Dean

The kids love to hate me

So I've been getting some lovely feedback on the various forums with regards to my comments on Podcast #17. I don’t believe that I said anything particularly revolutionary; however, it seems to have struck a chord with a certain type of forumite. Perhaps my over exuberance has rubbed people the wrong way, but my point still stands. XBOX Live, for the most part, has left me feeling pretty sour about people who play games via that system. Having been a very prominent member of the early LIVE scene on the original XBOX, I’ve had quite a lot of experience with the system, and the guys who enjoy playing. I remember a time when all I would do was come home from work, grab a quick sandwich, and sit down in front of the TV (headset primed and ready) for a full evening of Project Gotham 2, or whatever else we were playing at the time.

I must have spent months doing this, and it really affected my life outside of the games. I was always tired for work, and thus, underperformed. I would spend my entire nights captivated in my small house, simply playing this game, with anonymous usernames from across the land. On the weekends, I may venture down my local town centre, but it was always to pick up the latest and greatest XBOX game, and never to do anything else.

Thankfully, I kicked this habit pretty sharpish, and managed to get my life back onto track.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t actually enjoy my time with the games. It was sure fire way to spend a few hours on a cold winters night; but was I really having fun? It was force of habit that kept me coming back; sharing the same experience with the same bunch of people, night in, night out. It wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t enjoyable.

But hey, it was new, it hadn’t existed before that time, and PGR2 was a pretty stunning game at the time.

So recently, at the behest of Gonzo, I started spending a few Saturday’s playing Gears of War and PGR3 with a few folks from the EDGE forum. Fuck me, it was vile. Apparently I had a bit of a reputation at the other forum, and thus, I was greeted with some pretty awesome comments.
“Are you really Dean from the forum?

“Wow, you’re such a cunt over there; I bet you’re not as much of a cunt on here”

“What you said about ‘random gaming subject’ 34 weeks ago was really stupid. You’re a complete wanker for saying that” were my personal favourites. It seemed that this clique of forumites had made their minds up about me, and were going to let me know. Regardless, I wasn’t too concerned with that, and just decided to stick it out, and allow my (pretty shit hot) PGR3 skills speak for themselves.

They did, and again, I was greeted with some superfluous comments that made me laugh.

"Wow, Dean – how is someone like you so good at this game? "

Someone like me, indeed.

So a week went by, and I stuck it out. Hell, it was winter in Canada; there really isn’t much to do in the wind and the rain. The games very soon moved onto Gears of War, a game which I'm not really a fan of, and one which bored me very quickly. However, Gonzo somehow convinced me that it was, “the best game in the entire world” in multiplayer via LIVE, so I decided to stick it out.

Oh my god.

Never in my life have I met such a raving band of fanboys, who are quite unequivocal in their determination to act like complete assholes. I felt completely humiliated. Not due to my lack of skill, but for the total disregard my fellow players had for each other. I felt like an onlooker watching the fat kid being ripped to shreds in the showers after a P.E. class. To think, these are guys in their 20’s and 30’s who, apparently, feel they have some divine right to be a belligerent cunt in the online environment, simply because we aren’t in the same room as them.

So I leave. I get out of there and vow never to play with those guys again.
Over the course of a few months, the rabid fanboys grew even closer. The threads stretch to the thousand post mark, the PM’s flow, and the banter gets increasingly familiar. Until, it all gets too much to handle, and I rhyme rhythmically on the podcast about how fucking sad they all are.

Welcome to ‘The Player’, I say.