jmarquiso said:
OuroborosChoked said:
It's one thing if I can go up to one of these supposed "fake nerd" girls, and we can actually hold a discussion about the Atari 2600's impact on modern gaming citing specific examples (or something similar)... if you can do that, you're a nerd in my book.
How often do you even see that conversation happen? I was playin' Star Raiders on the Atari 400, son. I go to some pretty in-depth gaming sites and blogs. You know how often I've seen a conversation about the "Atari 2600's impact on modern gaming?" Certainly not here in the Escapist forums. And rarely outside of an article on Gamasutra. The very statement is pretentious*.
But then, in some peoples' book I'd be a fake gamer, too.
*As an aside I could go off on how the Star Raiders design did not go on to influence modern gaming, when it should have. Despite its DNA being found in Elite, Wing Commander, and the like, but completely gone by the time we get Mass Effect.
Pretentious? Not to me. I grew up on the Atari 2600. When most kids were playing Nintendo, my family had Atari. I played the shit out of the old 2600 Pac Man! Moon Patrol, Space Invaders, Sea Quest, Megamania... that made up years of my childhood. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's pretentious, either. If you have a passion for something, you'll find a way to expose yourself to it. I never had a Genesis growing up, nor were there a lot of arcades around me anywhere I lived, but emulators in college helped with that.
And I did say "or something similar", so it doesn't have to be that specifically... but any topic of excruciating detail that only someone with that specific knowledge would be able to participate in. People who can are people who have a real passion for the medium... they become nerds for that topic. To me, if you can talk about how Star Raiders
should have influenced gaming more, you're a nerd... and I want to hear it!
Besides, it's not like this is setting the bar too high. When I was in college, I used to hang out at a locally-owned video game store. It was where a bunch of nerdy guys (and some nerdy girls!) congregated and just talked about video games, cracked jokes, and had a good time... yes, we bought games from the store, too... In there, that kind of conversation was COMMON. It was like video game nerd heaven and my second home. Those were some of... no, fuck it... they WERE the best years of my life. I felt accepted for who I was... and I've missed it every day since it closed.
Basically, it comes down to this: gaming makes you a gamer, but
being a gamer doesn't make you a nerd.
^If anyone is going to take anything away from this thread, it's that.^
P.S. I just want to share this one bit from memory lane here. One day we were all sitting around watching the store's clerk play Mario Golf or something on the Gamecube... and this guy who was a regular there just says out of the blue: I wonder if Boo died in a car accident...
I was in TEARS! I was literally on the floor laughing because I had never thought about it... I mean, he's a ghost, right? How did he become a ghost? It just struck me that this cutesy little Nintendo character was actually someone who just ran into a tree...
Okay, I'm a sick fuck... but I found it hilarious. I still do.
God, I miss those days...