While Goldanas has already posted a thread about the onset of age and how it affects the vidya, I would like to throw in a little parallel to his personal feelings.

One thing I am beginning to get bent out of shape over is the kind of legacy I will leave. My entire childhood and most of what I would now call my adulthood has been spent with the vidya. For better or worse, my past is tied to the vidya. One of the big apprehensions I have about one day not playing video games is the fact that I will, in essence, be killing off what has been a large part of both my history and identity.

At the same time however, because our childhoods were electronic, they can be effectively captured in our various forms of modern media storage. With the advent of emulators, all of the games of your childhood, regardless of when you were born, become available. While this is very comforting, it is also very frightening. It seems scary to me that the exact experience can be immediately transferred to someone else. Perhaps this is why I have been putting more emphasis on the tactile aspect of my childhood.

Check your garage, or closets, or attics. This is usually the final resting place of your long forgotten game consoles. You might find a gem, but due to lack of maintenance and proper storage, most of them are probably so choked with dust that they are inoperable. All of mine were in a big box in the living room. Due to my new fears of losing my identity and past, I made a trip to Wal-Mart and purchased a sturdy Sterlite container. To my delight, my Super Nintendo, PSX and Game Gear all managed to fit along with the rest of my games (be they cartridge or CD) as well as the various controllers and cables required to operate them.

While my Atari and Nintendo have been long gone, it is nice to know that my SNES and PSX are still fully functional. I cannot begin to describe the glee I experienced when i not only found out that the PSX still worked, but that i managed to locate all 4 discs to final fantasy 8, as well as Breath of Fire 3. The fact that these games are burned actually helps me to find the memories that i was seeking to per—. Back in the day, we didn’t have a lot of money. The only way we could afford games was if they were rented and then burned. Of course, this now makes me realize why I put so much emphasis on purchasing games for full price.

My ps2 is sitting faithfully beside my ps3, and my Gameboy is tucked away in a box full of pokemon memorabilia. I sincerely doubt the Gameboy will ever join the box gang, while the ps2 is destined to be moved in there when the time comes to vacate the premises. All of this originated at 2:00am, unable to asleep, so afraid I would lose what i consider something integral to my identity. Now that everything is safe (or as safe as it can be) I am afforded a peace of mind that I’ve never known before. The chances of me actually breaking out the old consoles is pretty slim. It may happen, you never know. But the knowledge that they are there, operational, complete, gives me a physical link to a past predominantly ethereal.

I don’t ever want to not like video games. If that time comes, so be it. I’d say the main reason why so many people
accept their dislike of video games is because there are so few ways to objectively look back on them and acknowledge the happiness and joy they brought. You have a photo album, perhaps in the same attic, closet or garage, full of your smiling face no matter where you are. Mexico, your backyard, a soccer game, wherever. Surely you wouldn’t be smiling if you weren’t happy, right? The only way I can ever imagine my happiness being proven is in the save of Final Fantasy 7 with 99:99 time played, or the Pokemon Red with all 151 (including Mew, fuck yeah game genie) or the fact that mentioning a game like Final Fight garners a “hell yes that was a good game” from your mouth. Those are really the only hard testaments to a past full of fun that you can’t remember ever happening, because you were predominantly alone, enjoying those games as the days and months tick by in a childhood you can never experience again.

In what can only be construed as a final irony, i happened to walk by the pinball machine we have in the upstairs of my house. It was given to me as a gift on my first birthday by a father that I can assure you is no longer part of my life (unless you count my lifestyle as a dichotomy to his, in which i can assure you he is there in full force). Here is a relic, still working, that ties me to my past in a way that is both uncomfortable and familiar, like video gaming. When was the last time I played? I couldn’t say. However, wherever i head off to make permanent residence in the future, you can bet your life on the fact that it will be coming with me, along with my boxes full of games, console and memories. Things that I will one day hope to pass off to my own children. I can only imagine that like those smiling pictures, I am intending to pass these off to them so that they can experience the happiness that I once did, the happiness I hope never leaves.