I remember the first video game I ever played. I was nine years old. It was only after much begging and pleading (and a few tantrums) from my younger brother and me that my parents had gotten us a Sega Genesis for Christmas. Yes, this was many years after the console had first been released, but at four and nine years old, my brother and I didn’t care. In addition to the console, my parents had gotten us one game, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I remember holding the rather large and bulky 16-bit cartridge and thinking that I had the entire world at my fingertips. After the opening the rest of our gifts and breakfast my brother and I set up the console, popped in the cartridge, and played, for hours. Being the older (and of course wiser) of the two, I got to play first. I remember that I had to do the first level six or seven times before I finally got through it. For some, the fact that they couldn’t get through the level on the first try would have frustrated them. For me, I was just happy to be playing.
When I graduated from grade school my parents gave me a green Game Boy Pocket with seven games. I had hit the jackpot. That entire summer I played that Game Boy, beating every game I had, except for Zelda, which to this day I still cannot beat. I continued playing console and handheld games until my freshman year of college. Sure my family may have only had the Sega Genesis and the Game Boy (growing up we never owned a computer fast enough to play games), but I had friends who had the SNES, Nintendo 64 and eventually the Playstation. I would convince them to invite me over, under the ruse that we could study for a test, or watch a movie together. Once there, I chose the most boring movie I could think of. It wasn’t long until they suggested we play their console. Throughout those first eight years of gaming, it never dawned on me that it was someone’s job to make those games I was playing. It never dawned on me that perhaps making games was something I could do.
Freshman year of college came and I matriculated, along with 4,000 other students, to Boston University. I had been accepted as a biology major, chemistry minor. I wanted to be a Marine Biologist when I grew up. I had spent the obligatory arm and leg to purchase my books, I had stocked up on colored highlighters, pens, notebooks, and I had spent half of my graduation money to buy a state of the art Hewlett Packard desktop computer. I was ready to go!
| "Begrudgingly I paused the game and dragged myself to dinner. I remember thinking that dinner wasn’t particularly tasty that night, and that I would rather be eating cereal in my room while playing the game." | ||
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