

I grew up on Nintendo systems until the PS1 made its debut (another present for my brother). I can remember us sitting in the living room playing Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 together for hours. I wouldn’t say there was any particular genre of game I enjoyed as a young kid, I just played whatever my family bought.

Then RPGs Happened.

My dad bought a new type of game I had never played before– a Role-Playing Game. The first one he bought in particular was Beyond the Beyond for the PS1. Absolutely terrible game, my dad vowed to never play another RPG again due to its difficulty. He had already bought himself Final Fantasy VII, and gave it a try but quickly became uninterested. I was watching him play at the time. He sighed and handed me the controller, saying “Here, why don’t you try playing?”. The experience I had with that game was one of the most entertaining I can remember. I never really thought of video games having epic stories and characters that you would grow to care about like those in a book. RPGs quickly became my favorite genre — Pokemon, Lunar, Diablo II, and Final Fantasy games were all unique and amazing experiences to me. Of course, I still played plenty of other games: Zelda OoT/MM, Turok, etc. However, I feel RPGs are what really made me become more attached to video games.

The Internet.

The earliest I can remember being on the internet was the age of 9 (Probably a terrible idea). I remember this, because I was in a chat room and everyone was saying their “ASL”. Everyone was so much older than me that I lied and said I was 14 to fit in. Chat rooms quickly bored me, and luckily I never had any bad experiences with creepers. My dad set me up with an “Kids Only! AOL Online” account, and closely monitored my activity as any good parent would have for such a young kid on this new internet thing. My main activity on AOL was playing two games: Magestorm and Gladiator. Magestorm was an online FPS (First Person Shooter)/ RPG game where you played as different types of Mages and leveled up. It was my first experience playing games competitively online with strangers.

Eventually, AOL online was no longer the way my family connected to the internet. Being a bit older, I was allowed more freedom and I downloaded a game called “Active Worlds”, a 3D chat program where you build just about anything you want. This is where I met my internet friends whom I still speak to on a daily basis. That was about 12 years ago. We had all kinds of amazing adventures over the internet, eventually leaving Active Worlds together to explore new games–Dark Ages, World of Warcraft, Diablo II, etc.

Girl Gamers.

You might be wondering if at some point I realized being a girl and being obsessed with video games was perhaps not the “norm”. Well, no. My best friends in elementary and middle school (all female) loved games too, and none of us really thought about it being strange. When I grew up and entered college, I began hearing about “Girl Gamers” as if it was something strange and unique. They were greeted by the gaming community mostly with annoyance, as it was typically a girl trying to get the attention of boys by playing their favorite games. They were notorious for creating drama within online communities and guilds in games. “Was I one of them?”, I wondered. I never thought to advertise the fact that I was a girl and played video games, as if that was something to be proud of. I had been around them my whole life, It just seemed natural that I would have wanted to play them. I avoided the stigma by playing male characters online, and generally just focused on enjoying the game, not drawing attention to myself. I made plenty of awesome friends online this way, and eventually learned there wasn’t a point in hiding who I was because of the reputation ‘Girl Gamers’ have.

Now.

I am about to leave college– and I still love video games. Something my mother was sure(hoping) wouldn’t be the case when I was still living with her. It doesn’t define my life, but It’s a hobby I enjoy quite a lot. I am always looking to meet new people who are interested in it as well, and exchange stories on games we love.

– Originally from my first WordPress Blog