14. Getting it out in public.

What do we have to do to make gaming for grown-ups more socially acceptable?

I was on a training course recently and after lunch was eaten we had half an hour or so to kill. Some of the group jumped in a couple of cars and headed to the nearest pub for a swift half before the afternoon session. Another bunch wandered off for a smoke and a mooch about the industrial estate we were on. The rest just sort of hung about the training room making idle chitchat and snaffling the last few sausage rolls, and prawn vol-au-vents.

None of us did what Nintendo and Nokia, and soon even Sony, want us to do. No one whipped-out a GBA or an N-Gage for a quick shot at the next level, or to challenge colleagues to a frantic multiplayer session. Hell, no-one even so much as thought of a game of Snake. The question is: “why not?”

To be fair, this might be one reason why we hide our passions?

For my part, half the answer is lack of suitable equipment. My portable games get played on an Atari Lynx (original model I'll have you know) but as I don't have shares in Duracell it never gets very far away from a home power adaptor. But even if I had an SP, would I be prepared to get it out in public? I like to think I would, but the nagging doubts over what people might think or do remain. OK, so I'm in my 30s now and don't anticipate the class bully attempting to wrench the thing from my nervous grasp and throwing it out the window, but there are other worries.

After all, we all know games are for kids, especially Gameboy games. Christ, that machine even has “boy” in its name and thus defines itself with child-like terms. Who the hell is going to embarrass themselves by playing kids games in front of a mix of colleagues and strangers? Especially, when you have a whole afternoon of wanting your contributions to the feedback sessions to be taken seriously.

"If he gets a GBA out, I am so going to sleep with him."

Then you get the financial side of gaming to consider. Don't know about you, but whenever I'm thrown-in with a bunch of miscellaneous people from the same organization, the talk inevitably turns to finding out just how much everyone earns. Not directly of course, but through where people live, what their house is worth, what sort of car they drive, where they are going on holiday. All the clues that lead you to deduce that officer ‘X’ earns more than technician ‘Y’ but less than Manager ‘Z’. Who wants to be the one to admit to blowing your hard-earned cash on games when there are office status points to be won?

You can't even pull-out the latest copy of Edge to browse because that marks you out as someone who doesn't interact with the group. And even if you did, someone else would pipe up about the quality of the latest obscure novel they are reading and why it is going to win tons of awards – even though clearly it’s actually just another worthy but tedious read and not nearly as enjoyable as finding the next coin to unlock level six.

But for all that, I’m not sure that I want to hide my passions any more. For one thing, MrsB has already hinted that she might buy me an SP this Birthday. If that happens, next time I get trained it will be riding along with me. And should the opportunity arise I will indeed whip it out. I'm not going to cower behind so-called respectability or normalcy. I play games and I enjoy them and why shouldn't other people know that? But blimey the thought still worries me.

"He's, he's 'playing' a 'game'. Filthy child molesting pervert."

So, I urge you to do the same. You might even be surprised to see your initiative repeated across the buffet table. Sales figures show there are loads of us out there buying these things so there must be someone close to you who does the same. It might lead to a new friendship, someone to swap completed titles with or more. It might reveal some nasty prejudices too but this is the 21st century and high time they got demolished. Perhaps you will even provide a benefit for the rest of the learning experience - what better team-building and problem solving task could there be than a four-player link up to tackle some Zelda dungeons? Whatever, it's got to be better than listening to some team leader banging on about his time share, loft conversion or new water feature.

simonb, February 2004.

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