For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,54
me to go to the conventions, talk about their product, and it's a pretty good wage, usually. Thirty to a couple hundred grand a year."
"Damn," her father breathed. "Ok, so how do we help?"
"No idea," she admitted. "Braden won't tell me what maps they'll use, and it isn't a big help if he did. They're all kinda the same. The whole point is to centralize the fights. But, see, that's the thing. This really is based on player skill. Tactics, strategy, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and all of that. You can't fake it."
Her dad tilted his head, leaned back, and took a long drink. "You know," he said as he set the bottle on the table beside him, "I always thought that those esports weren't a real sport. But listening to you talk about it, it sounds harder than golf."
"It's a steep skill curve," she explained. "It's easy to play it, but hard to play it well." Then she shrugged one more time. "I don't really want to be a pro, though. I want to be a designer. I want to help create these things."
"Why?" Tyler asked. "Kinda sounds like playing pays more if you can get in."
"It does," she agreed. "But games are..." She let that trail off, trying to find the right words. "It's..." Nope, that wasn't it either. "You remember when I was in middle school and everyone hated me?"
"A little too well," Dad assured her. "And I hated that I couldn't help."
"The gaming did," she explained. "See, online, we're not us. We're an avatar. We're all on an even playing field, and all the problems don't matter. The rules are simple and easy to learn. If someone's a bully, we can click a button and silence them. We can shoot them in the head and not go to jail. We can make a character that's big and muscular, or a woman, or anything else. It's a fresh start, and it's also a safe space in its own way."
"Which is why you got so addicted to playing?" Tyler asked.
She nodded. "Online, you get to be the hero, not the dork. In these games, you can finally win, and back then, I felt like I was failing at everything. Placing first in a match, or working up a character in an MMO? It let me stop worrying about what happened at school. It made me happy, and it didn't even matter if you two understood."
"I tried," Dad insisted. "Ethan, I just don't understand why you'd want to work a full-time job and then come home to do it in a game for nothing. I mean, you always talked about having to finish something."
"But it's like when Tyler wants to finish something with his friends," she told him. "Dad, it's fun. It's rewarding. And playing around with those games, I learned about computers. That's a real-world skill. Not just how to type and send emails. I learned how to make them. Then I learned how to make programs for them."
He nodded. "Ok. So how do we help? Your brother and I have been talking, and we're worried about you." She braced, thinking this was the moment, but her dad kept going. "Every time you've been in a bad spot, you always spend a lot of time with those games. You stop coming out for meals, and you get hyper-focused on your computer. And lately, you've been doing it again."
"It's not the same," she promised. "I'm actually doing good. I'm not going to say I don't have moods, but I'm not depressed. I'm..." She paused to take another drink, trying to find the right words. "I can do this, Dad. I really think I can make a name for myself. It's not going to be easy, but I met the right people, and they've been helping me. When I'm in there laughing with my imaginary friends? It's them. QQ and Void and Murder. They're on voice chat with me, and they're teaching me how to be a little better, putting me in situations in this game we play so I can have a chance."
"Like gamer boot camp?" Tyler asked.
She laughed. "Yeah, kinda? The difference is that it's fun. A lot of fun. And we talk about all sorts of things while we're playing. Anything from Psyc getting shot down again to Murder and his girlfriend still trying to decide their kid's last name."
Dad chuckled at that. "Well, my advice to you is to always let the woman win."