Videogame Shame

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I play videogames.

This is an embarrassing confession for an adult to make. In their idle hours Winston Churchill and Noel Coward painted. For fun and relaxation Albert Einstein played the violin. Hemingway hunted, Agatha Christie gardened and James Joyce sang arias. But videogames?

I have a friend who drums in the attic (yes, real drums, not the plastic atrocities packaged with Guitar Hero), another who has been building a boat for years. A teacher I know runs an amateur dramatics society. Britain is a nation of hobbyists – eccentric amateurs, talented part-timers and dedicated autodidacts in every field of human endeavour. But videogames?

An adolescent boy can play his Xbox with guiltless abandon. If he’s not fumbling with his dinkle, scarlet cheeks aglow, in front of Youporn, he is playing Horde. Or Firefight. It’s what young boys do. At a pinch an adult may allow himself the guilty pleasure of a quick tumble with Cammy in Street Fighter IV. But that’s it. Any more forays into the world of videogames and you release the beast that lurks within every adult gamer’s heart – and the name of the beast is Embarrassment.

The privileged minority who work within the games industry are immune. A games journo, for example, will feel not one iota of embarrassment when asked his profession. ‘Games Journalist’, he will proudly proclaim before striding away, head held high, to roll a Katamari that’ll please the King of the Cosmos. Journos are immune because it is their job to play games. They get paid for it. Money makes palatable even the most rotten mocking. And besides, they inhabit a world where playing games is not only acceptable but essential. What’s more, game journos socialise with other game journos. Discussing the infuriating scarcity of caps in Fallout 3 over a few pints after work is – gasp! – totally normal. Try explaining to the average layman that it took you over two hours to clock up 200,000 points in Firefight in order to unlock a 20G achievement in ODST. After wiping the vomit from his lips, he’ll abruptly turn on his heels and leave, never to speak to you again.

Those of us without an official job title to lend our hobby any semblance of credibility are forced on to forums to share our passionate musings. And it’s always anonymously, under a silly alias like Digital Gigolo. Just in case someone recognises us.

All this talk about gaming losing its badge of shame is quite simply bollocks. The beast of embarrassment prowls on. Certainly for us oldies anyway. 

Oh fuck it, I’m off to play Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon, with the shades drawn.