gaming for life?

I recently came close to picking up a job at a local video game production company, but ended up turning do their offer. Why would I do such a thing? After all, wouldn't it be fun to work for a game development company? Honestly, I'm sure it would be, but I also believe that it is a targeted field of employment. Targeted, in fact, to single people with lots of time on their hands. One of the questions that stuck in my mind during my interview was if I had played several of the latest massive multiplayer games out there, such as World of Warcraft, Second Life, or Starcraft. Feeling a bit unschooled, I had to sheepishly reply that "no" I had not. I immediately started to feel like Anne Hathaway in that silly modeling movie "The Devil Wears Prada", as in...I'll take your money, but I'm not interested in immersing myself in your reality. So it quickly became apparent that to work as a gaming professional, I would first have to live in the gameworld, something that I do not have the time or inclination to do at this point in my life.

In addition to playing the games, I would need to attend conferences, visit online forums like the one for Starcraft at CreepColony.com to discuss the latest developments and get user feedback. Even if my particular position didn't involve things like map making, bot creation, and build designs, I would still have to understand what they were talking about so that I don't look like a complete idiot. All in all, I would have to either educate myself in the world of gaming, or set myself up for failure. Seeing as I don't have the time for another bout of secondary education, and I'm no fan of failure, I'll let someone else have a go with it. There are gamers out there who already know these skills and don't have the learning curve or other responsibilities to hold them back.