Hustling Videogamers

I’m almost halfway to being a hundred years old now. It’s a warm evening, and the usually loud road a few hundred meters from the colony where I have made my home is quiet. Over these past 2 years, the pandemic has silenced a great many things, the busy highway behind my home being one of them. I am sitting on my terrace, nursing a glass of Glenfiddich, reading David Gemmel when a memory surfaces unbidden, from when I may have been about 15 years old.

There used to be a small building that housed a video game arcade on Bangalore’s Brigade road, now long since demolished to make way for an ugly shopping mall. I couldn’t get enough of video games in those days. We weren’t well to do, and so I envied my friends who flashed their hand-held Donkey Kong, lending it to me grudgingly for 10 minutes at a time. My other source for video games was that arcade on Brigade road.

I saved what little cash I could, to buy the token coins needed to operate those machines. The money I gathered rarely offered me more than a few minutes of gameplay, and I would spend the next couple of hours watching other kids play games. I would observe them and very slowly it occurred to me that I was a little better than most. That, I suppose, is when it first hit me that I could play these games for free. Well, not free, but at the very least – for longer than I usually could.

The routine involved hanging around the arcade watching for a mark. The ideal mark was someone who was well dressed and who was usually followed by an entourage. Well dressed to my teenage mind meant those kids who wore expensive rubber printed t-shirts featuring heavy metal bands. I, on the other hand, wore gadi-printed t-shirts, a cheap imitation made from some thick foul material, that felt like I was walking around with an exam pad strapped to my chest.

The ideal mark purchased many token coins, his pant pocket bulging and jingling as he walked around the crowded room. The mark also mostly sucked at the games and didn’t last more than a few minutes at each. But then, he would simply slot a new coin in and start over.

I would stand by in admiration and oooo or aaaah each time he got in a lucky strike on his opponent. Pretty soon, I would blend into the kid’s entourage and then, when the time was right, hesitantly request a game with him. With my own coin of course.

The trick was to lose just enough rounds to get him confident before I slam him out of the game, then feign astonishment at my win and make it seem like I am leaving on a high note. My opponent though, doesn’t want me to leave just yet and has to ‘force’ me to play another one, and another, until it dawns on him that something isn’t right. Some never get it and even offer to pay for a round when I shrug and spread my hands to show I have no coin left.

I thought I had discovered something unique, but then how often is there anything new under the sun? I discovered that video game hustlers were a thing, and began spotting people better at it than me. Eventually, I lost interest and stopped going to the arcades.

Now I am surrounded by devices, all capable of playing games far better than the ones I yearned to play back in those days. I occasionally play Planetside 2, and the new Doom, which is awesome but once in a while, like on this balmy evening, I remember the sweet wrongness of those stolen fruit all those years ago.