Confessions of a Girl Gamer

Written by Michelle Villanueva  on May 24, 2006

Specials: Confession #46: I hate pink. The color, not the singer, though sometimes I think she's annoying too.

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How does the birth of a gamer start? What alchemic reactions must be put together? How must the stars align? Which animals must be sacrificed to the gaming gods? And most importantly, which videogame console controller must be placed into the young prodigy's hands? A lot of this has to do with the person's age, of course. There are many gamers who evolved their prowess on the oddly bean-shaped Sega controller or the rectangular controller of the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Ergonomics? What the hell's that? So long as the controller fit, you were good to go. Who worried about carpel tunnel syndrome in 9 year olds anyway?

In many ways, my story mirrors many other gaming origins, I'm just of a different gender than most. I've often wondered why this is, and if I am an abnormality in the world of gamers. Certainly, the stereotype suggests all gamers are guys, but this can't simply be the case. I don't know how much gender roles influenced which toys I played with. I don't know if being an only child with no brothers or sisters as role models (and no real female peers my age in the neighborhood) made me seek out male playmates. Sure, my best friend was a boy, but he and his buddies never teased me for being the only girl in the group. I guess I fell into gaming because nobody else wanted to play My Little Pony.

For me, we have to step back a generation in home videogame consoles in order to find out where the seeds were planted. Let's revisit that magical year of 1982. The nation was getting its first taste of Reaganomics, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, and the world lost John Belushi. The highest grossing movie that year was a little film called E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. And I was well on my way to transforming into the wreck of a human being writing this column for you now. My first exposure to videogames was at the local pizza parlor, which had the dubious distinction of being the first restaurant in a 10 mile radius to obtain a table-top Space Invaders machine. That thing swallowed too much of my allowance, along with a gigantic amount of my free time. Did I care? No, of course not. I was too busy saving the planet from extremely well-organized aliens.

I had my epiphany during summer vacation, when I visited my cousins in Los Angeles. They had an Atari 2600 and the home version of Asteroids. A home version of a videogame? That was unheard of! Until recently, you had to actually go out of your house and track down which places had videogame machines, and even if you found one, you still have to share with other people! But a home console, though more expensive, had the distinct advantage of not being in a pizza parlor for the rest of the universe to gawk at. And even better, as an only child, I would never have to share.

So, there I was, hand in hand with my mom and dad in front of the entrance to Woolworth's at Christmas, ready to take the gigantic leap from pizza parlor hobo to home gaming. I procured an Atari 2600 that December. It came bundled with two games: Combat and Pac-Man. Who really cared that the Atari Pac-Man bared no resemblance to the famous arcade dot-chomper? The point was you didn't have to call dibs on the damn machine. It was mine. All mine. Oh, and another bonus game arrived with my Atari, a little game called E.T.

Many online gaming diatribes have thrown up their bile at this little game. Everybody knows the origins of it. One of the most famous videogame licensing snafus of all time, it was a huge blunder and still being talked about today. The development of the actual game took a month. The gameplay was simple: you had to guide E.T. through a series of screens while trying not to fall into traps or get caught by The Man, represented here by a guy in a trenchcoat. Why? I have no idea! At least they didn't digitally replace rifles with walkie-talkies like what Spielberg did when the movie got released to DVD. But I digress. The gist of the gameplay was simplistic, bordering on idiotic.

And I couldn't get enough of it.

Call me a gaming masochist, but I spent hours trying to get E.T. to build a device to Уphone home.Ф I suffered through the inexplicable traps and avoided capture. I even managed to get E.T. in the right place and at the right time so he was actually rescued. Yes, I was so starved for home-based videogame magic that I waded through piles of excrement seeking it. I was probably insane to do it, and I didn't take the option so many other gypped kids took and returned their E.T. video cartridges to the store of their origin. After a few years, my Atari (along with the multitude of games I acquired for it) got sent to church thrift store heaven.

I sometimes wonder if actively exposing myself (well, that sounds slightly dirty) made me any better as a gamer. Have I grown to appreciate the work that goes into a videogame? Yes, of course. Do I still have a healthy dislike for games based on movies and television shows? You bet. Sometimes, however, while perusing the deepest darkest corners of the Interwebs, I grow curiously nostalgic for the games of the past. It's like going into the It's a Small World ride at Disneyland: you enter to remind yourself about why you dislike the thing so much in the first place. I've played emulated E.T., and nothing really matches the visceral feel of the Atari joystick in one's awkward hands, desperately trying to make E.T. float up and out of a dank hole. You can't go home again, but I guess you can see if home is as painful as you remembered it.

And I never did figure out why the E.T. videogame never included a flying bicycle sequence. Thankfully, I never will.