After all, I’ve spent thousands of hours killing Nazi zombies; leading a small army of Pikmins; and chopping heads off with Kung Lao’s hat. I’ve been a Pokemon master in Red, Yellow, Gold, and Black, and the greatest duelist in Duelist Academy. I’ve defeated Sephiroth in time for bed and had the military called on me in Grand Theft Auto 3 and lived to tell the tale. And surely you won’t ignore the long nights I’ve spent alone in my dungeon of a bedroom trying to figure what deck to build for Friday Night Magic or how to get that last stinking trophy in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Because those were the hours where I was happiest. And I’ll be damned if you ignore all my Xbox achievements and got me some banal urn or blank casket when I’m dead. I’d rather replay The Black Bass.
Sure, I didn’t go out much. I didn’t have many friends. Heck, I made more enemies in one round of slayer in Halo than I did in all my years in school, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun. Or have hobbies. Games were my friends and hobbies. So do me and every other gamer out there a favor and bury us with the games we spent our lives playing. Heck, you can dress the family up like Ned Stark’s royal guard and fly banners of my DS Lite if that’s what you’d like.
Or put me in a casket with a keyblade carved on the side or stick my ashes in engraved keepsake bullets and shoot me out of a working replica of the Halo assault rifle. Or plant a great oak tree in the backyard with my ashes and name it the Deku tree because where I’m going, I want to go with style. And so should all gamers. Custom designs on caskets can be expensive if you don’t do them yourselves. Not crafty? Well, if it turns out looking like crap it’ll be going in the ground anyway, won’t it? Custom urns can be a much more affordable way of honoring a gamer, just be sure to include as much material and description for the designer so it comes out right. Personally, I wouldn’t mind Toad’s face on my tombstone with a reinvention of a classic quote: “Thank you, Mario! But the body is in another castle!”
Or how about one that reads “Here lies Jill Sandwich” with a fake rotted hand coming up out of the fresh dirt (I’m looking at you Resident Evil fans)? After all, I’ll be dead not humorless. Or (now here’s a favorite), get me a white casket and stamp the Triforce on the front. That would be a casket fit for Zelda herself! Or how about using those plastic pokeballs from McDonalds as a model for a keepsake urn? I’m pretty sure McDonald’s gave these away in Happy Meals with stuffed Pokemon dolls or gold cards, but I’m sure a sturdier one made by professionals would make for a respectable keepsake urn for your keychain or belt buckle.
Heck, if someone breaks into your house you could always throw the thing at his head and scream, “Go, Michael…chu!” Because nothing would give me greater pleasure after death than for you to have fun remembering my sick sense of humor. And yeah, I get it, dying is depressing. But can’t we have a little fun anyway? After all, video games are full of art, so let’s use it to represent our lost player twos. Just use a little common sense; obviously, no Donkey Kong fan is going to enjoy being buried in a barrel. But they might get a laugh out of wearing DK’s red tie or having their ashes in a little barrel urn.
Heck, you can paint Jace Beleren on the outside of my casket. And I don’t even play blue! Cody Garreans-Walsh’s family from Iowa had a Modern Warfare 3 urn made in his memory after he died in a fire. Attendees at the funeral wore Call of Duty shirts and his mother had a tattoo done in his memory. For others, online memorials seems more suitable. One WoW player died of a stroke a few years back so her Horde friends hosted an online funeral at Winterspring. That is, until they were raided by an Alliance guild called Serenity Now. The blog Big Red Kitty hosted a “Running of Da Bulls” event to raise money for another deceased player’s family, gathering over 500 dollars in donations and an online guestbook for the family. If you’re not sure what game best represents your lost gamer, check their video game library.
Or better yet, log onto their gamer account and check which games they have the most achievements in or check their save files for the game with the most logged hours. What’s important to the gamer is that they’re remembered not only for who they were, but who they became in that dark, rancid bedroom you’ve yelled at him over and over again to clean.
