Parents, Dreaded Parents
May 25th, 2007 by Guest Contributor Matt JohansonParents – the only threat more serious to the Gamer than the expectations of class, and the only beings capable of inducing more shame than our peers. This is for the age-old question of whether to move out and suffer the hardships of broke living, or stay at home and bear the incessant nagging from which there is no escape. This is the Secret Life of the College Gamer.
Parents represent the chink in our armor. No one views the Gamer lifestyle with more disgust than those who tend to foot the bill. Reminders about who’s roof we live under and threats of being “cut off” are enough to bring even the most dedicated Gamer down. The only plausible defense is to get a job, but I’ve already addressed that challenge in my second issue, Will Game for Food. Let’s face it, unless the beggar business is booming, money for a college gamer is harder to find than chicks that play Counter-Strike (if you are a chick who plays Counter-Strike and I have offended you then please email me ASAP for a heartfelt, personal apology).
Take, for example, the time I tried to explain to my parents that by playing 14 hours of video games a day, I was in fact NOT wasting my life away… I was conducting valuable research towards an extremely lucrative future career. My father openly laughed in my face while my mom sat open-mouthed and silent with a look of terrified bewilderment on her face. About an hour later, after dad stopped laughing, I told them I was serious. This resulted in both of them laughing and a two week period of my friends asking me why I was being so emo.
Parents will never understand gaming! Where we see joy and entertainment, parents see a waste of time and brain cells. Where we see skill building, parents see a complete lack of ambition. Where we see a future in eSports, parents see a future 30 year-old still living at home and eating all their food.
The problem is the generation gap. Parents cannot be reasoned with, because we should all seek to be plumbers or used car salesmen. Better yet, we should be outside playing sports, a complete waste of time from a future career point of view. To the Gamer’s mounting frustration, mom and dad have yet to realize that gaming has truly evolved from the original NES and the days of Donkey Kong. Sitting a parent in front of Call of Duty 4 would be like forcing Charlie Chaplin to watch the entire Adam Sandler collection.
They are wrong, of course, but we are left with little or nothing to say. This only adds to the problem when they misinterpret our silence as a concession to their superior wisdom. The truth is, we are silent because no parent can understand the goals of the Gamer. No parent can understand the euphoria of dropping 20 on de_forge. No parent can understand the need to become the leetest CEVO-P champion. How such a lofty goal could not be counted as ambition is beyond me!
So when faced with the choice of whether to get your own place or stay living at home, ask yourself this hypothetical question: If you actually knew a girl… and actually had the chance to have her over… would she rather have nothing to eat, nothing to do, and no furniture to sit on, or play another game of bridge with your mom and her blue haired friends? You ponder that for awhile let me know what you think. I’m going to sit anxiously by my computer and wait for girls to email me for that apology. Until next time, game long and game on!
May 30th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Awesome and completely true, parents are what is holding eSports back.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Brilliant. Words cannot describe the amazing letters forming the rant above.
June 7th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
some parents support competitive gaming.. a lot of the pro’s have parents who go to lans and watch them play. i understand the difficulty of getting in some decent play time at home, but the competitive gamer should be older anyway. you say moving out and living a broke lifestyle, but i’m hardly broke. if you consider yourself to be a decent gamers, then you’ve already got the qualifications needed for a decent job. you can work with a team, you can adapt to different situations, you’re quick to react, and you’re used to showing up on time… right?
just move out! if you’re not old enough to move out, you’re not old enough to play competitively in an M rated game.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
:) keep in mind that Matt’s articles are satire
June 8th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
If you didn’t pick up on that satire then you shouldn’t be playing counter-strike, you should be going over last semesters lit notes.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
hate to be all serious face, but if you are at university, you arent there to be a professional gamer. You can play competively, especially during the summer, there is time to play a couple of hours every day unless its right before finals.
its not easy either, you have to get lucky, living in texas I met a few people in hs who tried to do it, just living by themselves with a job trying to get ready for cpl or w/ever lan, and unless you are just really, really good, you wont make enough money to make the time investment worth it.
you can certainly play competitively in college, but just like college football players you still are a student first and only a very limited number of them make it to the professional level
June 9th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
red that would relate to some people saying “esports is nothing” or people who laugh at professional gamers. By the nature of any human who is deticated to something a gamer in college will make it and become “professional”. But just like professional football players other circumstances of their life suffer(i.e grades)
June 10th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
my parents understand why i love to play cs so much, and they also understand that i need to practice to play these matches/lans…
one of the best things i’ve ever heard of my dad’s mouth was “i see now why you like to play this game so much…” when i was at one of my first LANs and he was there watching our last match.
June 10th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Hmm… Sounds like the World > us to me.
But like sozn said, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try. How much a person is willing to sacrifice to make that attempt is up to them.
I’m not going to hold it against anyone, 13 or 30 to go after their dreams. And yes, I think a persons dreams are more important than a girlfriend, or your friends (who should know your dreams, and support them, but maybe this is old fashioned). The world may be > than you. But to me, dreams > living life measured by anything other than striving to reach whatever your mind can ponder.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
“Let’s face it, unless the beggar business is booming, money for a college gamer is harder to find than chicks that play Counter-Strike (if you are a chick who plays Counter-Strike and I have offended you then please email me ASAP for a heartfelt, personal apology).”
hey thats a good way to find a chick that plays counter-strike. =D
June 21st, 2007 at 5:45 pm
its sad that people cant tell hes making fun of them… lol
June 21st, 2007 at 10:11 pm
:o
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:06 am
hey thanks for all the commments. i’m so happy to see the response.
Todd i have another scheme to plot on some nerd honeys. i’m gonna create a girlfriend app and see if i can get any responses.
post any ideas if you got any. the next one i’m doing i’m hoping to spark some debate.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:33 pm
It actually is a good way to meet women, that is how I met CEVO|Hutsko.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:14 am
You’re a man?!?
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