Gaming My Long Lost Best Friend

By Zoey Ribbons

Me and video games go a long way back. From my earliest memories with a Nintendo 64, my relationship with gaming is a long and complex one.  The vast majority of my life up until a few years ago was spent with a gamepad in hand, exploring new worlds to escape the reality I found myself in. A reality where I was alone, confused, anxious, and downright depressed. To the outside world, I was someone who could quite possibly be classified as addicted to gaming, a disorder which has just been classified by the World Health Organisation a few weeks ago. I’m not someone who believes this choice by the WHO to be the right one since in my opinion humans can be conditioned to become addicted to anything. I do, however, understand the appeal of losing yourself in a world that is not your own to numb the pain of day to day life. 

I suppose to understand how my fascination with video games started you first need to understand a little of my backstory. I was born in 1993, right on the cusp of the revolutionary switch from 2D to 3D graphics. My parents separated when I was one year old, with my Mother holding onto the fact that my father left her with a burning hatred which bled out onto me and my sister. My dad bought me a Nintendo 64 for my birthday when I was 5, with Diddy Kong Racing being a staple between us in those early years. I went through 18 years of my life thinking it was normal for boys to want to be girls, before having the brutal realization that no, that was not the case. I came out as Transgender when I was 19, suffering from a lot of deep-rooted depression and anxiety before and after that time. At least my doctors told me it was just that. I was eventually diagnosed with Bipolar disorder when I was 25, which to me came as a relief due to years of living in limbo, not knowing what was wrong with me.  

As you can imagine, this was the perfect mixture of circumstances to create someone who was looking for the sweet fix of escapism. I was unhappy and anxious at home most of the time, so what better way to ignore that than to shut myself in my room with a PlayStation? I was an outcast in my all-male social group at school and lived an hour away from the school itself, so I was never a kid who went out to play until the break of night. I would get home from school and the first thing I would do was to boot up a game for the night. I’d have a break to eat, and possibly spend a bit of time with my family in the rare moments that tensions weren’t running too high. I didn’t need someone to tell me I played a lot of games, I had the save data utility of a PlayStation 3 to tell me.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion =  700+ hours. Demon’s Souls =  600 Hours. Metal Gear Online = Another 600. Fallout 3: 300 Hours. And this is just a select few games from memory, for one console generation. Weekdays, weekends, holidays, all the time. If I was away from my main console for too long, I wouldn’t get irate, just unhappy. At least if I went on holiday I could bring a portable console with me, but forcing me to be away from even that… I would just be miserable. 

I think my parents knew this. It was clear to them I was an unhappy child and teen. Even during the peak of “Video games will ruin your children” hysteria of the early to mid-2000s, my parents would leave me be. No restrictions on time, age rating, or any specific content. They would try and coax me out of staying in my room, but nothing ever worked. Video games and I were just synonymous with each other at this point, and everyone around me knew that. 

While it might sound like I’m painting my experience with games in a negative light, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I consider my relationship with video games in my youth to have played a formative role on the person I am today. 

Firstly, video games taught me to be tenacious. After spending so much time playing games, more so competitive multiplayer during the seventh generation of consoles, It’s safe to say I got pretty good at them. Video games nurtured a drive in me for competition, and more so, not giving up. This all happened quite early on. My Dad will never let me forget when I was a kid, no older than 7, who cried in frustration over and over when I couldn’t beat the final boss of Diddy Kong Racing. Sure, I got angry with games, and still did even in my teens. But I never gave up, a trait which now applies to all aspects of what I do in life. It’s a trait I am extremely proud of. 

The pride itself from being good at games was also something that I held on to. It may sound a bit sad, but for a kid going through a pretty depressive and emotionally abusive upbringing, being good at games made me happy. If I’m being honest with myself, video games were probably the primary reason I wasn’t having nervous breakdowns throughout my teens. I was a very lucky kid in that I was very bright at school without having to put in practically any effort. So I could spend most of my times playing games without the stress that I was messing up my life in any substantial way. Being hooked on virtual worlds was a pretty mellow vice in the grand scheme of things, a fact I learnt quite quickly upon going to university. Cannabis and alcohol became my new favourite forms of escapism during that time, starting the journey of my break away from video games.

I barely made it through university with a passing grade. Quite the fall from the straight-A student who never had to try. Unfortunately, it took me 4 more years from graduation to reach a point in my life where I considered “my shit to be sorted out”. Video games still stayed with me until then, but it was never quite the same. As I grew older and started asking myself why I felt the need to escape all the time, I started to slowly fix myself. Video games started taking a back seat in my life to the point where my experience with gaming from dusk till dawn became a distant memory. It actually feels like more like an impossibility for me now. 

My relationship with video games is now something far more casual. While I still hold a deep love and admiration for them in my heart, I tend to break up playing into hour-long chunks or so before I start getting bored. I’ve missed out on this entire console generation, something which a teenage me would have thought was an unbelievable concept. I still follow the newest releases with great curiosity, but will happily wait for a game I’m interested in to go on sale before I pick it up. 

Even though I play games far less than I used to, it’s not to say I am less interested in them. Quite the opposite in fact, as I now see games as being far more than simple tools for me to run away to. Games for me now are wonderful, curious things that I will always have a deep-rooted respect for. Whether it’s the visual beauty you see in something from Supergiant Games, the incredible storylines from a series such as The Witcher, or simply the game design of something quirky and fun like Enter the Gungeon.  Games as art forms now act as a springboard into my own creative mind. As an aspiring writer and animator, where better to go to find inspiration than a good video game? Watch Dogs 2 was a recent release for me that simply filled me with awe every time I played it, from its beautifully coloured rendition of San Francisco to the incredible design, writing and performances behind its great cast of characters.

Video games are simply incredible. The talent and passion that goes into creating titles that can stay with you for a lifetime are simply immense. We all have our own personal relationships with video games, and I would not change mine for the world. Video games were there for me when I needed them the most. They got me through some incredibly difficult times, often when I felt I had no one else to turn to. Very few other mediums can claim to have such impacts on our lives as video games do. Games can be whatever you want them to be. Whether that be a tool to help switch your brain off after work, a way to help you see somewhere new and exciting, or just somewhere to relieve a bit of stress. I’ll always love video games, no matter how old I get. I can’t wait to see what amazing things come out next.