Time to Play the Game

My dad was just 25 when I was born. He still owned a video game console, and even purchased a new one when I was just two. I’m not sure how my mom was ok with this, and come to think of it, it seems likely that she was never made aware of this. Gaming never seemed to be a big part of his life, at least not in my eyes, but it was definitely a hobby. When I was just six, my dad decided it was time for a challenge. Madden 11 had just been released and my dad needed someone to play with. Football was already something I loved, so I was thrilled when my dad passed me a controller. I remember in my very first game, to my father’s surprise, I returned a kickoff all the way for a touchdown, something that isn’t a regular occurrence. I got flashed back to this core memory just a month ago; Madden 24 just released and I, once again, returned a kick for a touchdown. I felt a resurging feeling of my childhood, and even if it was just for a split second, it felt so refreshing after a summer of adult’s work. After a few games against my dad we had our first nailbiter. It was a tie game in the final quarter and my dad had the ball. He drove down the field with ease, placing himself comfortably in field goal range. The clock was running low, and I witnessed my chances of my first ever win against the man who birthed me becoming slimmer and slimmer. All of the sudden, just three seconds remained, and my dad lined himself up for a short field goal. “Miss it! Let’s go to overtime!” I whaled repetitively. I’ve never seen what overtime looked like in the game, and naturally I was curious. On top of that, I hate losing. Two feelings I always have and will feel strongly about: my love for winning and my hate for losing. My skin was boiling, my face was tightening, and tears were developing. Surely enough, the virtual ball was snapped, kicked, and was sent straight through the virtual goal posts as the virtual clock expired. I start crying, I can’t even help it. I have no idea why. Why do I care so much? It’s just a video game. My mom starts trying to cheer me up, but that just wasn’t something in her power. I needed to take action.

From then on, I would come home from school every single day and turn my Xbox 360 on. My father raised me to be a Patriots fan, something that never has and never will go over well with my hometown peers in New York City. However, my mom grew up in Wisconsin in a family full of Packers fans. Fueled with revenge, I made the Packers my Madden team. I memorized their playbook, my go to play becoming the ever so classic Four Verticals where I would abuse that green A button, throwing deep to the tight end. By the time I was 12, there was never a close game between us again. I refused to allow it. It became personal with me. Madden became my game. More importantly, I became a gamer.

When I was 14, I embarked on a journey with a game called Detroit: Become Human. I had no clue what I was in for, but I left this journey a changed man. Typically, I would only play sports games and occasionally a shooter game, but this game was different. It told a beautiful story taking place in 2038 (20 years in the future from its release date), and I believe society would be much better off if this story was told to everyone. The world is full of robot slaves called Androids, humans are in a depression due to lack of jobs, and tensions, protests, and crime has skyrocketed. The player follows three different Androids, each with a different story. One is a detective Android who begins on the side of the humans, one is the leader of an Android revolution, and one is a runaway Android, protecting the life of a human girl from her abusive father. The choices you make throughout the game will have different outcomes, making the game worth playing multiple times. If you keep all three characters alive until the finale of the game, you’ll be rewarded with all three stories becoming one grand finale. This game was able to touch mine and many others emotions, as I was able to connect with all three main characters as well as many of the side characters. More importantly, it gave me a stronger outlook on life. Humanizing these androids and telling the story of a robot revolution from their perspective was a valuable life lesson for a younger me, who had already learned a lot about America’s awful past in terms of slavery. This story had a similar concept, but was applied to a potential future scenario, a gutting feeling that has stuck with me forever. Given the growth of AI technology in just the past year, who knows what the future has in store, and I bet by 2038, humans will regret how far we’ve allowed technology to come. If everyone played this game, I think the future of society would be in better shape, and we as humans would have a better chance at preventing a world like this. To me, Detroit: Become Human is an incredible piece of literature that takes the form of a video game, and when you define it as that, it honestly could be my favorite piece of literature of all time.

To be honest, reading was never my thing. I enjoyed the Harry Potter series of course, but I wouldn’t have started it to begin with if my parents didn’t convince me to. For me, growing up, it was Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and that's about it. At the age of eight, I began to read Percy Jackson, and as he was introducing himself, he discussed how he had ADHD, and how that affected him. Holy shit. That’s me. Percy Jackson became my favorite protagonist from that moment on (it helped that we shared the name Jackson) because I connected with him more than any other. It wasn’t until nine years later when I was officially diagnosed with ADHD, but at that point it didn’t even matter to me. I’d learned the strengths, weaknesses, and differences that came with this disorder all on my own. I always knew, and having a therapist tell me I have it was nothing more than a vouch to tell people I know. I spent grades 3-12 convincing people that my self diagnosis was valid, so at least that isn’t a concern anymore.

One of the biggest struggles that came with ADHD was focus. I was a slow reader, movies were too long, I couldn’t commit to one show, I never can stay still, I’ll have a million thoughts within a second. Sitting down and doing one singular thing for a significant period of time was just not in my realm of possibilities. That is, except for playing video games. The engaging, stimulating feeling of playing a video game is unlike any other to me. The ability to see the effect of moving my fingers in a specific direction to press or move a certain button with a goal of winning something was exactly what I needed growing up. The combination of strategy, hand-eye coordination, thrill, and stimulation was exactly what I needed throughout my childhood, especially during the cold winter months. Sports was my first love, and to be able to feel as if I’m participating in a sport when I’m stuck on the couch is such a fulfilling feeling. The fact that technology has come so far that my mom can’t tell whether I’m watching a real football game or playing a game of Madden is so cool to me. I’d play career modes and feel like I’m actually in the NFL, the boyhood dream. The feeling video games have given me and many others of my generation is unexplainable. It’s an escape from reality, allowing players to experience a fictional world hands-on. It connects people; there are plenty of cases of people who have made friends through games and later met in the real world. It was a crutch throughout the pandemic, as for months it was the only place me and my friends could ‘hang out,’ and because everybody was always home, everybody was always online. I’ll never forget the 3 A.M. party arguments about Jordan vs. LeBron, the hours spent on NBA 2k20, or my mom coming downstairs to yell at me to go to sleep. I’ll never forget the first time I played The Last of Us, a game that has been turned into a record breaking TV show because of the plot.

As I’ve gotten older, I can feel myself growing out of video games. I keep myself very occupied; I’m a college student with big dreams and plenty of friends to see. The games just don’t hit the same, and maybe it’s because I’m becoming an adult, or maybe the games just aren’t as fresh as they used to be. Some of my friends reached this point in their gaming career within the last few years, and some haven’t gotten there yet. Nonetheless, we all grew up on the same games, same content creators, and very similar stories surrounding our passion for our consoles. Soon, we’ll all have full time jobs, careers, wives, children, and the time we have for our games will eventually diminish all the way to zero. I’m sure one day, we’ll be teaching our kids the way of the sticks the same way my father taught me. I bet I’ll use my future kid as an excuse to my future wife to hop on the game for a little bit. All in all, life is changing by the day, and I’m in the process of turning into a man. That being said, when I finish everything I need to do tonight, it’ll probably be around 11 P.M.. Best believe at that time, my PlayStation will beep, and I will be loading up a game of Madden 24, because at the end of that day, that six year old boy fueled with vengeance will always be alive inside of me.