What's not known is that the cultural significance of the game is that it is the recognized spiritual founder of every adventure-themed video game – and, by extension, many of the movies – around today. J.R.R. Tolkien imagined much of the fantasy universe, but it was Mr. Gygax who let players move in. The New York Times reports that he sold $1 billion in books and equipment. But despite such numbers, the game and gamers like me were pushed to the fringes of society, tainted by links to being an occult during my childhood even though D&D was roughly as satanic as an episode of Bewitched.
I've read a news article about his death and the kind of gamers which D&D attracted which probably is the reason on why I am in my current profession.
There's no denying Mr. Gygax's game drew a certain kind of person – most of the time, we preferred books to basketballs, and the only time you would see us running on the football field is if we were trying to get away from a linebacker who was trying to give us a wedgie.
We would grow up to be engineers, artists and maybe a journalist or two. But back then, the game gave us a safe harbor during the stormy passage from youth to adulthood. More accurately, the people we played with – on our parents' castoff dining room tables, with bags of chips and liters of soda almost crowding out the gaming materials – became both anchor and shelter.
Indeed the game gave us a safe harbor and a place for imagination.
Farewell Gary and thanks for the childhood of friendships and fantasies I've made.
No comments:
Post a Comment