Gaming Culture

The gaming culture is growing and growing nowadays, what with more and more people having access to broadband and therefore the Internet. I remember playing games a bit around the age of 10, until the day I got a broadband connection at home. Ever since then I have been part of the online gaming community, which tends to occupy a fair chunk of my life. Now that I think about it, I didn’t really play many games online until I was introduced to Steam. This is an online community just for games, it has its own store where you can purchase and download games, as well as friend and chat system. When online, it tells you what games your friends are playing and what server they are on. I have a Playstation 3 at home and Steam is far better for keeping track of friends and joining them. In my opinion I think it is better the Microsoft Live, plus its free :P
Anyway, gone off at a tangent as always. A friend at college said I should buy counterstrike, so I did, and unlike most people I really didn’t like it. Now I’m a big fps fan but it was just so dull, slow and good at killing your morale. Run round a corner, headshot, wait 5 minutes to respawn and same again. Another friend showed me Team Fortress 2 and what a game. I’ve been playing it since it was released up to this day and I still love it. Not just the gameplay, the art direction they took, the humour...crap I’m doing it again. Right, back to steam community. If I look at my friends list, only 5 of them I know in real life, out of 50 odd. Since playing TF2 I have joined a clan where I have got to know a lot of decent chaps, some i know really well now, even though I’ve never seen them in my life.
The clan I am in compete against hundreds of other clans all over Europe; some cups even offer prize money to the winners. There are huge gaming festivals where thousands of gamers go to compete in tournaments.
Some people say that games take always peoples social life, stop them from exploring the outside world and people. On the other hand, you get to meet many new people and talk to them, not just typing, which makes things far better, you really get to know people well, and have a great laugh in game. I’m glad to be part of an thriving community and will be for many years to come, hopefully.