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derenger · 4 years ago

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Growing up, parenting and gaming - Longread on life, computer games and finding yourself

This longread is dedicated to and written for all those current and former kids, who had or have troubles growing up, taking decisions, finding themselves in the world they live in, who play games independently of age and – perhaps – have not lost their love for a good game, good times and good buddies.

Perhaps it will help someone in their life. If that happens – I shall think of this writing as useful and my time writing it as not completely wasted.

The ideas have been on my mind for over 2 years now (they started getting very clear when I started doing therapy) and I have to put them on paper now.

Here it goes.

I grew up in the 90s in Eastern Europe. After the USSR collapsed millions of people found themselves without work, perspectives and means of existence. We were lucky that my dad had a good job that was paid in hard currency, however he was barely home – and by that I mean like seeing him 2 or 3 times a month.

We had good living conditions compared to others and my mom did the best she could too take care of my younger bro and me.

The first time we were exposed to computer games was when I was like 7 and my bro was 5 – in the office where the boyfriend of our aunt has been working. We played Dangerous Dave, Scorched Earth, Socoban, Digger, Civilization, The Incredible Machine and some others I do not recall the names. And of course, we liked it and it did not take long for our dad to install them on his PC at home. 2 years later my best buddy got Doom 2 installed on his PC and that was the absolute blast. We spent weeks trying to figure out how to get through level 2 and it was a big holiday when our buddy finally did.

My dad tried to restrict TV and computer time per week, so we always opted for the PC. Over time I learned to turn it on by myself and play when there was no one at home. My dad did not know.

A couple of our friends had 8bit consoles - soviet bootlegs of Super Nintendoes, with TMNT and Chip n Dale, but that was probably it. After all, we were living in a small village with not that many possibilities to make money.

When I was 10 we moved to a bigger city into a 1 room apartment. All 4 of us. This was 1996. 2 other very important things:

We started going to a far bigger school than before, where the mood was totally different from what we were used to. We were bullied and beaten, could not get along with other pupils and teachers and no one actually cared.

Father was home every day.

I mean, father was present home every day. It is not like he spent time with us doing sports or whatever. He just had any idea what to do with us as this was his first long time exposure to kids in the 11 years we were a family.

He was more of an authoritarian guy – we were not supposed to waste time in gaming clubs, listen to stupid music (Prodigy, Beastie Boys), we should have studied well, read books, have been doing sports and in general act like good kids.

We were doing some martial arts sports cause mom brought us there. We were taking music classes cause “everyone has to”. We were supposed to help out at home. We were not supposed to hang out with “bad” kid or stay outside till late hours. We were not supposed to smoke, swear and simulate illness to miss classes. We were not supposed to get into trouble.

It is not like we were putting a lot of thought into it. We just moved to the city from rural area and frankly speaking were absolutely not happy about. I guess we just went with the flow.

This was also the time when the first “gaming spot” in town opened – they had 2 Sega Mega Drives II and 1 Sony PlayStation. MK3, MK3 Ultimate, Contra Hard Cops, Golden Axe, some samurai fighting games for the Sega. SPS – Red Alert, Twisted Metal, Duke Nukem, Doom and of course – an incredible breakthrough for its time – Quake 2. And that was a revelation. I recall mom giving us money from time to time. To go play. Sega cost like 1 buck and hour, SPS – 1,5 bucks – far more expensive, so we played mainly on Sega.

At the same time we did have some games at home – Doom, Power Formula 1, Lines, the same Civilization, Lion King, Alladin, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Gods and Dune 2000. Dad did not want to allow us play games. Like, at all. Don’t ask me why he never deleted the games. The PC was mainly used for him to work. So when he left home, he took the power cable of the monitor and closed it in his spare suitcase. What we did was to unplug the cable from the printer and use for the monitor. Later on he hid both cables – from the monitor and the PC in the suitcase. I found a way to open the suitcase with a very fine flat screwdriver. Mom hid the fact from our dad for a while until he noticed the suitcase was “broken”. I believe they did not speak with each other for a week. But I am still proud of the fact of cracking that suitcase! Fuck yeah!

Things started getting worse when I transferred to a lyceum - 1998. I was 12. This was like a gymnasium for hardcore science-kids, where they went deep into math and natural sciences. I was hysterical the first 2 years as I was barely making the program. Even my dad had troubles solving the math they gave us. Music classes turned to shits. I had no time nor mood for sport. But I had to keep doing it all. Just because. There were a couple of bullies in class, whose parents bribed the management of the school so that their kids would have fancy graduation papers at the end and frankly speaking no one could get a grip on them. That had me very depressed.

