My relationship with video games goes back to when I was a little kid. I have vague memories of playing those browser flash games on a computer when I was in kindergarten, but I don’t really consider those to be my first. What I do consider to be my first is Pokemon FireRed, as that was the first game I actually sat down and played for hours on end. I got it as a birthday gift from one of my cousins along with a GameBoy Advanced. I was in the first grade at the time. A few years later, my parents  bought me a Nintendo DS, Pokemon Pearl, and Mario Kart DS for another birthday back in like the 2nd or 3rd grade. My relationship with video games grew exponentially after that. All my friends had a DS too and they all liked Pokemon and Mario kart too and we played together all the time. I’d go over to their house and they’d come over to mine; it was great. We’d battle and trade every time we saw each other.

As time went on, we kept buying new games and new handhelds. When I started middle school, I got an Xbox 360 for my birthday and also Minecraft for the computer. I have very fond memories of both. I remember every single day after we got home, I’d hop on an Xbox live party or a Skype call and we’d play for hours and hours. I started to branch off into other kinds of games, like Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Team Fortress 2, Castle Crashers, Skate 3, and later on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and the whole Fire Emblem series. I had all kinds of different games and I have thousands of hours combined from all of them.

My relationship with video games now is slightly different. Most of my friends nowadays are too busy with school and work, so I mostly play games by myself. This isn’t so bad, though. I started to get even more into those story based, singleplayer, and virtual reality games and I’ve been having so much fun. Recently I’ve been really into Skyrim, Assassins Creed: Valhalla, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Rimworld, Noita, Stellaris, Wizard of Legend, and Saints Row 3 – and I’m buying the two new Pokemon games coming out this fall as soon as they go on shelves.

My relationship with video games is what actually led me to major in computer information systems. I originally wanted to become a game designer, so I took a bunch of programming in classes in high school. Two years later though, unfortunately, I realized that I hated programming. During my junior year, I wanted to play more PC games so I saved up money and built a computer that could run the ones I wanted (Battlefield 1 and GTA5, primarily). Building that computer was one of the funnest thing I’ve ever done and I discovered that I really enjoy the physical aspect of computers, and went with Networking as a career path. That old GameBoy Advanced and Pokemon FireRed directly led to my passion for computers.

I don’t really see my relationship with video games changing this semester (I don’t think it can get any stronger), but I’m really looking forward to playing Bioshock. I’ve heard so much about it, but never bought it until a few days ago.