Our new neighbours!

Oh, hello there you smouldering lovely!

This week, I've been visiting various forums looking for something. And, in almost every case I'm sad to say, I found that something. What is that something, I hear nobody at all ask? Read on, and I shall slowly reveal my curvy, enticing mind to you. What a dish!

To begin, I'd like to take you back in time. I don't own a time-travelling DeLorean, nor do I own a big blue phone box that makes a 'Waaaaarupp! waaaaarupp! waaaaarupp!' noise as it vanishes into thin air, with a freshly abducted (yet oddly compliant) young woman inside that I replace every other year, like some kind of intergalactic Hugh Hefner. No, you'll just have to use your imagination like the rest of us!

We're going back to take a look at how, back in the day yo yo, being a gamer was certainly nothing to be proud of. Being a quiet, daydreaming kid was one thing, but revealing you controlled a little pixelated character on a TV screen marked you out as some sort of sickening pervert, hunched over a joystick with drool spraying out of your mouth. Yes, I honestly recall playing computer games was something to be ashamed of, a cripplingly nerdy pastime for only the most extreme, cringe-inducing weeds.

None of the cool kids played video games when I was a kid. The shops that stocked games, in either cassette or cartridge form, where filled by only one stereotype. The bespectacled, puny, slightly awkward kids that generally did well at school. I think if any of the cool, sporty kids that spoke about dodgy things I wouldn't discover for at least another two years had entered a game shop they would have combusted on the spot, as the sheer volume of unfashionable nerdiness came crashing into their cigarette & tattoo-obsessed minds!

All the kids that liked video games would inevitably gravitate toward each other, forming little knots of enthusiasts flashing crumpled games magazines at each other, school bags rattling with cassette cases for lending, joysticks & paddles with wires coiled around them destined for the giddying, overwhelmingly exciting two-player games that popped up here and there. See?

Gaming was a covert, clandestine pastime conducted in virtual secrecy, a hidden world of whispered conversations & back-handed game swappery. Your world would literally end if a GIRL heard that you played video games, followed by a biblical amount of mockery from all the tough kids. Girls were hard-wired to find anything involving your imagination repulsive & horrifying, but at the time we had no idea why that was so important. Ignorant pigs!

Me, being scorned by some girls, yesterday afternoon.

Fast forward lots of years, and something happened. If you have a huge brain you will understand that gaming became popular. Very popular. And, as with all things that become trendy, the nerd-edge was removed. Cool kids arrived on our lovely world and trashed it to hell. Those vermin!

Gaming today is like sending a text, or wearing a waistcoat. Everybody does it. Men, women, kids, elderly grumblers and even Americans. I know, it's a shock to the system, Brother. And all this brings me nicely to my rubbish conclusion.

What was that something I was looking for this week? Well, I was looking for evidence of how that lovely, quiet little secret world we used to inhabit has been invaded and colonised by trendy people wearing fake-tan, oversize black spectacles & mock vintage band t-shirts. I was also searching for evidence of the outrage that occupation by a foreign force brings, and I found it all surrounding one title.

Call Of Duty. 'CoD'.

Every forum I visited held up this game as the example of the invaders propaganda, it's players vilified as clueless drones desperate to add 'gaming' to their BookFace/Tweeter profiles. The thuggish, comically aggressive players attracted to it are the epitome of the swearing & scrapping rough kids that used to terrify the legitimate nerds/gamers back in the early days, polar opposites almost. They have (nor do they make any attempt at) no diversity or depth, and have no interest in broadening their gaming horizons beyond buying the next instalment in the series. They are properly horrible chaps, and they deserve your fury, it seems. Or not! Look and decide please:

A Call Of Duty clan 'dissing' someones KPD, monday.

But what am I trying to say here? Well, look. I think the more committed gamers dislike the shallow nature of the trendy player, or 'casual'. They view them with distaste, mistrust and, well, fear. They see how their private, niche world has been thrown into the VERY mainstream and they hate it. They see how the landscape is seemingly being reformed to cater for uncaring scoundrels. They don't like the lack of knowledge, the lack of respect for where this shiny hobby has come from, but isn't the very presence of casuals evidence that gaming has reached the top?

I'm afraid you can't have success without hollow hangers-on, Son. Gaming is only going to get bigger and attract more slutty groupies, eager to be 'tagged' in a compromising photo for their own gains!

Don't be too sad, but our heavenly world of 100% enthusiasm from all involved has gone forever.

I suppose we all have to just live with it, and try our best to ignore our noisy new neighbours. After all, we were here first, why should we move house?

Hmm, my point is even more unclear than when I started. Help, maybe?

Until next time, be strong and try your best at all times!

GL & HF!