Around 13 I started stealing money from my parents and missing classes to go to computer clubs – their number was getting bigger every week, consoles started to disappear. Half Life, CS 1.6, Age of Empires 2, Q3, D2 1.07, Black and White, SimCity 2000, NOX, StarCraft Brood War and many other games had our full attention. The biggest part of it was the fact you could play with or against your friends! That was so fucking awesome! At the same time I started discovering sci-fi and rock music, but that is a different story.

We stole a lot of money from our parents in those times and missed a lot of classes and of course after 3 or 4 months it all got revealed. Boy oh boy our dad smoked us. That was very very tough for a kid when all the things he actually liked were taken from him. Dark times when we were seriously asking ourselves what the hell our parents wanted from us as aside from the stuff they told us to do they never really told us what was it for. Everything else was useless, stupid or waste of time.

Somehow my marks at school got better closer to graduation and I graduated almost with a medal, went to university. I remember they had this PC club with like 200 PCs and from time to time we skipped one or the other lecture to play Starcraft or CS, but very quickly boozing with buddies became the major leisure activity and pushed gaming to the back. I did pretty well at the university, made my master with excellence and that was it – 6 years flew by in a blink of an eye.

I got my own PC during the first year at the uni, played a bit of Warcraft 3, HOMM 3, Quake 3, Lineage II but it was not like I was deep into that. I remember after defending my master I spent like 3 days playing Crysis without anyone saying a word. I mean, I was through with the university. I was free!

Soon after that I went on to work abroad as a project engineer in the chemical industry.

At the moment I am doing sales engineer for a good salary in Berlin, I am married and except for the Corona and all the restrictions it brought life seems ok.

During the last 10 years of my “adult” life I have been in many different situations. I have been very sick a couple of times, running on the edge of life and death. I have been in some useless relations that only drained energy and nerves from me. I also have been diagnosed with depression and burnout at some point, did therapy and consider myself fully recovered from both. I’ll be summarizing it all below.

When I look at my life it did occur to me that gaming was far more important than just the sheer desire to shoot buddies and skip school.

Growing up under the conditions where everything is predetermined one does not really get the chance to expose your own wish. After all, my parents both come from very unhappy families and did not have the exactly best examples of parenting.

It occurred to me that they never really cared about anything we achieved – whether in school, music or sports. I recall a couple of times when I did really good, like winning the City-contest in English language or getting my first “good” in algebra in 7th grade as that shit was extremely tough. I do not recall any reaction. In fact, mom and dad put their close attention to us only when things started getting really bad, like when we were skipping classes or got arrested for setting up fireworks in a crowded place. We never really got any positive feedback for anything we did because our parents just had no idea how to do that. I do not blame them – they were trying their best from their own experience.

And gaming was the absolute opposite to all of that.

Going to computer clubs we knew exactly that we were surrounded by like-minded lads. We made some good friends along the way – lads, who were always ready to jam on de_dust or bring their D2 chars to share some loot. One of the owners of the club had a daughter who was really good in Q3 – I remember everyone has been looking at her like she was some sort of demigod. The games gave us the space and playground we needed so much – clear even rules for everyone. If you frag – you win. If you don’t – you lose. If you suck – the older guys would always help with a couple of tips. Games also gave us control. I really liked the games where you went on an adventure, like NOX or Will Rock or serious Sam. Gaming also gave us the space to take our own decisions and suffer the full consequences if these were wrong – getting overrun by zerglings or getting fragged with rocket launcher with QUAD DAMAGE.

Gaming clubs were our safe space. At some point our dad did raid the computer clubs and did bust us a couple of times. Sure we got beaten on those occasions.

I recall my bro being very proud on getting 1st in the national 2v2 ladder in SC:BW later in the uni. He also used to game the whole night long at my parents place. This was over 10 years ago and they still do not know. He is still very good in SC though he does not play anymore.

I do play sometimes – currently grinding D2 and refreshing my knowledge in chess. I do not have more time for any other more or less serious game.

I am slowly approaching the point where I should write a conclusion – it is going to be quite simple. Gaming was the first opportunity to take my life into my own hands. It took me 32 years of my own life to find the power in me to take responsibility for myself and not to rely on someone else. My decision – my choice – my consequences. It took a lot of trouble and turmoil for me to get to this point and finally embracing the power within feels great. It was also the first surrounding of dudes just like me, which was a very good feeling back then.

During the last 6 months I switched to a job that pays almost the double of my previous one, my wife moved in with me from abroad, we have a nice apartment and are looking forward to vacations in the Alps. I still have to find a way to approach my parents though I am not sure the old hive is worth disturbing. I guess time will tell.

Whenever I am down or things do no go according to play – I do turn to gaming occasionally, just to get back into the world where I am in full control. It gives me power and I guess hope that everything will work out. If not now – then over time. You just have to keep practicing. And ask for help when it is needed.

I hope you found this read interesting.

#life #gaming #adulthood #friends

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