These magic artifacts have been present since I was a kid of four or five years old. In my article: “videogames, the eighth art”, I describe one of my first encounters with the marvelous world of virtual reality. This afternoon I was remembering when I saw the Atari 2600 that my godfathers gave me for Christmas. It meant hours of fun with my brothers and cousins dragging the little frog from one side of the highway to another, or drowning a poor man in the marshy pit of Pitfall. For me, a little kid with skinny legs watching all from the couch with a two-handled cup of warm coffee and milk on my hands (not really playing, though), it was wonderful. From that point on videogames of all kinds just stayed around me and I hope it remains that way till the end. And it´s not just because I enjoy them. I consider videogames more than entertainment. Of course, as I said before in my other articles, there are many types of games and it´s true that a lot of them are just for fun.
But there is a universe. PC games, back in the prehistoric MS-DOS era, proved that there was something else behind the bit-map graphic slot-machines. I´m talking about Alone in the Dark (1992), for example, the predecessor of the survival-horror genre (one of my personal favorites). Stories became an important element, you could actually talk with people(?) to find out what was happening around you. Does somebody remember The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)? If posterity holds a space for this topic, I expect the adventures of Guybrush Threepbush be in it like the Greek Myths are a part of literature studies. That’s for sure.
Anyway, now videogames (like everything) are becoming a trend. Capitalism has had its way, and youtube is filled with people chatting about retro-gaming, vintage consoles and collection editions. I feel sad because it always ends up in this buy-this-buy-that compulsion. In my particular case more than ninety percent of videogames that I´ve played have been pirate copies and emulators.
I treasure videogames because of the worlds (the programming behind scenes, the graphic designs, the sounds, the story that encircles you), and not because of what it cost or what it looks like in the original box. I´m sorry. That´s the way it works in my country, it´s almost impossible to obey the law and follow the rules. If you want to play a game you´ll have to get it by yourself. The video & electronics stores are (almost) nonexistent and the prices can make you cry if you look too close. I know that by playing pirate copies the main designers –the ideologist, the creators- whom I admire (my regards to John Romero & John Carmack) are not receiving their respective benefits. But, first of all, I´m talking about old games, “abandonwares”, forgotten tricky programs, and they are world heritage for God´s sake. I don’t really like modern games, not that I have many opportunities to play them. Finally, what I consider to be the most important thing is the “culture” that we healthily create about this fantastic art.
I think that’s the best reward for a good, kind creator: to see his creature free, playing and living among us.
What do you think?