Player: A Short Story of Multiplayer Gaming

Halo Reach

When I was a kid, I remember sitting in the living room with a bowl of Frosted Flakes, watching cartoons with an eager hunger every Saturday morning. In addition to the classics such as the Super Mario Bros cartoon or Captain N, I was fascinated with the show Reboot, which takes place entirely in a virtual world. Since then, I think I’ve always had a desire for even more fiction that revolves around gaming, which is surprisingly seldom encountered even two decades later.

However, today I stumbled across a short story that a friend of mine wrote over at Prolific Novelista, so I figured I would share. Player is the tale of one man’s quest to beat an anonymous gamer online, and the way our competitive edge kicks in whenever we deal with strangers in multiplayer settings. It’s a piece that I think all of us can identify with. I know that one of the most shocking things for me when I first entered the realm of online gaming was realizing that I was just a mediocre fish in a sea of badasses with itchy trigger fingers. The desire to beat an opponent at a game you pride yourself in is a strong one, and we’ve all encountered it at one time or another.

So yeah, I think you guys should read it. Definitely entertaining and familiar. I would also suggest you guys check out Ready Player One, a novel I keep hearing about that takes place inside of a video game. Thoughts, gents and ladies? Go!

Prolific Novelista