Long Live Play PSN Community Spotlight

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Long Live Play PSN Community Spotlight

Hello again and welcome to this edition of PSN Community Spotlight. As the only place to get your PlayStation story featured on the PlayStation.Blog, we review the dedicated space on the PlayStation Community Forums to find PlayStation stories and commentary that have moved your world. As usual, we then deliver a $50 PlayStation Store voucher code to the winner every week!

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This week’s spotlight is from PSN member echogridlock. Anyone with siblings can tell you that growing up with them is often riddled with fights. Echogridlock looks back on how gaming replaced fighting and led to a reconnection with his brother thanks to PlayStation.

Reconnecting with My Little Big Brother

When I was growing up, my little brother and I would get into the worst fights. It was the stuff of mother’s nightmares. To paint a better picture, I once ran a sewing machine needle through his right index finger and the needle tip broke off into his finger. As a trade, he broke my nose which healed crooked and to this day I have one large nostril and one tiny one that I can’t breathe out of.

It gets better I promise…

One Christmas when I was 12 (my brother was 10) my parents bought us a video game system and the violence stopped. The time spent knocking each other’s teeth out was replaced with game time and talking smack about each other’s video game skills. We were hooked; we worked together to buy all the games and systems we could get our hands on. Between the two of us we had close to 400 hundred games and over 13 different systems across the years. We started doing everything together like, going to the library and the park after school, we even went over to each other’s friend’s houses to do what else but play video games. We were inseparable.

I have to chuckle every time I hear or read a story from the news saying that video game violence causes children to be violent. In our case, it may have very well saved one of our lives; no joke, it was that bad.

When I left home for college my brother not only grew taller than me, we grew apart. When I came home from school he was often nowhere to be found. Then he started college and I didn’t see him for a few years. He sold off all his video games then he dropped out of school and went walking across the country. In that time, I moved out, married and had two children, and sold my games because I didn’t really have anyone to play them with; however I kept the PS2 and later bought two PS3s. My brother eventually got bored, moved back to my parent’s house and decided to continue his college career at a school just outside my neighborhood.

This last weekend, my brother needed some time away from my parents and wanted to spend the weekend with my family. At first, he just played with my son (age 2) and daughter (age 3) for a few hours. After awhile, my kids got bored and we fired up the PS3. He quickly became so addicted to Burnout Paradise, I couldn’t get him to put the controller down. My son walked in and sat on the floor listening to the music. He started to get tired and climbed into my brother’s arms and fell asleep. His sister soon fell asleep as well. After we put them to bed for a nap, we went back into the living room and I told him “You have to try this game Uncharted 3”. He asked “Does it have multiplayer? I mean can we both play together?” I said “Yes and we can play together online.” He went “Oooo.” It was as if we picked up where we left off 8 years ago. He started talking smack how skilled he was and how old age is making me slower. Every time our grouped wiped out in a match, I told him it was his fault. Which it was.

The PS3 provided me with some time well spent with my brother doing something we used to both love, playing games together. For one weekend we were young brothers again. After this spring semester, he will be moving south to Tennessee. Who knows when I will see him again? But maybe I’ll buy him a PS3 this Christmas so we can play online.

Congrats to echogridlock, who is now the recipient of a $50 voucher redeemable in the PlayStation Store! Send in your stories here, and feel free to read echogridlock’s original submission right here.

Comments are closed.

16 Comments

4 Author Replies

  • Great story, keep them coming! This is a great idea, and I am glad to see it come to fruition.

    Also, I know this is unrelated, but Morgan could you please tell us what happened to the June PS Plus announcement post? You had said it was coming tomorrow three days ago…Just curious, I appreciate all of your hard work and look forward to reading more of these stories. Maybe I will give it a shot myself one of these days.

    • thanks! glad you enjoy the posts; they’re fun to read on my end too. see below for more on your second question.

    • and also, yes please give it a shot! tell a unique gaming story, or comment on the gaming industry, or a unique insight into a specific PlayStation game, etc. best advice is to try not to tell a story about a lot of different PlayStation things, but hone in on one particular topic you’re interested to write about, and dig in on that.

  • Great story! This is an excellent idea, and I am glad to see it come to fruition. Would certainly be nice to score a $50 PSN card!

    Also, I know this is unrelated, but Morgan could you please tell us what happened to the June PS Plus announcement post? You had said it was coming tomorrow three days ago…Just curious, I appreciate all of your hard work and look forward to reading more of these stories. Maybe I will give it a shot myself one of these days.

  • Err, my bad on the double post….Apologies! If there is anyway to delete that, please let me know!
    Also, just wanted to say congratulations to EchoGridlock! I grew up with two younger brothers, I certainly know some of what you went through….certainly makes it easier to play couch co-op games though, which was great. Will have to have my brothers over to my place when PS All-Stars comes out and relive the good old days. :)

  • Great story!
    By the way what happened to June PS Plus Announcement ?

  • I read this one on the forums and it made me think of my brother and I. No matter the changes we go through in life, we can both sit down and enjoy video games together. glad this one won

    • yeah it resonates for me too with my cousin. it was what we did most growing up together and it was always fun times.

  • To those asking about June’s PS+, remember that on Monday is the E3 Conference. There are rumors regarding PS+ and changes that may (or may not be coming). If changes (small or major) are indeed coming, Sony wouldn’t want them to be spoiled, right?

  • I really like this story, mostly because I can totally relate, my brother and I always fought too, but always got along when playing video games, our first console was the PlayStation 1, and then of course we got the PS2 and PS3, playing video games also stopped us from fighting each other, and we started working together and helping each other. Great story!

  • @6 i agree with u on that i can see it posted here mon or even tuesday with new changes for ps+

  • @6 and 8 – That may be, but Morgan had said three days ago in a post on wednesday (or thursday, possibly) that the announcement would be coming the next day. If they had something big planned for Plus, don’t you think he wouldn’t have made empty promises? He seems like a genuinely good person, the last thing he would want to do is misinform the blog due to the ridiculous backlash from everyone on here (which I do know that I, alas, am a small part of this time just by asking about the update)..I understand E3 needs its surprises, but the update was scheduled before the conference. If there was something planned, don’t you think they would have said it was coming on tuesday? Or later? Either way, I have heard rumors about something good coming to Plus, and that now is the time to have a membership. We shall see. Morgan, I am sorry I asked, and I really didn’t mean to derail this post from Echogridlock’s wonderful story. I understand you are only entitled to say certain things, and you can’t give info you don’t have. Even if you were told it was coming, that doesn’t mean it does on time. Hahah. Best of luck enjoying/surviving E3 this year, you rock.

    • yeah we want to be timely with how we communicate, but i think everyone will be happy to see what fun announcements we make at E3. but sometimes communication plans have to change a bit; but I’m sure you guys can roll with a few more days wait =)

  • Good story, sir. Congratulations.

  • This is a nice story honestly. I miss the times when me and my brother would play PS2 and trash talk each other in Need for Speed games. It will always be great memories that I will never forget.

  • This story reminds me alot me and my younger brother growing. We used to fight over what system to play back then.

  • Well, this has been a neat experience. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has read my story and for all the kind messages that I have been getting.

  • Just wrote my story hope i win so i can give my brother the 50 dollar card for his birthday

  • Great Story. Echogridlock, you look like a very nice guy, I enjoyed reading this and it reminds me of me and my friend when we where small dating back to ps2 days.. i’ll try and give this a go later on and try my luck..

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