The other day I had a short interaction with @James in a thread, in which it was asked “what single sub would you choose if you could only run one?” or something of that sort, and I answered with GMX, but then the thought James had about asking me “why?” stuck in my head for a while, and it had me reflecting on that thought today.
A lot of people know me on here for having a life full of success, romantic adventures, and some unexplainable occurrences, but what most people don’t really know much about is the fact that at my core, I’m just an extremely geeky gamer.
Gaming has always been a part of my life, when I was alone, I had single player story games that took me to different worlds and experiences, making me believe I was someone else, something else, and when I had friends over, I had multiplayer games that always sparked a flame of intense rivalry and competition, and when I was going through dark times, I had online games with huge communities full of supportive people who I could always relate to.
In my opinion, gaming shows you who you are, it reveals your character, and without even having to go searching for stories, I can tell you all that I have been suicidal because of a game: League of Legends.
A game filled with extreme intensity, competition, and excitement, and that’s what hooked me in, like countless others, and as I got better with the game, it turned into an obsession, or should I say… an addiction?
This obviously did not go as nicely as one would think, as the addiction had its own side effects, some of them being: anger issues, which always came about whenever I’d be on a losing streak, depressive and suicidal thoughts, that rose up from me thinking I’m never gonna be good enough to be a pro, and obviously health issues due to lack of sleep and excessive hand movement.
This was bad, because it even lead to me constantly being disappointed with myself everytime I lost, and over what? Some points in a game?
It doesn’t really make sense to me now that I think about it, and most of you reading this would think “that’s pretty stupid of you”, and I absolutely agree, yet at that time, it was all that mattered to me, and my girlfriend would also with agree as I have ditched her many times for the sake of “one more game” (we all know it’s never just “one more”).
The addiction was real, the money spent was insane (on skins that are purely just cosmetic), and the withdrawals I would get when I wouldn’t be playing were just horrible, but it took me a while, and finally I was free of the game, and broke my addiction.
However, it left a hole in my being, cause as I said, I’m a gamer at my core, and without playing, I feel empty, and no amount of sex, money, or status can fill that void, and I’m sure some people such as @GoldenTiger @Moon @bombayduck and even @SaintSovereign would remember that I used to say that even with everything I have, I just felt empty, and in a way, it did feel lonely, until I stumbled upon a video where a guy was super excited about the release of Street Fighter 6, apparently, it was the most anticipated fighting game at that time, and somehow that video got me captivated, and moments after finishing the video, I pre-ordered the game, not knowing much about anything except for the things the guy mentioned, about how good the game would be, and then I went ahead and binged hours upon hours about the previous games (I only ever played a bit of 4), as well as the story of the game’s characters, which got me hooked, and it seemed like the cycle was about to repeat… but did it?
The game came out in June 6th, and from that day onwards, I kept playing it non-stop, no matter how bad I was, I still kept feeling like it was fun, even when I lost, I felt so much enjoyment, simply because I learned something even in my losses, and that’s when I restarted GMX, and each day I would fall more in love with game, winning or losing didn’t matter, all it did was that I was enjoying the game and myself.
Fast forward to January 26th of this year, and another game was released: Tekken 8, now this game… I’ve never played a single Tekken game in my entire life, yet something about this game had my attention, and for some reason, I wanted to try it out, and found out something about myself from the moment I played the game:
The fighting game genre makes me feel so good because it helps me grow as a person in ways that nothing else does.
Resilience.
Humility.
Learning from defeat.
Never giving up in the face of a challenge.
All those things, and many more, were learned through Street Fighter 6, and then Tekken 8 came in my life and made those apparent to me.
I got the game on the first of Feb, so that I can track my growth and adaption to the game, and yes I have been on GMX throughout my play time so far, and in the last 2 months and 10 days, this is where I reached:
Most of you who don’t know about the game won’t know what this even means, so here is a chart about the ranks:
I’m now considered an elite player, yet this whole time, I have had 0 obsession over the ranks, to the point I bought the game AGAIN on my laptop as well, just so I can start all over again to learn more, and that was not the kind of person I was before, like “starting from scratch? Why would anyone even think it would be a good idea?” would have been my thoughts before, but now? I’d even make a third account to do it all over again, because the fun part is in seeing the growth WHILE learning more, not just some points on a leaderboard.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why I love gaming, and why GMX is always going to be the sub to stay in my stack, even if it was the only one there.
every person need to find their tekken or tekkens. 
a lot to take in.