There’s undoubtedly a PC gamer or two in your life and love ’em of hate ’em, come Christmas time they still enjoy receiving gifts as much as the next person. It’s the only instance that spending time with real flesh and blood people, and away from dungeon raiding in World of Warcraft or tea-bagging n00bs in Counter Strike, is awarded in such a Pavlovian nature. So why not make your Gamer’s treat a good one?
The following gifts will fit easy into their stocking come Christmas morn. The choices presents have one of two goals in mind, to either show your appreciation for their hobby of choice or laugh with/at them and scare them back into their dungeon/cave/parental basement. Let’s go.
Gamer Grub
This seems like a good gift to start off our guide with, as it’s the first thing that pops into my head when I think “ridiculous products marketed at gamers.” More on that later, as I still have to introduce you to the product known as Gamer Grub. The description from their web site is as follows.
Gamer Grub is a great tasting snack mix packed with select vitamins and neurotransmitters supporting fast cognitive performance. Gamer Grub is scientifically formulated to power your core gaming systems for maximum gaming performance.
So basically this is Cracker Jack for the 21st century. They even come in four flavours as pictured above. There’s Pizza cause gamers love pizza, PB&J for the pre-pubescent set, Wasabi for the otaku gamer, and chocolate. Chocolate is ok.
Ok so snack foods are a great stocking stuffer. I know every year I find interesting Christmas candies in my stocking, including mixed nuts and trail-mix. Where Gamer Grub tips the scale to the weird side is the way it’s marketed. They tout the delivery system of this snack, suggesting just pouring it into your craw instead of messing up your hands and dirtying up your keyboard in the process. Still I think this is good gift for the gamer with a sense of humour.
You can share a chuckle as they unwrap it, sharing double-entendre jokes about stimulating neurotransmitters. You may even have the opportunity for a Boxing Day follow-up, to see if it had any effect on the quick gaming sessions they jumped in to avoid the awkward unpleasantries that have come with family get-togethers since long before the video game was invented.
“The Gaming Revolution” T-Shirt
The revolution has indeed been virtualized. Gaming is a something that has taken hold in our modern society, with everyone claiming to be a gamer of some stripe. This didn’t happen over night though; it’s taken years and in some cases decades to come to this point. So why not celebrate the revolution with an appropriate t-shirt?
“The Gaming Revolution” T-Shirt pictured here showcases the silhouette of nearly every gaming controller that’s ever seen the light of day, and comes in the yellow and red colour scheme found in all great revolutions.
Witty and clever T-shirts as worn by gamers and geeks have reached a certain degree of irony, but that doesn’t make any less of a great gift. This shirt in particular has a certain fun factor, in that you can sit back with your friends and try to name the gaming system that each controller belongs to. What? You actually had plans for a Friday night? Uh hunh, sure.
This shirt comes from Threadless, whose wit and dry humour knows no end. ThinkGeek has some less subtle t-shirts, and the Penny Arcade Store is the gamer goto for dark and funny apparel. If you just a twisted wretch of a human being like me you can just jump straight to T-Shirt Hell to satisfy your sick jones, though that site does come with a strong NSFW warning.