My friend and I had been playing WoW from launch and I remember it was the end of burning crusade when we both had top tier armor from Arena and our reward for being one of the best teams on our battle group was just a lousy title for our characters. My friend literally turned to me and said, "You know, if we go outside right now and play basketball, we could make the team next year, and instead of this s***, we could get some real rewards". It sounds stupid but it made me laugh. But at the same time cry inside.Here we were, playing a competitive video game, a game that we never let anyone know we played,when we could have easily been star players for our school team. (Im 6'4'' and he is 6'0'' and we are both good athletes). Instead we were sitting in my room with two computers in the summer heat staring at screens as a couple of squeaky fan's blew on us as we were playing WoW..

Video games were, for a long time, a single player experience. The kids of the 70's grew up to play Mario Bros., Zelda, and countless other single player games that were all great in their own right. As a kid born in 92' my experience has been somewhat different. Looking back, some of my greatest memories in life were in multiplayer games. My friends and I probably spent a good 6 or 7 months out of our 18 years of life playing games, a majority of those being multiplayer.

It all must have started with Halo. By the time Halo 2 was out, every kid in my history class was on my halo 2 friends list. The online multiplayer craze had begun.We had played countless split-screen games like Perfect Dark, SSBM, Crystal Chronicles, Tales of Symphonia. We really lived the multiplayer gaming lifestyle. However, something happened after I started playing these games. Instead of playing for fun, I started playing in order to be the best and I lost my ability to enjoy single player games for a long time. I started becoming extremely competitive and even though I had managed to pitch a no-hitter in real life baseball, I quit the next year. I was bored of organized sports. I wasn't getting an adrenaline fix from sports with a ball anymore. I turned to weight lifting and biking for exercise and competitve gaming for my adrenaline fix. I know it sounds weird but that's just how I'm wired.

Finally my friend and I ditched WoW and continued playing other competitive games like Gears of War and Halo. We got pretty decent at Gears of War so we joined MLG matches. Unfortunately, we had no time to travel around and compete in tournaments. Our families expected us to be taking up sports and competing academically. Joining an MLG team was out of the question.

Anyone who asks why you can't just compete on XBOX live doesn't understand a few concepts. For one, the connection can be a big factor in games. When you play competitively in tournaments you usually play in a LAN connection. The players on XBOX live are unpredictable to say the least. One minute you are having a great game and the next minute your whole team quits, the host quits, or the host kicks you out of the game. Just like an athlete desires a structured environment with referees so players don't cheat, a competitive gamer wants an environment with some rules so other players arn't, say, glitching.

So now I find myself stuck in a limbo of sorts. I am happily going off to college and I am not sure If I should bring my xbox 360. With the recent announcement of Gears of War 3 coming out in a year,I am sure that I will have another chance to compete in the MLG circuit for Gears of War 3, but is it worth the social sacrifices? Anyone will tell you to do what you love and ignore everyone else but In a world where competitve gaming is more than just frowned upon, I am really stuck at a crossroads.