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How I Hooked My Wife on Gaming

How I Hooked My Wife on Gaming

When you enter into a relationship with someone dear to you, you want parts of your life that are really special to be special to that someone as well. While they say that opposites attract, and that’s often very true, if you have passions and hobbies that you intend to keep up throughout your life, you need to make sure that your partner can enjoy them as well. If you’re reading this right now, chances are that video games are a major part of your life, and gaming is a hobby that you invest hours in weekly, if not daily.

I grew up playing video games, not just because I love to play games, but because I love good stories and the means of expression and mastery that video games can provide. I truly believe that a solid RPG is the most potent vessel for story-telling in modernity; that mastering a complex fighting game or first-person shooter requires intense focus and exceptional coordination; that some of the more abstract and experimental games out there do so much to convey truth, goodness, and beauty in a way that only great art can. My wife had the great privilege of experiencing a game of the latter kind, but before I get to that you should know something about my wife.

She doesn’t like video games, and she’s really bad at most of them. I’ll probably get in trouble for writing that but it’s the truth. Early in our relationship when we were dating long-distance, I bought her a Nintendo 3DS XL with Mario Kart 7 so we could race each other online when we were apart and write some cute, animated notes to each other with Swapnote ; that would provide some fun interaction and make the long-distance thing easier to deal with, or so I thought. As it turned out she was too bad at Mario Kart to have any fun with it. I usually ended up stopping for periods of time to wait for her to catch up, and still beat her every time. Pretty soon I bought her Animal Crossing: New Leaf , convinced that she’d enjoy that game more. I sold her 3DS and those games to a co-worker months later.

I figured it just wasn’t meant to be. She’s always been very supportive of my hobbies and my writing, and she’ll even chill on the couch next to me while I play Rainbow Six and cuss at my teammates. I was content that this would be how things are: I’ll play games, and she’ll patiently watch. Thatgamecompany, the team behind Journey , changed all of that. After recently playing through Journey for the first time and having my spirits lifted, I decided to download Flower as well. My wife got home from her job as soon as the game was finished installing. She was tired, and a little stressed. I asked her to put on some comfy clothes and to try my new game while I watched. What happened next was nothing short of magical.

How I Hooked My Wife on Gaming

I had never played this game before. I had no idea how to suggest she proceed and I had no idea what the objective would be, but a few minutes is all she needed to figure that all out on her own. I closed my mouth and retired from my intense, forward-leaning, ready-to-assist position and opted instead to recline and enjoy everything that was happening on the screen. If you’ve never played Flower, it’s a gorgeous game, and it couldn’t be more straightforward. You summon the wind with the push of an analogue stick, and you control the direction of the wind by tilting the PS4 controller. That’s it. Subtle audiovisual cues prompt you along as you guide pedals from flower to flower, bringing life and color to what were once dull or dying landscapes.

My wife forgot I was there. She was smiling; waving the controller around and overcompensating like a total noob, but I didn’t care. For the first time in her life she had lucid control in a video game and she was clearly identifying and completing objectives, being rewarded every time with beautiful, blooming flourishes and climactic, musical crescendos that literally made her “ooh” and “aah.” Typically any time she has a controller in her hands it returns to me promptly, but this time she didn’t even ask if I wanted to play. We spent the rest of the night talking about how beautiful Flower is, and it meant a lot to me that she had finally had a positive experience with a video game. For that, I can’t thank thatgamecompay enough. Its games are unique treasures that speak to all kinds of people, and for one night, Flower brought me and my wife together as gamers.

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