I can honestly say that I've been asked a million times why I play games and I normally just shrug and say it's a hobby, but that's a lie – because when I’m in game, I’m at home.

From the flames of Cataclysm, to the icy mountains of Tamriel, anywhere I venture is the place I love and know.

My entire life, people preach that I could be anything that I wanted to be, but when I told them that I wanted to be the captain of a ship, a spaceship, the spaceship that saves humanity, that I wanted to be Commander Sheperd? They told me I needed to get a grip on reality.

And to them, a grip on reality means the American dream – working 9 to 5, crammed up in a tiny cubicle, having 2.5 kids, a two-story suburban house, and a white picket fence. I divorce once and I have debt into my early thirties because I took some bullshit university degree that’s supposed to help me in the end.

This isn’t reality! This is just a dull outlook on it. Now I understand it’s human nature to achieve greatness…but I can do this as Commander Shepard. I don’t need a degree, and if I want to go on and venture, I don’t ever have to leave the comfort of my own home!

Yet people spend an entire salary to travel, and I can’t help but LAUGH – I’ve single-handedly stopped a reign of ancient wyverns from destroying a nation!

But before I could do that, I had to learn their language, become a master in swordsmanship, smithing, archery, defence, magic, speech, hunting, and thieving, not to mention I had to take down an entire fleet of assassins along with a brigade of smugglers before I could even start my lessons in dragonspeak.

I’ve always enjoyed an adventure, but I hated pawning my limbs to afford an 18 hour car ride, and aside from being told that I can enjoy a white picket fence at the end of my career. All my years as a student was a balance between fractal formulas and believing I’d never be able to love, which is literal insanity.

I’ve saved Princess Peach, I wanted to be the guy and I became the guy. I saved Bandage Girl, and I’ve been Link for generations, just to save Princess Zelda. But yet, I’m the eternal virgin!?

I’m the guy that’s never going to love, and sometimes this shit doesn’t make sense to me. Why people assume that I need to be out doing something, and away from home, to have fun, when I have my own reality grasped between my hands.

I have my own world at my fingertips, if I screw something up, I can rewind time! I can’t do that in real life, but when I’m in-game, I’m free to do what I please, when I please.

I’m free to enjoy things the way I want to. I can build my own kingdom, and lead my people to freedom, because I’m the mind behind the game.

I’m the one who enjoys these games.

I am a gamer.

And I always will be.