It was a foregone conclusion that my son would follow that same well-worn path. While he was a baby, I was reviewing Blizzard games for Salon. The bookcases in my bedroom groan under the weight of four decades’ worth of science fiction and fantasy novels. We all but declared a national holiday in my family for each debut of a new “Lord of the Rings” film. I still read fantasy novels to him before he goes to bed each night. I am delighted to renew his subscription to the Japanese manga monthly Shonen Jump every year. But BlizzCon, as the gamers like to say, took it to the next level.

It’s easier to be a geek in 2010 than it was in 1972, a fact that even the most cursory comparison of BlizzCon 2010 with a Stan Lee book party would tell you. To my 12-year-old self the technology on display in Anaheim would have seemed the purest science fiction. The emergence of computers and the Internet has transformed the geek into a person of great cultural and financial power. Money can be made by geeks and by catering to geeks. Gaming is as big a business as Hollywood. The worldwide appetite for fantasy seems unquenchable. Blizzard has capitalized on this fact as well as anyone this side of Peter Jackson or J.K. Rowling. There is an extent to which my son — all of our sons and daughters! — never had a chance for another path, even if one sets aside the influence of my family lore. The seductive power of the entertainment machine has never been more powerful, more immersive or more addictive.

And that’s something to watch, because it is by no means an unadulterated boon. A rather hefty subset of BlizzCon attendees could definitely benefit from an improved diet and some exercise. As I noted not so long ago, after years of gaming, I traded in my own Blizzard-induced obsessions for my bicycle, motivated by a desire to get away from the computer for at least a few hours a day. There were some attendees at BlizzCon who blinked under the bright lights of Anaheim as if they had just emerged from caves in which they had burrowed away for months or years. I recognize a kindred spirit in them, but worry that they have gone a little too far over to the dark side. And somehow, while I still can, I know that even as I feed my son’s appetite for geeky thrills in virtual wonderlands, I must balance it with shared experience of the real.

——-

Which brings us back to a theme of recurring interest at BlizzCon — the relative popularity of “World of Warcraft’s” Horde as opposed to the Alliance.

In “World of Warcraft,” in addition to choosing what race you would like to play — Night Elf, Dwarf, Human, Troll, Undead, etc. — and what character class — Mage, Warrior, Paladin, Rogue, etc. — one must also pick an alignment between good and evil. The Horde are the bad guys; the Alliance are the good. (Both sides spend most of their time engaged in constant slaughter, but distinctions still must be made). At the opening and closing ceremonies and during panel discussions (at BlizzCon, a panel discussion on a new character class for “Diablo” was attended by upward of 10,000 people!) every mention of “Horde” or “Alliance” elicited predictable tribal cheers.

But the cheers for the Horde always sounded louder. And over the course of the weekend they seemed to steadily grow in volume, suggesting that the Alliance was getting intimidated by its poor showing. By the closing ceremonies, hosted by smartass, wisecracking actor Jay Mohr, a rough guess divided the audience into about 65 percent Horde to 35 percent Alliance.

But why? Why were the geeks orienting to the dark? In “The Lord of the Rings,” who wants to be on Sauron’s side? Was there some natural attraction to the notion of transgression? Was it explained by the relative paucity (maybe 1 in 10) of women at the convention? Was declaring allegiance to the Alliance just too goody-two-shoes?

Or could it all be explained by the mere potency of the rallying cry? When Horde warriors rush into battle, they roar, “For the Horde!” And let me tell you, when 10,000 people yell those three words, it sounds very impressive. But the Alliance has no similar call to arms.

During a “World of Warcraft” Q-and-A panel in which “Warcraft” developers took open mic questions from the audience, I had to leave Eli alone for a little while as I visited the bathroom. This entailed a half-hour wait in line. When I returned, Eli was eager to recount something that he thought I’d missed. A questioner had brought up the Horde-Alliance disparity and blamed the problem on the “For the Horde” battle cry. He suggested that the Alliance needed its own cheer. He asked the panel members if they had any suggestions as to what Alliance members could say when confronted with a howling mass of “for the Horde”-shrieking berserkers.

