Hardware Hardship
/“If a gamer considered, you wish to be, make haste and purchase the consoles three.”
The Gamer Code; Chapter 1, Verse 1
I’m staying out of PC gaming for this, not because PC gaming isn’t real gaming, but because PC gaming is actually a cut above console gaming. There are more variables, it’s more customizable, and if you’re really dedicated, the quality is better than anything you could expect from a console. That fact alone makes just about all the arguments gamers make all but moot. But I have to get five blog posts out of the weird rules of gamercred and I don’t want to trump them all with the same argument.
theGaMERCaT is a webcomic written and drawn by Samantha Whitten. Mosey on over to her website and have a look at it.
So let’s, for a moment, forget that games are expensive. Let’s forget that gamers also have other bills to pay like rent, food, hydro, Internet and sometimes tuition. Let's forget all that, because the spirit behind this rule is not to set up a financial barrier to getting into gaming (although it certainly does), but instead to set a standard by which to measure your passion.
By this rule, it’s almost forgivable if you don’t have all the consoles because you can’t afford them. We’ll almost consider it a hardship as long as you never give up hope. What is not forgivable is if you don’t want them. Under the rule of “the consoles three,” you must love games enough to want all the major consoles, even if you don’t have any interest in the games they run. Because, if you don’t love all the games available on these consoles, you don’t love gaming enough to call yourself a gamer.
Does anyone else smell a little hypocrisy?
For those of you who don’t know, the Wii U is NOT selling well. At last count, the Wii U has only sold 3.45 million units worldwide in about nine months. Well, you say, maybe there are only 3.45 million gamers in the world. Maybe, but the other console sales would suggest otherwise. But maybe they’re the only real gamers. Maybe they’re the only ones who really care enough to call themselves gamers and look down their noses at the n00bs. Maybe they’re the only ones judging. Or maybe a lot of so-called “real gamers” out there aren’t living by their own standards.
Wren Guilmain
Wren Guilmain is a gamer by just about any arbitrary definition. As a self-professed BioWare fangirl, Wren loves her RPGs and Action-Adventures. To her, games are the next evolution of storytelling: "It's like a book that's trying to kill me; I have to solve puzzles and stay alive to find out what happens."
Check Out These Links:
Dirty Rectangles - As they put it: "a collective of Ottawa based game designers and artists committed to the exploration of games as a medium of expression."
Penny Arcade - It's not just about video games anymore, but it's still worth exploring.
Joystiq - Where Wren goes for video game news.
