The Dilemma of an Introverted Gamer

So I’ve spent my first month as a jobless bum (again), with me not being as productive as I originally planned; instead of continuing what would be my novel (or one of, at least) I got distracted by some other life events which inspired another short story. Which is also left hanging because I am (again) facing difficulty organizing the stuff I draw from the pool of infinite ideas that is my own wild imagination, and (I never thought I’d say this) my poor vocabulary makes this harder than it needs to be. While I wait for a response to my next job application (damn you, slow government departments), I have, as you’d expect, spent more than a fair amount of time gaming, the latest heavy investment being Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online. As a result of this and me poking my nose into somewhere I swore to myself not to, I realize that I face a dilemma which is probably not unique to myself, but few others share.

If you’re one of the few who read this, then you probably have been for a very long time, which means you should know that I consider myself an introvert. If you just happen to stumble upon this page not knowing of its existence until now, well, now you do. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, introverts are generally people who are not socially anxious (needs mentioning, this) but prefer to be alone most of the time, don’t like social situations and are usually awkward or quiet or both when they find themselves in such situations. The only exception to this is when they are hanging out with truly close friends, and even then may seem quiet by others’ usual standards. The reason I’m stating this is because it is one of the two important points that make up the dilemma I speak of.

The next thing you’d know about me (relevant to this dilemma) is that I consider myself a hard-core gamer. While there is no standard criteria to adhere to when deciding what category of gamer that one falls into or indeed an official categorization, I would consider casual gamers not gamers at all; those who play simple games, usually web-based JAVA games such as those you find of Facebook, or other simple, mindless mobile games like Angry Birds and the like for the sake of killing time instead of for the sake of the game itself. Then there are the semi-hard-core who might pick up an RPG or other time consuming game, but put it down the moment they clear the story without replaying for other side quests, Easter eggs or other hidden, unlockable content. Hard-core gamers such as myself pick up a game and don’t let it down for weeks, sometimes months on end, exhausting every bit of feature and content available, especially if I have to pay for it. Now, I’m not making this distinction in a condescending way, just like, say, I wouldn’t be treating sports car owners condescendingly if I had a supercar – neither of which I can afford – or like how I wouldn’t treat those without a degree condescendingly just because I have one nor do I expect to be treated that way by those with masters or doctorate degrees. I’m making this distinction because it affects hard-core gamers more than semis while having no impact on casuals at all, because casual gamers tend to have other things on their mind and only play such games only to kill time while semis play for the sake of story – not unlike why you would read a book or watch a movie – or to kill time in between their other activities, while hard-cores have their games as their activities, and probably do some reading or something in between.

Seems like a perfect match of characteristics to have, right? Being an introvert and a hard-core gamer, one can avoid unwanted company by choosing to indulge and drown in their games. This might be the case before. But surely not anymore. With the new age of multiplayer gaming, many games (or rather, their developers) skimp on single player content and pump out loads on the multiplayer end. Take GTA V for example. 100% completion needs less things to be done than previous GTAs and its online component is treated as a standalone game with its own patches, content updates and all that.

This is my problem. How does an introvert play multiplayer games? Of course, it’s not that hard, and there are two methods – obvious ones, at least – to deal with this. One is just to play said multiplayer game like a single player, and whenever the compulsory multiplayer bits show up, just play with random strangers awkwardly like one would when interacting in real life. This, of course, gets boring after a while and defeats the purpose of playing a multiplayer game. Then there is the second method of playing with friends, the no-brainer solution with no compromises other than the fact that you need to be playing the same game at the same time, which is also easily arranged if you have time to be playing games in the first place.

However, I do have a problem with this solution. Of the handful of friends that I have, only slightly more than 10% of them I can consider gamers, and less than 5% I consider hard-core gamers. And with such small numbers, the chances of so few people having the same tastes in games is even smaller. Thus, I face problems like we don’t like the same kinds of game, we can’t afford to buy games that the other fellas have or not having or being able to afford the console to play the same games on; some of which, like the first, shouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

This is my problem. While I do enjoy playing what games we do manage to play together, I wish we could all be able to play all the games that everyone has together. I also wish more of my friends were gamers. Then these problems of mismatching interests, platforms etc. would be better than they are now, at least.

And I only realized I face such a problem thanks to my sticking my nose in matters not concerning myself, and that I have, with great difficulty and to great lengths, convinced myself that I want to know nothing about anymore. So I guess curiosity can really kill the cat and that the burden of knowledge is indeed a heavy one. No wonder ignorance is bliss.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.