Gaming

Gamers of New York Vol. 1

New York City is a true melting pot. A vibrant composite of unique individuals who, in addition to their creative and professional interests, are a community of passionate gamers. Welcome to this first entry in a series of interviews that introduce us to the gamers of New York; examining stories, insights and origins of their gaming.

In this edition we’ll meet Christopher, with over 2.4k hours logged in two shooters, Grace, a self-taught coder, Cierra, who explores VR in the city, Malik, who enjoys Nintendo systems, and Ryan, an avid Megaman enthusiast. Let’s meet our inaugural group of gamers…

Malik Larkin, 19

First Consoles: Nintendo 64, Game Cube

First game remembered: Super Smash Bros. Melee

“In my childhood we’d always be playing video games, but nowadays I just like playing with friends, hanging out both online and in person, going to events, and being a part of the community.”
Engaging with gaming in New York is really cool because we have a lot of events and communities for different things like Overwatch, Super Smash Bros, Esports, etc. New York always has people coming in, so it’s a great time to meet people in real life while enjoying gaming in general.”

Cierra King, 20

Likes: Arcade, PvP, Adventure, and Creative games

Currently Playing: Minecraft

“I game because as an only child that’s antisocial, I needed to entertain myself. Playing video games was always something I could do by myself; I didn’t need another person to do it with me, and I find a lot of joy in it.

Being a gamer in New York means being able to have places and a community to actually go out and explore gaming. There’s a lot of VR studios, and a lot of people who are in game clubs at school. Back home where I’m from there’s not a lot of communities like that going on. So in New York, you are able to game and be more social about it.”

Christopher Gonzales, 25

Favorite games: Battlefield 4, CSGO

Combined Hours Played: 2.4K

“I started gaming when I was a kid, I remember the first thing I played was a playstation 1 and it only had two games for it: Namco Museum 25th anniversary and Tech N3.”

I love [gaming], it gives me time to hang out with friends, and I’ve met a lot of people over the years. You almost always find a mutual connection when it comes to talking about the types of games you play.”

Ryan Battle, 29

Favorite Games: Megaman 8, Megaman X4

First Console: Playstation

“There’s a break from reality that you get out of [gaming], so it’s nice to unwind and do things on there that I can’t do in real life. Me and my brother ran our Playstation to the ground. So this one time, when one of the [Megaman] X4 stages wouldn’t load, we took out the disk and started fiddling with the lens inside the playstation, not realizing that the lens is what reads the disk. We scratched it while trying to fix it and busted it up, it was really funny.”

Grace Scott, Age: 29

Currently Into: RPGs, MMOs

First Console: Playstation

“My whole entire house games a lot… It’s always been in and a part of my life so I can’t object to it, it’s wonderful.

New York in particular has a larger gaming community, so there’s more opportunities to connect with people like you. There’s a lot of gaming companies and hubs too, so not only can you connect with people, you can get into game development and game making.”