...Hi! I'm Tom. Otherwise known as Scaryspikes.
Since a very early age, I loved playing games. Gaming was something that eventually became a ritual, a big part of my life.
My first PC was the commodore 64 - back in 1989. I was 5 years old. I remember asking my father to play a game with me one day. I had one joystick, one disk drive (5.5") the keyboard and a monitor. And I distinctly remember him ripping the joystick out one day, wires and all, out of frustration. Maybe this is when he started hating games, maybe not. One thing's for sure, since then, both of my parents were never satisfied with the fact that I was becoming a gamer.
"Do something with your life."
"You're going to dig graves for a living if you keep doing this."
"You're wasting your time."
Any of this sound familiar?
In fact, by the time I had gotten a proper computer system in 1997 (at that time, a Pentium 133 with 32mb of ram and a 2mb video card) it felt like their dislike for video games... Or, my video gaming habits, had turned into some sort of loathing. They hated it. And I don't hold that against them in the slightest.
By this time, gaming wasn't just something I did for fun. I played Quake competitively over my 56k modem. I built the greatest civilizations in Age of Empires.I hired a team of mercenaries and took down an evil dictator queen in Jagged Alliance 2. Suddenly, gaming was becoming my hobby. It was still fun; but now, it was also relaxing. And it turned into a ritual.
In 2004, two things happened. I graduated from High School. And World of Warcraft. WoW happened. And I was addicted.
At this point my parents were convinced I was going nowhere.
But thankfully they were wrong. Turns out, I found a great job. I live in a modest but comfortable setting. I share my life and my home with someone who values me for who I am, and will probably end up marrying them. I'm 30 years old and I don't feel that anything I did in my past was a mistake; they were all learning opportunities. I just didn't know it at the time.
That's a lot of change. You know what hasn't changed? My love for gaming.
And that brings me to why I'm here.
According to It's always kept me in check, connected me to new people, shown me new experiences, opened my mind to new possibilities, killed stress, and so much more. It's been a positive effect for the most part, and I wanted to share that with other people.
I think that gaming is something we should embrace, we should enjoy it, and we should allow it to have a positive impact on the rest of our lives.
I feel like many of you who are reading this may have gone through something similar, and I used that thought as the inspiration to start this project, so I could share my love of gaming with everyone.
It just feels right. It feels like I belong here.
Thanks for reading.
Happy Gaming,
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment