Eight Signs That You’re A Hardcore Gamer

1. When you reach the ticket counter at the movies, you always tell them “no tickets for me thanks, I don’t care for movies – I prefer INTERACTIVE stories where I control the characters myself!” Preach it, player!

2. You go to a tattoo parlour and ask for a tattoo of Lunos the Star Traveller, your favourite SEGA mascot from the classic 1995 platformer. “Mate, I’ve been gaming my whole life, and I ain’t never heard of no Lunos”, the scrub of a tattoo artist tells you. You roll your eyes. “You’re not a REAL gamer”, you tell him. “I wouldn’t let you defile my skin”. BOOM, headshot!

3. You just can’t connect with your parents because they’re not into the same games as you. “Your mother and I are worried”, your dad tells you on a grey winter morning while the rest of the family watch from a distance, the car engine already running. “We’re trying so hard to connect but you won’t let us in.” You shake your head and deliver a devastating own about his pathetic K:DR. Consider THAT n00b well and truly tubed!

4. Your dreams change. There’s a voice that you can never quite hear properly, whispering words you don’t understand. It comes every night from the blackness beyond the stars. You take some solace in being unable to fathom the voice’s obscene poetry. Try and beat THAT high score!

5. The phone rings late at night. You take a swig of Mountain Dew, pause your game and answer. It’s Deborah. “James, where are you?”, she asks. “We’re all here. It’s your birthday, remember? Hello? Are you there? Did you forget?”. You hang up without a word. Your score climbs higher and higher. Chuggin’ and chargin’ like a TRUE pro-gamer!

6. You don’t remember buying the no-doze pills, but the entire bottle is empty. Better warn Player 2, cos Player 1’s a REAL GAMER!

7. It’s 4am. You haven’t left the couch in days. Your PS4 overheated but you kept pushing the buttons on your controller for a full ten minutes before you noticed. You peel yourself off the couch and stare out the window at the full moon. It’s the biggest moon you’ve ever seen. Bigger than it should be. Bigger than seems even possible. Without eyes, it stares back at you. You hear the voice again, growing louder. You realise you’ve been hearing it for days.

Your heart struggles in its race to pump the blood you need for the trial ahead through your atrophied body. You understand now. You were too good at gaming. This is the price that the true gamers must pay. The foul words are in another tongue, but you understand their message now. You try to drop the controller in your hands, but you realise that you cannot, for it is fused to your flesh. There is no place where the controller ends and you begin. You are one.

8. Your mates won’t even play Call of Duty with you anymore, cos you PWN them, OLD-SKOOL style! Someone get Captain Price on the phone!