Why Talk Games?
It seems strange now but there was once a time when being what some might call a "Hardcore" or "Nerdy" gamer wasn't an endearing thing. Truth is in my younger days my gaming hobby was often the motive behind jokes or other such school yard ostracization. I stuck with the hobby though elementary school all the way until now in college and I have no intention of stopping. I find it extremely exciting to now live in a world that has started to embrace gaming but some still seem to wonder why I would go so far as to write reviews and analyze the topic. For me it's a few things: The first is the most practical reason, my father once said something to the effect that "you can learn a lot about a culture from the games they played". If this is indeed true (and I believe that it is) then the study, preservation and discussion of video games is intrinsically important to understanding our culture now and for future cultures (with their holograms and anti-gravity hoola-hoops) to understand us then. In some ways games tell us something about what we think is important in life much like a good movie does. We value adventure so we might play Zelda, we value grittiness and "realism" so we might play a WWII FPS. The topic is really something I should make a video about so I'll leave that part there. Moving on there is the question of preservation. Games as a whole but especially those on Floppy Disk based systems are currently undergoing a horrifying process known as "bit-rot". Bit-rot will eventually make unusable all the digital media we have come accustomed to ROM chips, the aforementioned floppy’s and even DVD's and Blu-rays aren't safe from this kind of deterioration. In some cases videos may be the only way we can experience these games running on original hardware. To round things out there is of course the most apparent reason I find myself coming back to, gaming is just a fun hobby. Like I said it's great to be in a world that doesn't outcast people for what they like and rather embraces it but with that comes sort of the task of throwing up a smoke signal of sorts. Now that gaming is the norm the "geeks" of gaming like myself have to try a bit harder to find each other. My videos above all else are a way for me to finally connect with the kind of people who just didn't exist in my childhood, the ones who want to discuss or learn about the hobby which gave me joy when I was uncertain, scared or was castigated by my peers. That's why I do this. To finally be able to openly take joy and share in the joy gaming brings to me and all other like me across the world.
