So I own a lot of games. It's something i realized the other day. I have cabinets and boxes full of them. Pretty much every game I've liked, I've kept (except for Brave Fencer Musashi, oh how I regret that trade in.) The thing is, I have this nasty habit of loaning them out. Indefinitely.

I used to own 42 Sega Genesis cartridges, 4 controllers, and two AV cables. Now I own half of all of those. All my Xbox controllers, DDR pads, and games were loaned out and given away. I'm never going to get back a copy of PC Halo, two PS2 controllers with memory card, or my copy of Metal Gear Solid: the Twin Snakes. But I don't care. I allowed people who were unable to play video games. And that made them happy, which subsequently makes me happy.

Hardly a departure from the norm, titles on the PSN, and originally Steam were shared between all of my friends. My brother knows the logins for my PSN, so he downloaded a few games onto other people's PS3s. Yes, he used one of my six installs, but how can I feel bad about sharing games like Castlevania:SOTN, Street Fighter 2, MVC2, Megaman 9, and Battlefield 1943? These are games I love, and sharing them with other people gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies. It also helps when we get random texts from people saying "oh my god, this game you downloaded is incredible!"

Yes, yes it is.

Steam plays a bit friendlier, letting you simply download without using a license. Between me and three of my friends, there are like 5 accounts we collectively share, depending on what kind of gaming mood we're in. We all have CS 1.6, because that's what made us love steam, but each of us has different games. I have Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Audiosurf. One friend has all of the Half Lifes, CS Source, and some of the Hitman games. Another has Oblivion, Day of Defeat, and CoD. We kinda just rotate, using the friends list to keep track of who's using what account. Its odd, but it works. I loan out my account to non-gamers all the time, simply so they can experience Portal, Audiosurf, and Geometry wars. The combination of those three games has converted many a casual player into a (more) hardcore one.

It's awesome. Feels good man. I steer people towards a game I think they'd like once or twice a week, providing either the game itself, or access to it, be it digitally or on my couch.

But for the first time in awhile, if ever, someone just gifted me mad games.

Me and my roommate were hanging out, had some friends over, when this guy Chris shows up. Chris is nice enough, but him and the roomie had a falling out (read: awkward breakup) so he hasn't been around much. But we talk about video games. A lot. It's one of the staples of our conversations.

So he mentions a game on the PSN. I'm like woo! Go games! He decides to get it, so we can play later. I think it was like Dragon's Lair or something. During the time it took him to log in, apparently Chris decided he was feeling generous.

And he proceeded to download 16 games onto my playstation.



You see, my game budget is tapped. Not like kind of tapped, completely empty. Ain't no mana in that pool. I hadn't expected to be able to afford another game for a month or two, and was prepared to go a whole year. Again. But thanks to Chris, I get to play games I never even would have considered, much less actually gotten.

And then the man taught me the hand hug.


IT'S ADORABLE. YOU MUST DO IT TO FULLY UNDERSTAND HOW AWESOME IT IS.

There may have been drugs involved, but you, sir, made my night. It's the first time in years I've gotten a game as a gift, and have such an array of options is almost overwhelming.

So this is me, hiding behind my internet (semi)anonymity sending a big shout out to my friend Chris.

This came during a rough period in my life, and it couldn't be more appreciated.

Thank you.