Living with ulterior gaming motives

It’s a funny thing being a gamer with ulterior motives. Normally we would spend hours each night playing our latest find, or maybe even forcing our way through something we hate just to say we did. But then comes the all-important bit of living life, the part that means we need to work, talk to people and complete a checklist of things society expects from us.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything bad about this. On the contrary I think it’s pretty great having more than just one part of your life fulfilled. It’s the others that make this life so funny, we all know that friend that grew up, he or she would be the front man in high school when we wanted to play games. That same person is now part of a family and hasn’t been online since this console generation got announced.

Their friends sit in a corner and scoff, “they used to be so fun, now it’s all family”. Yet, from the other side it’s the gamers that are scoffed at, it’s hard to see at first. In your 20’s you can easily ignore the whispers, “oh, they play games, must be single”. Which, I’ve found is more often true than not, single gamers are only gamers when they’re single.

Much the same way the old Afrikaans Oom is only a pro-golfer when his wife doesn’t know. The modern gamers are only true gamers when they aren’t a family. Now, I can hear people shouting in the comments that they have children and still play. I agree, I’ve got friends that found a balance, sometimes literally balancing the baby on their chest while playing DotA. While we would love these to be the rule, they are the exceptions to the rule, they are the ones that aren’t tired when they get home and they’re the ones that sacrificed something else.

Being a gamer in the 21st century has also received more negative outlooks; this may be because it has become the juggernaut in the international market that it is. In the 70’s the big boys were releasing Pong home consoles and everyone, including their dads were captivated by it. Just look at Red Foreman and Kelso bonding over changing the difficulty changes they brought to their own console.

Modern gamers look at that era and see that few people played games and then automatically assume that it was only teenagers and college students playing. Bill Gates may have been a teenager when he started his kingdom, but his contemporaries weren’t that young, they were chiseled old men that were playing the same games as him.

In the modern world you cannot simply be a gamer, you must be more, gamers are engineers, writers and even A-list actors. Games have permeated our world to a level few other industries ever could. Which is what’s causing the conflicts of being a gamer to be ever more amusing. The modern gamer must sacrifice his time, split it between what they want to do and what they need to do.

This brings us to the amusing parts of being a gamer, love for games is constantly being challenged by love for other hobbies. In the US where cities and hobbies are all concentrated it may be easier to stay in your environment and not have to split your love. Unfortunately, it becomes harder the more rural you get, third world countries like South Africa sees gamers experiencing things and life in a disorganized and whimsical way.

Just this week I experienced this, as a South African I’ve never experience true white-out snowstorms, and never have I woken up to a suddenly white world. Come rain, winter or summer my world is in shades of brown and green. Leaving me in a world decidedly different than the one feared by most game designers. Let’s not get started on the fears of wild animals or the sense of adventure.

Seeing a lion on screen or just interacting with the Giraffe’s in the Last of Us is probably the most gamers around the world will do. However, when you’re living here things are different, a Lion isn’t some mythic creature that lives in the Zoo, creates a world with C.S Lewis nor is it just the scary creature on the screen. The nearest lion sanctuary from my location is less than an hour away, I’ve had to walk past fully-grown giraffes with nothing more than my camera as a weapon in case they decide I look insignificant enough to squish.

These are the experiences that creates ulterior motives for me when playing games, I love being a wizard and controlling the virtual world around me, but the fear of a wild animal attacking me while playing Far Cry never affected me. It’s a very real and livable situation for us, it’s the same with the hypothetical of being tied up and robbed in our own house. I’ve seen game trailers announce that it’s the ultimate fear being realized, live it in that game and overcome your attacker.

Yet, some of my personal friends have lived it, ask anyone living in a third world country and similar stories will be told until the sun goes down. Luckily, none of these are the ulterior motives we really live with. When we get home rarely do we immediately start playing.

No, a gamer with an ulterior motive will get home and watch a series, they will grab a beer or make some food. In a more extreme and altogether real way we must tear ourselves into pieces, each competing for more attention until we find a balance.

The luckiest of us find jobs that satisfy one or two desires at the same time while allowing us to spend personal time with our other hobbies and passions. For me the triangle is broken into playing games, writing and exploring the world with my camera. Three things that very rarely allow me to combine them. No gaming studio wants a photographer, no writing position wants someone who plays games and being a full-time photographer does not allow for any other hobby.

Which is why being a gamer has become this amusing thing I do, I love games and the industry it creates with more passion than most. Every event is one I want to attend and every new game is one I want to play. The other loves and passions I have despise this, hours spent on Fable are hours I keep thinking I could be seeing my country.

It’s the same with writing and photography, every hour I spend doing that I always think there’s some game I could be playing. This perpetual denial of the current event is what drives me to rather spend hours watching YouTube or the same six series. All three passions can fight with each other and leave me be in peace and quiet.

With modern gaming permeating everyone my age I can simply assume that we all have this war happening. When we game we feel useless, like we’re wasting time, similarly when we aren’t gaming we wonder how much more fun we could be having while playing.

Being a true millennial may just mean that you’ve overcome these passions, your ulterior motive for leaving the house may just mean that you are ready to enjoy life to its fullest.

That is, sitting on top of a mountain, the sun setting over an endless ocean with your eyes glued to your smartphone wondering why this wild place has no Pokémon listed on Pokémon Go.