How did I end up here?

I didn’t want to play Battlefield 3. Not at all. Really. I didn’t know anything about the game except that it was swedish (like me) and that you could blow the walls up. Couldn’t care less about blowing up walls. Why would I want to blow up walls?

And there is nothing strange about that – there are billions of people that have no idea of what Battlefield is, don’t know, don’t care. But I, by any definition, am a gamer.

I have played Boulderdash and Decathlon on the Atari 2600 and juggled the joystick until my arm was numb. I am a part of the Zelda generation and my eyes tear up from the Kid Icarus music. My thumbs have been blistered by Tekken. I have walked the Neverwinter Nights Underdark and in the most excited moments I actually considered (albeit briefly and  at a very late hour) tattooing ”property of Bioware” across my heart. I consider Resident Evil 4 to be one of the best games ever made, and  I have astonished and enraptured died a thousand humiliating deaths in Demon’s souls. In between, I have played loads of non-digital games: D&D, Magic the Gathering, Risk… I have puzzled, fought, grinded, leveled, micro-managed inventories, hunted for treasures, hoarded points, negotiated, unlocked combos and been constantly fascinated by the progress of graphics, depth of gameplay and the ever multiplying possibilities.

I have never played an fps.

The idea that I might like it never occurred to me -  in fact, I have deliberately avoided  them.  
Sure, I know what they look like, how they play out. I’ve seen  them, I’ve had  fps gaming friends. I even spent some time at LAN-parties with friends like a hundred years ago. But I never bought an fps-game or played through  one. Neverevervever, My disinterest bordered on resentment. And there is really just one reason for this.

You see, I have a slight disability when it comes to fps gaming. I am  handicapped, one might say.  And it’s not a lack of spatial awareness or motion sickness. It’s a deficit that makes me basically unqualified to play these kinds of games. Problem is, I lack a penis.  

There, I said it. I’m a woman. And the fps-world is probably the most male dominated, aggressively misogynist environment a western woman will encounter. Our very gender is an insult. Pick one: girl, bitch, lady, pussy. Women who play? Tits or GTFO. A female will stand out like a broken  thumb and everything you do will be seen as representative för your sex. If you suck at the game it will be a confirmation of how useless women are, since you are never just a noob when you are female. You are first and foremost a girl, and will be regarded in that light - you are probably a hundred times more likely to be called an attention seeking whore than a noob. So why would I ever want to expose myself to that kind of shit? I don’t need to. I don’t want to. Nevereverever.

And along came the Battlefield 3 beta for the PS3. I do not remember how  I ever was convinced to download it. I had so many other long awaited titles that fall – Uncharted 3, Dark Souls, Skyrim;  pre-ordered since forever.

They are collecting dust on a shelf. Barely half  finished. Hard to grasp, considering how amazing all those games actually are. But nowadays I only love Battlefield 3. Which also is kinda hard to grasp, since our relationship started with…