A friend was telling me that right now in America, Grand Theft Auto 5 is what everybody is talking about. That even people who don't play games are talking about it, and tv show personalities who have no idea what games even are, are being told what to say. While for him this was a complaint, but for me I think it wouldn't be so bad.
One drawback to living abroad is that you miss out on the the conversations about the things you enjoy. People talking about the latest big videogame, the end of Breaking Bad, playing monday morning quarterback. All these things bring an extra level of enjoyment and appreciation to the things you enjoy, and are sadly something that you miss out on abroad.
So I was shocked to see this picture on a Taipei bus. Usually the videogame ads on buses are all for online rpgs which taiwanese models dressed up as the child characters which populate those games. The rare time a console game is on a bus, is when it's the NBA 2K series. As mentioned before, console gaming is not big in Taiwan.
Although I guess this ad is working. Usually when I mention a big videogame made by western developers, nobody has any idea what I am talking about. But a week ago when I mentioned GTA5, somebody said to me "oh my brother is playing that, he said it is good."
Perhaps a few more ads on a few more buses and in a few years we'll be able to have some conversations about the latest gaming sensation. Maybe by that time my Chinese will be good enough to discuss the complexities of jumping on turtles, shooting aliens, and pretending to play music on plastic instruments.
