Back then
If we wanted to play a video game
We had to borrow CDs from rich friends
Blizzard never made a cent from me
But it had all of my youth
When I first tried StarCraft
The only thing I knew was power over whelming
I didn’t know overwhelming was one word
I spent that afternoon at my cousin’s house
Typing that cheat code
Not understanding why it didn’t work
Then the computer attacked me and I started a new game
There were a bunch of urban myths too
The Diablo 2 CD I got
Included a piece of paper
About how to get the ultimate necromancer weapon
It required you to kill yourself
Then type something in the chat
This time I got smarter
I tried it once, it didn’t work
Then I stopped trying
Warcraft 3 was the first game that I got good at
I actually played against strangers on Battle.net
Climbed the ladder
The whole internet cafe only bought 4 copies of the game
If one computer logged into Battle.net
Other computers with the same CD key couldn’t log in
Over time
We came to know which computer used which CD key by heart
The internet wasn’t popular back then
So Blizzard used to bundle trailers of new games in their CDs
We would go to a friend’s house
Watch the trailer together
Picking out every detail
Then rewatch the trailer again
Then we would go to a roadside stall nearby
Order the cheapest drink
And spend the rest of the day
Speculating about the new game
Then World of Warcraft came out
I didn’t want to play it
Because I didn’t have money
A friend offered to pay for the monthly fee up front
I told him I’d pay him back
We /played so many hours
Because we had only one month
We didn’t have friends in the game
So we challenged the 5-man dungeons
With just the two of us
It kind of worked
But bosses took forever to die
I’m writing it down before I forget
This is
My boring seventeen