On the IGN Entertainment forums, in a raucous under-the-radar section of the site known colloquially as The Vesti, there’s a thread that was started on the morning of Friday, Aug. 8, by a user called DigInTheCrates. It’s titled, “Are people bracing themselves for the fact that Robin Williams will die soon?”
The heading is creepy, but the contents are sincere. DigInTheCrates, along with being an avid gamer, is a Williams superfan who had recently begun to fret about the state of Williams’ health. When another IGN user asked, “Are you going to kill him or something?” DigInTheCrates responded, “He’s old and his health is poor which is why I made this thread. no I don’t plan to kill him you sick weirdos, why would I kill someone I love.”
In retrospect, this bizarre thread looks like an eerie harbinger or an act of the Illuminati, but it’s not surprising that gamers were discussing Williams three and a half days before his death. The online gaming community adores Robin Williams. And not just because he’s funny and geeky-sharp — as are many of these forums’ users, who’ve mastered the rhetorical space between trolling and really good sarcasm. But also because he was, like them, a video game obsessive for whom virtual fantasy was a welcome retreat from the world.
“He was one of us,” wrote Ed130 The Vanguard last night on the forums for The Escapist, another gaming destination. Sure, much of the world remembers Williams for his rapid-fire stand-up and the way he whispered, “It’s not your fault,” to a weeping Matt Damon, but he was also a guy who was so enamored of video games that he named his daughter after “Legend of Zelda,” and named his son after Cody from “Final Fight,” and who talked at length about his favorite video games during a Reddit Ask Me Anything in 2013 (“I’m looking forward to the next Xbox. I can’t imagine the graphics being any better. It will be like these characters are living in your house”). He also appeared in the world’s most tear-inducing video game ad for Nintendo’s “Zelda,” during which he told his daughter that she and the princess are “both pretty magical.”
To the gamers trading jokes and barbs on IGN.com and us.battle.net and mmo-champion.com, the gamers contributing to threads like “Are you buying Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor?” and “if you are on this list you suck and are ignored,” Robin Williams was a dude who played the games they played and knew exactly why they played them.
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