Life is defined by innocuous things (alt title: video games are important)

I grew up during an interesting age for video games. My household included a Super Nintendo console, though the industry had released consoles like the Nintendo 64 by the time I really tried holding a controller in my hands. While I was in grade school, the industry released consoles like the Playstation 2. Today, in my home, if I pause to count the consoles and handhelds and computers on which I can play video games, I come up with 9, including my gaming computer—and not the other computers I don’t game on.

What I mean to say is that I grew up through a great deal of change and formation in the gaming industry. When I was born, we played with 16-bits. By the time I graduated high school, incremental changes in graphics had gone from “transformational” to “oh, that’s cool.” Which is a significant difference when, as a kid, you were used to playing around the glitches and not letting the blockiness of character models deter from the story (I may have never played Final Fantasy VII, but I feel like those players in particular know what I’m talking about).

It was only as I grew older that I realized that video games didn’t hold a central role in everyone’s life. As a kid, it seemed the central topic in every ‘kids having fun’ conversation and every controversial one as well. It seemed like, when I was a child, I was hearing constantly about “rationing kids on video games” and “video games are violent and will change your children” and that these verses took on a constant presence in my life.

Of course, I lived in the house that had Doom II available (though not actually played by the children, just to be clear), so that second part came mostly from the outside.

It was a strange growth I went under to realize that video games didn’t hold such a central place in every child’s life. Sure, maybe not the adults in my life when I was young, the adults who waxed poetic about a weekend playing Atari and then moved on to other hobbies, but surely the kids had to have been involved in some portion of video game lore. It seemed like every friend I had in my neighborhood played video games. One house was for Sega. Another had Playstation. We had Nintendo. Wasn’t every household like that?

Strangely, this was a revelation to me in middle school and high school when I realized most of my friends hardly played video games at all. Those that had a console had started with a Nintendo Wii and only played occasionally. And I…just…

Guys, I basically malfunctioned.

If you feel the last comment is a bit melodramatic, I agree. But it comes back to the concept of how bewildering it can be to learn that another person lives a life completely different from yours. You are unsettled to learn that the way you’re living isn’t the only way to live. We all go through such a revelation for one reason or another. My reason just happened to be over a concept as trivial as video games.

There’s a reason for that: because my life was so much defined by video games. It continues to be through this day. Because I have critical memories wrapped around video games.

As a child under the age of five, I remember watching my dad play the game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for Super Nintendo. Because we didn’t understand the naming conventions of the game, it was decided to name the playable character (normally known as Link) Amy instead, which pleased me immensely. It is such an important memory to me of being specifically with my dad when I was very little.

While I was an elementary school, my brother and his friend were playing Super Mario Sunshine for Nintendo Gamecube. However, they were young enough that they weren’t proficient readers and the character F.L.O.O.D. was providing them critical instructions. I was watching from the back of the room and so read the instructions for them and enabled them to continue playing.

Then there was the day my brother declared he was going to play a beloved game of both of us and beat the entire thing in a day. It resulted in video game playing until midnight, complete with sarcastic commentary that I wrote down and still have.

I remember that the moment when my grandpa passed away, my brother and I were pouring over the player’s guide to Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

My junior year of college was marked by watching Markiplier play Five Night’s at Freddy’s and my senior year of college was marked by his playing of Until Dawn. Back in my freshman year of college, I have a distinct memory of playing Slender with two friends during what was supposed to be a finals study party and getting jump-scared so bad I screamed and fell to the floor, much to the entertainment of others.

The beginning of the pandemic was marked by playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Video games are the foundation on which I’ve built my memories. They give me a firm foundation I can wrap feelings around. Remember the feeling of peace? That was burying yourself in Animal Crossing when anxiety raged at the beginning of the pandemic. Remember joy? That was how hard you laughed with your brother when he tried to beat a game in a night and comedy ensued.

Remember the complex twist of feelings that is joy when you are trying to distract yourself from the despair of losing someone you love? Thank you Harvest Moon.

My love of video games taught me that that life is so much defined by innocuous things. As a society, we get caught up in climbing mountains, celebrating graduations and birthdays as the only way to track time. But life is so much what happens in quiet moments. It is in the building that we are made. Most of our lives happens there, after all.

Video games and books and movies are entertainment and distraction and so much more. They are the translation tools we use to understand ourselves.

It fascinates me that if the research on violence in video games held it’s full weight, I should have been affected. I watched my dad play Doom II before I was able to read, after all. In high school, I couldn’t get enough of Borderlands. I should have learned violence, right? But instead, all I learned was love.

Love of my family. And my friends. Sometimes myself.

I learned the concept that love is stronger than hate and fear (thank you, Sonic the Hedgehog franchise).

I learned the joy of a simple life filled with love (thank you, Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon).

I learned the beauty of storytelling that sweeps your breath away and drowns you (thank you The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy XIII).

I learned the fascination that is being scared and solving puzzles and riddles (thank you Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise—and Markiplier and MatPat of GTLive for playing the games so I didn’t have to).

My life has so much been defined by playing video games. Perhaps that sounds silly, treasuring a concept as playful as video games in such a manner, but my heart swells with warmth when I think about video games and the memories attached with them. It reminds me how important art really is. All this to say…

if you need any recommendations for good games to play, I’m sure I can help you find one.