Eli grinned as he told me how one “Warcraft” developer grabbed the mic and quipped: “Have mercy!”

Which did not solve the problem, but resulted in the kind of huge belly chortle that only 10,000 or so fantasy role-playing addicted gamers can generate. The Horde carried the day.

I had actually heard the whole exchange while waiting in line. But I was delighted to hear Eli tell it again, because it underlined something that had become more and more clear to me throughout the weekend: the exquisite delight of the shared experience. This is not particularly profound, I know. It’s why we hang out with friends, why it’s more fun to go to movies in a group than alone, why a World Series game in a bar full of strangers is more satisfying than when watched by yourself alone on a couch. That’s one big reason why multiplayer online gaming is so popular: A solitary activity — gaming alone in front of a computer at home — is transformed into a social act. BlizzCon — which is only in its fifth year of existence — is a huge success because it feeds that sense of community and sharing. But what was working for the 30,000 attendees in toto was also working just for Eli and me. We had been joking about the “for the Horde” conundrum all weekend. I was touched and delighted by his urge to make sure I didn’t miss the latest development in the saga. We stood in lines together, we ate together, we gamed together. We compared the profiles of Disneyland tourists with BlizzCon attendees and pondered the history and future of geekiness. I wish my father was still around so I could tell him all about it.

And I wish he’d been with us for the events of the next day. On Sunday, we drove from Anaheim to Long Beach, to visit my my father’s mother in her new nursing home. “What kind of a place is this?” Eli asked as we parked. “It’s a place where people go to die,” I told him. It was tough. My grandmother has declined tremendously since Eli had seen her last, at her 90th birthday party a year before. She recognized us, she seemed pleased to see us, but she had a hard time carrying on a conversation. “I’m too old for this!” she exclaimed at one point, rolling her eyes to encompass, well, everything.

A nursing home is a scary place at the best of times, and Eli, who had never been in one before, got quieter and quieter.

We stayed for half an hour and then traveled to the suburban town of Lakewood where my grandmother had lived for more than 50 years, to pack up her personal effects — photographs, letters, artwork — for transport back to my home in Berkeley. The house was completely empty of furniture. A “For Sale” sign stood on the lawn. I’ve been visiting that house since I was 7 years old, and it was, as Eli noted, “creepy” to see it suddenly empty.

We die a thousand deaths in a computer game and it doesn’t mean anything. But when I held in my hands a box of letters written to my grandmother from her father, who died when she was 12, it was difficult to keep from trembling. When I considered that I would probably never again drive down the street where my grandmother lived, it was hard not to feel a little overcome by it all.

Then Eli reached into a box and pulled out an object, exclaiming, “Is this a brand? In the shape of Texas!”

Yes, it was. With the name of the company, Fluor, at whose Anaheim headquarters my grandmother had worked for decades, first as secretary, then as speechwriter, and finally as director of media relations. I have no idea whether the brand was connected to the fact that she was born and raised in Texas, but for Eli, the unexpectedness of finding a cattle brand in the shape of Texas hidden away in a box in a Lakewood, Calif., garage was a delightful incongruity that swiftly wiped away all the heaviness of the last few hours. Who would make such a thing, he wondered? Why? What would you use it on?

We packed up the minivan, readied ourselves for the the long road home. He pulled out his Nintendo DS-Lite and started tapping away. I didn’t mind — I felt no need to articulate in detail how challenging our shared experiences of the morning had been. I was just glad beyond measure that he was there with me, that I hadn’t had to face this quest alone.

And who knows? I might even have to break my pledge to stop gaming, at least a little bit, because I’m thinking that when “Diablo III” finally comes out, it’s going to be an awful lot of fun to go dungeon-crawling with my favorite geeky boy.