I play a lot of video games. A borderline unhealthy amount. My obsession started when I was seven or eight. I would play Flash games on my mom's computer. Looking back, they weren't that great of games. But when you don't have anything better to compare them to, they’re pretty fun. As I grew older I shifted away from quick Flash games and started playing more developed games. The first was Team Fortress 2, a multiplayer class-based shooter where teams compete in games like capture the briefcase. This was also the first game I got my brother to play.
Most of my discovery of videogaming had happened in Norway, where I lived for two years with my mom. When I moved back to the U.S. my dad bought my brother and I an Xbox 360 for Christmas. We quickly fell in love with it, spending most afternoons playing Call of Duty games Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops II. It was a bonding experience, with us playing together almost every day. But it also strained our relationship, with us arguing over who should get which controller, whose room the Xbox should be in, and (if we didn't want to play together) who would get to play when.
After playing a lot of games on the Xbox, I got more interested in PC gaming: playing videogames on a computer. I had a MacBook that I had gotten for my birthday, which was pretty terrible to play videogames on. I had played quite a bit of Minecraft on it when I lived in Norway, but as a thirteen year old that wasn’t cool anymore. My dad had given me Portal 2 (a futuristic sci-fi puzzle game) as a gift, and I played through some of it and enjoyed it. I also got a game called Garry’s Mod, which is a sandbox game with different gamemodes which are effectively each their own game within a game. I played a tiny bit of Garry’s Mod, but didn’t really get into it until a year later.
The gamemode that I really got into was called Trouble in Terrorist Town, abbreviated ‘TTT.’ The premise is that everyone is a terrorist armed to the teeth, but some people are traitors who are trying to kill the rest of the terrorists (affectionately called ‘innocents,’ even though when you think about it the traitors are the real good guys). The twist is that the innocents have no idea who the traitors are, so everyone is suspicious and constantly on edge to avoid being killed.
Suffice it to say, I played a lot of TTT. After about a year I had racked up almost 1000 hours and finally got bored of it. I took a break from Garry’s Mod, playing PlanetSide 2 (a futuristic shooter) and other first-person shooter games. But there was always a place in my heart for Garry’s Mod. A few months later I got back into it when my brother (who I had since convinced to try Garry’s Mod) wanted to start his own TTT server that other people could play on. This idea quickly died off when we both realized how bored we were with TTT, but we started another Garry’s Mod server that took off (a bit).Finn, my brother, had been playing a gamemode called Jailbreak. As one can tell from the title, it’s about breaking out of jail. There are two opposing teams. ‘Prisoners’ who are trying to escape (or survive to be the last one standing) and ‘Guards’ who are trying to prevent the prisoners from escaping. One guard is designated the ‘Warden’ who gives the guards and prisoners commands, usually competitions for the prisoners to play in order to pick them off one by one.
This was probably my biggest responsibility up to this point. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things; it was just a server on a videogame. The people who played on it were random people from all over the globe. I didn’t need to care about it. And yet I took it much more seriously than I ever had anything else. I felt I owed it to the community we had formed to continue to support the server and run it.
In the end the server ended up being a huge (for a fifteen year old) money drain. Finn and I probably spent almost $100 on hosting fees and on content to keep the server interesting. To save money, I learned how to program in Lua (a simple scripting language that Garry’s Mod uses for almost all aspects of the game) so I could develop new features and fix bugs on the server. Although we eventually got bored of Jailbreak just like TTT before, I enjoyed almost every second of it (I played Jailbreak for almost 1000 hours as well). And I would do it again, because it was a valuable turning point in my life. I felt like I had actually created something of value.
Since shutting down the server almost a year ago due to a lack of motivation to run it, I’ve played yet another gamemode in Garry’s Mod called DarkRP. At this point I have wasted almost 3000 hours on this game. But I don’t regret it. Even though most anyone would agree that 3000 hours is definitely an unhealthy amount of time to spend on a videogame (especially in the span of just three years; almost 20% of my waking hours), I think it has been a valuable experience. After learning how to program for my server, I’ve used my skills to create content (addons is what the Garry’s Mod community calls them) which I was able to sell to other people for actual money. I’ve probably even made back the money I wasted on the server.
Although I’m not making anywhere near enough money to turn this into a living, I think it’s a good stepping stone for the career I want to pursue, which is videogame development. Garry’s Mod motivated me to learn how to program and it gave me tangible results. It’s helped me overcome (some) of my doubts about whether or not this is the right field for me. I’ve gotten countless (2781 to be exact) hours of enjoyment. And all this for just $9.99!
This is a good blog post. I like that video gaming was able to be a positive affect in your life. I own Garry's Mod Myself but only have around 2 hours on it. But maybe I'll pick it up again.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I think you did a good job describing things in such a way that they are accessible for non-gamers. It is easy, when writing about games, to get too deep into the technicalities, thus losing a good percentage of your audience. However, if you "dumb it down" too much, you lose the original point you were trying to make. I think you did a good job sidestepping these problems, and ultimately tying everything together very nicely.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty cool. Usually when people think video games they don't think that people can actually learn real life skills from it. However, you learned how to code,create your own content, and run your own business (?), which is definitely applicable beyond the realm of your game.
ReplyDeleteYou have an interesting story to tell. I think that the world would be a better place if more people did as you have done and used recreational activities that they are passionate about like video games to teach themselves useful real world schools. I hope your career a a video game developer works out well.
ReplyDeleteI'm obsessed with the mobile phone game Clash Royale. I try to convince myself that by playing it, I'm really improving my "thinking skills" and "strategy" that have applications to my everyday life (even though this probably isn't true). Through video games, you were not only doing something you enjoyed, but you were able to receive "tangible results" as you put it. I really enjoyed and connected with your post.
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