Thursday, February 6, 2014

Gamer?

For most of my life I would have labeled myself as a gamer. These days not so much. I think it really hit me the other day when I went into Gamestop to trade my xbox 360 in for an Ouya. Yes, the Ouya is a gaming system, but for me it is not really a gaming system. I have owned a system of every generation beginning with the Super Nintendo. I have often traded in to trade up to the next gen, but this year I feel like I traded down. I think that World of Warcraft ruined the console for me. I first played in 2004/2005. Since that point I quickly switched over to computer games. The years that followed I went back and forth canceling and rejoining WoW. I often looked for replacements to alleviate the addiction to grind, very few other games compensated for what I want from WoW, except Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Everytime WoW's monthly hurt the bills I would drop it and fall back to Elder Scrolls. I did not play much of the others in the series, only testing out the brother-in-law's copies every once in a while. I often purchased consoles years after they came out and really only played with others rather than by myself. By my lonesome I usually resorted to the comp once again. Finally with college over and a steady income I finally purchased into the new Android mobile phone, that I heard was easy to code apps for. Convinced the wifey that I needed the phone to understand it and what I needed to do to make apps for it. Taking less than a semester of coding in college I sat myself down and began to study online how to create these apps. This learning process was time consuming but fun and became my new addiction. My ideas for apps were numerous but my skills were pathetic. I finally resorted to adjusting some of the premade google apps and eventually turned a call log into my first app. Surprisingly people were installing it even though it was crap. After a long year or so I greatly improved my programing skills and surprisingly that same simple call log continued to be my best revenue of all the apps, even though my best was still not that great. Although I am happy that I eventually got a game out on the market, I was not so elated that it is nearly impossible to attract people into playing a Math game. Yes, I have more ideas for games and even have worked on a slots game that some of you have tested out, but my skills still lack for what I need for a solid game. Going back to school I'm hoping will help and maybe finally I will be able to use my years as a gamer to good. Now, coming back from a year without console or major computer games and nothing but Facebook and mobile games and no programming, luckily I have my generous brother-in-law to hook me up with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Quickly putting in many hours and staying up late to play reminds me of the good old days, and even though I did trade in that xbox I feel like I can retain my gamer status when you find out what xbmc.org is and why you too may want an Ouya!

No comments:

Post a Comment