Editorial: The Square-Go Gamer Safari

Gamers are a curious species, seen scuttling through the undergrowth at dusk in search of trinkets such as rechargeable batteries or sniffling out delicacies such as achievements and trophies. Back at their nest (generally in front of a TV or monitor, sometimes hidden away in a box room by their mate) interesting behaviours can manifest themselves.

As we go on through this wonderful journey of learning we'll explore the differing gamer breeds and talk about some of their ritualistic behaviour. So please buckle your seatbelts and wind up the windows this could be a wild one at the Square-Go Gamer Safari Park.

The Collector

If you look out of the window to your left you'll see our first type of gamer The Collector. This particular breed is solely interested in accumulating as many points or trophies as possible. Some argued that this behaviour is used to show off their prowess in front of other alpha gamers, their race to collect these items can sometimes be fast and furious but fraught with extreme highs and lows. At points you may hear one of them howling at the moon as they narrowly miss out on the achievement in Alien Breed Evolution Episode 1 by completing all the levels on Elite difficulty. On the other hand you may hear their laughter and jubilation dancing on the wind one evening as a particularly elusive trophy is collected such as the silver in GTA IV where all the hidden packages have been found. On occasion, these collectors can become dangerously fanatical, with their beady eyes displaying paranoid tendencies, a result of their guilt as they try to pick up the easiest but soul selling achievements from games such as King Kong.

The Nester

Moving on ladies and gentlemen, if you look over at that mound to your right you'll see another breed known as "The Nester", this type of gamer could be compared to a bird of paradise in the sense that before gaming their "nest" or gaming area needs to be full of their gaming trinkets and completely set up for the next 10 hours. If you look closer you can see multiple bottles of Cola, alcoholic beverages, crisps, Pop Tarts, nachos and well I never! This one's even taken the time to prepare a roast dinner for his marathon gaming session! He's going to be a busy bee this evening. Like "The Collector" sometimes their behaviour will become more extreme and research has shown that a particular group of "Nester's" in the Scottish area even reconstruct their gaming areas to resemble the environments based in games. For example one particular Nester changed his den to look like a space fighter whilst playing Wing Commander, cases are more common than we previously thought but we're rarely so privileged to see such exquisite but private behaviour.

The Induviae Gero

Now ladies and gentlemen if you would kindly look to your left again you'll see an exceptionally interesting looking specimen known in Latin as "The Induviae Gero"  or "The Gero" for short, which loosely translated means clothes wearer. Just like Humans, Gamers do wear clothes, mostly. But in this case "The Gero" wears certain items of clothing in order to augment their performance in a beneficial manner such as sustaining luck. This sort of defining behaviour is specific to the idea that these gamers wear particular garments but each garment is unique to the individual gamer. For example the specimen to your right is wearing a Cowboy hat and the one to the left is wearing Mario slippers. On past research trips into their habitat we've observed some rather comical temper tantrums occur when "The Gero" can't find his or her specific item of clothing, this item is of course needed before gaming can even commence of they believe bad luck will strike.

The Immersive Gamer

This brings us on nicely to The Immersive Gamer, so if you'd like to disembark the jeep please we'll be able to get right up and close to this one. This interesting character is so immersed in its game that it doesn't even know that we're here. If you look around you'll note that not only is it playing Fifa 10 it's also got Football Manager open on its PC as well as Five Live football commentary on the radio too. This type of gamer has to go the whole hog whilst gaming and will do anything to immerse himself into the world that the games in. For example we've also heard reports of some Immersive's wearing mock space-suits, night vision goggles and dressing up their cats in Master Chief helmets.

Gotta catch em' all!

Well ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much but I'm afraid that now concludes our glimpse into the strange and mysterious world of gamers. At present we have but a mere handful of the species available here at this particular establishment but if you know of any other uncategorised species or have heard of more exciting rituals or behaviours then we'd love to hear from you at Square-Go Gamer Safari!