The Story Of The Shy Gamers

I attended a holiday party this last weekend and noticed something startling.

My friend had asked me to bring over Rock Band, so I did. When I got to his house there were already a couple dozen people milling about. It was time to get the party’s energy up, so I shut down the holiday muzak and booted up The Beatles Rock Band. A few people “oohed” over the game’s opening cenematic, but then went back to hanging out by the food and talking in little clicks.

I played the game with a few close friends for a while, but we couldn’t get anyone else to join in on the action. Understandably, there were people from all walks of life at this party, and I know they weren’t all gamers, but I was surprised how hard it was to get anyone else to come over and play Rock Band. Some of them looked genuinely interested, but they were too timid to come and play.

“I’m just gonna watch for a bit.”

You’d think I was asking them to step onstage in front of millions of real people and perform in their underwear.

After a while my two friends and I set down our instruments and went to play shuffleboard in the basement. Five minutes later I ran upstairs, and I could hear people in the other room playing Rock Band. Everyone who had watched us play for an hour, refusing to join under our prodding, had finally wandered over to the game once no one was looking.

After that, I couldn’t get people off the instruments. We played until 3AM.

What’s disturbing is that I’ve noticed instances similar to this occur during industry events and conventions that filled with people who work in the industry and play games all the time. Some people just don’t want to play a game while someone else is looking over their shoulder?

I’ve also noticed this phenomenon with board games and sports. The older we get, the more wary we are of trying something new, it would seem.

This never happened when I was a kid. You couldn’t play a game for more that five minutes without someone trying to grab the controller out of your hands. What is it about adults that makes us wary of playing with strangers? Where does this false sense of politeness come from?

Have we lost our sense of wonder?

Are we too concerned about what others will think if we under perform?

The moral of the story is don’t be afraid to play. Next time someone hands you a controller don’t shove it off on someone else. You never know what new experience a game will open up for you, or how many new stories you’ll have to tell after it’s done, or the new friends you’ll make in the process.

That is what games are for.

Have fun.