5 GAMING

In a lengthy interview over instant messenger (IM), twenty-two-year-old Earendil described the role that gaming played in his growing up. Earendil was largely homeschooled, and though his parents had strict limits on gaming until he and his brother were in middle school, Earendil and his brother got their “gaming kicks” at the homes of their friends with game consoles. After his parents loosened restrictions on computer time when he was fifteen, his first social experiences online were in a multiplayer game based on the novel Ender's Game and in online chats with fellow fans of Myst and Riven. Although he did not get his first game console until he was eighteen, he considered himself an avid gamer, and when he started community college he fell in with “a group of local geeks, who like myself, enjoyed playing games, etc.” Gaming was a focus of activity for him and his friends, as they engaged in forms of play and game-related production that often required high levels of gaming as well as technical expertise, including networked gaming parties and participation in a group that was developing a modification on a popular game. Throughout his late childhood and adolescence, gaming was a focus for hanging out with his local friends, for online relationships, and for developing technical expertise (Ito, Anime Fans).