Video games over the last few decades have drastically evolved from what they once were. "GameCube, N64, those were the old days!," were the sarcastic words Erick Paul said when I recounted what I considered to be vintage gaming consoles. For him, these were released roughly 15 years ahead of his start to gaming. "I'm the old man is what you're saying," Erick said, to which I replied, "You're not that old, come on!"
Erick is now 40 with a wife, two kids, and a user research position at Apple. While he may have gone through nearly 10 years of college for his PhD and spent 10 years in the workforce, there was always one thing that remained constant through it all for him.
"For me, a lot of playing video games through my early years through graduate school, and even my life now, is about having a way to sort of disconnect from things and put life aside to do something else," Erick said.
Having something to distract his attention from the everyday stresses of life is where it all started for him, as the online social aspect of gaming never existed when he was younger. His first console was a NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) back in the mid to late 80's, which he has fond memories of playing the very first Super Mario Bros on.
The gaming industry would decide to pursue the idea that playing together is better come the launch of the second generations of consoles. In the early 90's, Nintendo released the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) that brought the first feeling of playing more modern graphical games together.
"I remember playing SNES with friends or my sister. You plug in your two controllers, because that's all you got, just two. You have it hooked up to your tv, and you huddle around this small CRT-TV with it's happy little scan lines playing the game."
Gaming companies would continue to innovate and create more refined systems to play games with others in the same room in the years to come, such as the Nintendo 64 and SEGA Dreamcast.
While these consoles and their modern graphical games weren't capable of playing with others online, computers had an easier time with internet connectivity. Eventually, a new genre of games were developed with that in mind, and once Erick discovered this he would dive headfirst into the excitement.
In Erick's high school years, there came a new genre of games called MUD's (Multi User Dungeons) that lived on PC's and were entirely text-based. There were no pictures or visuals to be found, and you could only communicate with others via text.
Him and his friend would play one of these games, named Realms of Despair, for hours upon hours at a time to embark on quests and delve into dungeons all built by walls of text.
"I remember one summer between my junior and senior year of high school, where my friend and I would get up every morning, spin up our dial-up internet connections, and play that game for the entire day. Every day that summer we played until our eyes were practically bleeding! It was so bad for us."
This game still exists to this day and has stood against the competition of all modern games to offer it's own unique experience. It was the first experience where people could connect and play together, even if it was nothing but a text based role-playing game.
For more modern, graphically intense games, if we fast forward into the next decade, you have a way to play on different devices across the same network, but things still aren't completely remote or online yet.
"You could play multiplayer, with everyone being at their own little workstation in LAN (Local Area Network) parties, but everyone had to be on the same network. This was in college for me, and you have to remember, back in 2000, broadband internet wasn't a thing. You had dial-up internet. The technical capability wasn't there for gaming online, at least for more modern graphical games."
Coming up on modern times, gaming companies have made massive leaps in the development of technology that's capable of connecting people all around the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, gaming became one of the top activities in which people interacted socially, while still being completely remote.
This rise during 2020 is evident by just how much the video game industry's global value rose. According to Newzoo, a company that tracks market data specifically for the gaming industry, there was a 20% growth margin in 2020 alone, raising the total capital of the industry to $175 billion.
For Erick, staying connected with his family and friends continues to add to his enjoyment of gaming. He currently lives around Seattle, where he's been working for large tech corporations the last 6 years, and feels somewhat isolated from his family and friends back in his home state of Colorado.
The relationships that he maintains and builds with people are often the only reason he'll play some of the games he does, as he won't really play anything unless it's with others.
"If the people I play these games with, Destiny 2 being the game right now, end up becoming disinterested, or the games fall off of their radar, then I loose a lot of my interest to play them. The connections I've made are what make these types of games meaningful and enjoyable to me."
The common belief that gamers are anti-social by nature has been slowly but surely over the last few decades become a thing of the past. More and more people hop into the action and enjoyment every day, and the connections that can be made along the way might just be ones that will stand the test of time, no matter where life may take you.
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