By Muhammad Najib Mohd TaibÂ
I have never expected that involving in video games would have caused a serious change in my life. There is this broad perception whereby playing video games is considered a waste of time, and when done excessively it may destroy your life, your career, as well as your social life. Some may experience the harsh side of video games, but thankfully, through video games, it brought positive changes in my life.
Being born and raised in a family of well-educated both in religion as well as with conventional knowledge, on a daily basis, my relatives and I, were pushed by my parents to study well, and at the same time, they advised us not to get stressed out while studying. They always remind us, œdont study something that is hard for you not to enjoy it. As much as my parents enjoy the success of their children in studying, deep inside, from my observation, all they wanted was their children to be happy.
So, I did what I think made me happy while Im in the growing up process, which is playing games as my hobby. I still remember the first time I played video games in which, I played on a Nintendo-Nes, which my father bought it as a birthday present. During that time, among the most famous games which I truly enjoyed was called œContra, a gun action game developed by a famous video gaming company called Konami.
It was because of playing video games that I didn’t score in the Primary School Evaluation Test (UPSR). I still remember I went out all night playing video games rather than studying, even though I had to sit for a paper the next morning. Seeing all my friends aced in the exam, I never felt so sad in my life. Not only that, the education system during the time stated that those who did not score in the UPSR will be sent to other school. Those who scored entered a cluster school which is nearby my house. Â I was sent to a school far away from my house where the school is considered to be the worst in my area, and known for gangsterism, bullying, fighting.
My secondary school years are most depressing in my life. I walked to my school, around two kilometres. I had to pass through a river, a garbage dump site, through an area where wild monkeys were settling, and then through a cemetery, then only I reached my school.
Every day was like an adventure. There were times where I met a herd of cows eating grass beside the rivers. There were times where monkeys chased me when they felt like it, and also there were times where I encountered a group of gangsters hanging around at the bridge, looking at me with threatening eyes gazing and the worst was when wild dogs chased me like crazy. I encountered these stressful chain of events throughout my secondary school years.
In school, I met a lot of œweird people who somehow taught and showed me the differences of people in life. Drugs, rempit, gang group, brawling, was a day to day story. I spent all my time during my secondary school year in class listening to them, talking about these stuff. Some of them were my close friends, some were just acquaintances.
Being easily influenced at that age, I started by involving myself with smoking and rempit. My parents knew I was smoking. My dad and my brother beat me to a pulp, in which it helped me to get back to the right path. Back then, most of my friends tried to persuade me to do all the illegal things that a students can do. Thank God, I was not influenced deeply by them. My time during secondary school was like my rebellious stage phases in life.
However, the best part about school life is that I walked through cybercafé on the way back home, so every day when I was in form 1 until I finished school, after 1.00 p.m, I went to cybercafé and played video games until evening. Through playing games in cybercafé, I met with a lot of people, from all ages. I learnt to speak in English. Also thanks to playing games in the cybercafé, in which during that time, online games, World of Warcraft, was one of the best games, that has around 1 million users worldwide.
I made friends with a lot of people who were older than me, around 4-10 years older. I was around 12-13 years old then. There were  around 12-13 peoplewho were my best buddies. Being the youngest in this social group, these people showed me how life worked. They were the ones who advised me on the dark side of life that I needed to avoid since they all have experienced it before. Most of them has a bad history when they were young, but they all changed their life through playing games. Right now most of them are successful individuals, with their own business, most of whom led a great independent life.
At the same time, thanks to video games also, I have friends from overseas, both male and female who live in countries such as Australia, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Switzerland, and many more, since in the game that I played are all in one group with me. Thanks to them, I am exposed in speaking with different people of varied cultural background from different classes, with different views in dealings with life because some of them are married, very old (the same age as my dad), some are in the same age as me. It is quite fun knowing them and to learn about their life and socialising with them. Some of them even offered me a place to stay if I were to go to their country.
For my family, since I used to go hanging around outside from the night until the morning, it worries them, and from what I observed, they were a kind of relived when I spent my time at home, playing video games, because I was available for them, if they needed assistance such as buying some food, washing clothes, washing the dishes, taking out the garbage, and taking care of the house.
But for me, the most valuable experience that the video games has brought me is definitely as a way for me to express myself. I learned how to make funny jokes, understand complicated things, learn new things and new words. Through video games, I have been able to increase my responsiveness, test my leadership ability, improve my problem solving skills, and teach me how to think outside the box.
It did help a lot in my social life; it taught to me avoid all of these negative influence from people, which most of them whom I have met, do not have any interest in video games. Video games helped to improve my study as well, especially when my study was taught in an English. I thought that without playing games, I wont have the skills to speak in English, to write a good essay, to imagine stuff beyond the wildest dreams, to create new ideas that are worthy that could be related with my study.
At the same time, being able to meet people from different ages, background, and countries at the early age of 12 through video games and ending up being friend for almost 10 years later, I felt that it was worthwhile. I strongly believe that when I started to gain interest in video gaming, it changed my life making who I am today. For better or for worse, I enjoyed it very much.***