What My Nerd Room Means to Me

If you are reading this article you are probably a bit more “in-tune” with the gaming world than the average game consumer, but what we possibly all have in common with one another is what I call a “nerd room”. Is your nerd room a basement? A FROG? Is it a corner of your bedroom or a spare room in your home? Nerd rooms can come in all shapes or sizes, but what they all have is a unique meaning to us.

Billy’s Own Nerd Room

My nerd room is the second room in my little two-bedroom condo, and my setup is the cover photo for this article. My gaming consoles are in there, along with a Destiny banner with pins showing off some of my achievements from my years with that game. I have shelves filled with Star Wars, Destiny, and Game of Thrones Funkos, gaming Christmas ornaments, and a cool plaque of FL4K, my favorite character from Borderlands 3. I also have posters from some of my favorite movies (shout-out to Pacific Rim).

There is a corner with my partner’s many board games, her Lego Hogwarts Castle, and many Pokemon collectibles. Together, we fill our space with items that help us escape the stressors of our lives. She and I can enter that room and escape to other worlds, find a board game to play with friends or catch up on the most recent Iron Lords Podcast while writing gaming articles.

Lord Sonic’s Nerd Room

We take time to invest in our nerd rooms, filling them with nostalgic joy or recent achievements. We craft these spaces with our imaginations, creating a tangible space that we can show off to others. We spend hours of our lives in our spaces, mastering difficult single-player games or celebrating victories with friends online. Inspiration for our setups can come from many places, including experiences, such as the case of our editor Robert Kellett.

After attending the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo, I felt inspired by the amazing picture quality of the older consoles on CRT TVs. Digging it out of my closet, cleaned it up, and set everything up with my Wii and PS2. After two or so days, my retro setup is complete and it’s awesome having my retro games in one spot.

Enjoying Super Nintendo and Genesis games at their intended resolution through my Wii is awesome. In addition, enjoying PS2/GC era games like Sonic Heroes and Jak & Daxter on the CRT felt right. Having a ‘gaming area’ in your home can do a lot you enjoy video games more and it’s highly recommended.

Lord CUnit’s Gaming Nook

Life can be hectic … well, life is hectic all the time; This can lead to our wants taking a back seat to our needs. Goal setting is important, it gives us purpose, it keeps us motivated to better ourselves and our futures, and it drives our present. For some of us, we may not have a room we game in, but it could be a shared space. Our Senior Writer, Chris, is a hard-working father who shares space with his family and has future aspirations for a dedicated room.

Unfortunately, for me when it comes to my quote on quote “Nerd Room” I don’t really have one, yet. My current gaming area is pretty normal in my living or front room.  I have a 75 inch tv hooked up to my Xbox Series X, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and a “fat boy” PS2. I also have my Meta Quest 3 in there as well. When I play I usually just relax and sit on the couch. As a parent, kids leave messes all over the coffee table and living room, but we love them right?  So I wouldn’t say this is my area even though it’s where I game.

However, I do have plans for a room in the future. A gaming space or “Nerd Room” that truly allows me to relax and play in solace. I have all these consoles I mentioned in addition to a real nice gaming laptop so the gaming experiences I could enjoy are vast. Lots of ways to escape reality and de-stress in the sanctity of my own gaming space.  Everything will be in there with nice low lit lights to keep from hurting your eyes as well as decorative gaming and sports memorabilia. Even a little table I can whip out to play some Magic The Gathering, other TCGs, or any tabletop games I’m dabbling in at that moment. Sometimes it shocks people when I tell them all about these experiences and why I game and enjoy the things that I do. I truly feel my “Nerd Room” will be glorious and I can’t wait!

Lord Wayhik’s Gaming Space

Over time, we grow up and our lives change. We may lose contact with friends, but gaming always connects us with new ones. We may live in the same town we grew up in or we move all around the world. With these changes, experiences with gaming can remain a constant for us, and our gaming or nerd rooms can take on many shapes and sizes. Our Editor-in-Chief, Wayhik has moved across the globe, and has this to add:

Nerd rooms come in all different shapes and sizes. Throughout my life, I have always had different gaming areas. Some were full rooms, while others were just slivers of a space. But by far the best nerd rooms were the ones from early childhood. Just squatting up in front of the TV with my family and friends was much more modest and simpler times, but brought so much joy, rage, and more importantly, connections with the people I gamed with. 

Though being tethered by the controller was extremely limiting, it brought a more intimate connection with games and, more importantly, a great connection with the people most important to me.

Now, as an adult, husband, and father of two, my nerd room still remains a sliver, but quite different. The TV room is where my Xbox is set up, but my cave would be my PC desk. It’s not flashy and has an office vibe to it, but it’s my getaway at home. More specifically, it’s the only place in the house where no one can make a claim of it.

The Shinobi, Lord Cognito’s Gaming Memorabilia

While most of us may have our gaming rooms filled with gaming memorabilia, others go full blast; memorabilia rooms separate from their gaming space. One such gamer is one of our founders, Lord Cognito. Cog is a busy guy, so I did my best to transcribe a quick audio message for his addition to this article.

Cog’s game room is a living room, while his office is his memorabilia room and the room where he podcasts from. During his time working at Meta, he fell in love with the game Demeo, which led to Dungeons and Dragons turn-based fandom. Cog is a big fan of boxed collector’s editions of games. He has procured the Starfield suitcase and watch, a Jin Kazama statue from Tekken 8, and was able to get the Jin Sakai Ghost of Tsushima Collector’s Edition mask from one of our editors Nick. Ghost of Tsushima is Cog’s favorite Sony first-party franchise. 

As most people have probably noticed, by now, Lord Cognito is also a huge Destiny fan, owning every expansion collector’s edition, with a special shout-out to the Final Shape collector’s edition with the light-up tower. Rounding out his collection, he has the Halo 3 spartan helmet, an Xbox Duke controller, and Xbox and Playstation logo stands. For his PC setup, he has a cool Tekken full-size light-up mouse pad, Starfield mouse, and Starfield headset. Besides all of that awesome memorabilia he also has tons of gamer t-shirts and a collection of the Destiny raid jackets.

While we all have different spaces and setups, different reasons as to why we game or what we like to play, and we all have different backgrounds and upbringings, what we all have in common is gaming. I hope everyone reading this article takes time to appreciate their spaces by getting a peek at some of ours. Take joy in your nerd-dom, and we’ll see you in the gaming-verse.