Gift Guide For Gamers 2021 (That Doesn't Suck!)
Gift Guide For Gamers 2021 (That Doesn’t Suck)
You can find gift guides for gamers everywhere, but a lot of these lists are just filled with affiliate links where the site is essentially putting their interests first instead of the consumers. This leads to a lot of items on Gift Guides For Gamers that aren’t actually what gamers want, but instead is what the site is getting the most dollars for.
You end up with a list that has items like memory cards for your switch or a video game version of Monopoly. No matter how much you love a certain game, opening up monopoly just isn’t quite what it used to be. Have you ever asked Santa for a memory card or Monopoly? I didn’t think so, which is why our goal was to scour the gaming world to create a Gift Guide For Gamers That Doesn’t Suck.
There is something on this list for every type of gamer in every type of budget. Looking for something extravagant, we got you covered. Looking for something more along the lines of a stocking stuffer, we got you covered there too. Looking for something for a more casual gamer who has been gaming since the 80’s? Thats right, we got you covered. Best of all, these gifts are cool and will make it look like you care about them enough to do your research by not just buying them a memory card.
Before diving into the list, it’s important to note that nothing on this list includes affiliate links or commission in any way. This is a smaller, curated list of either items that I already own or want to own.
Home and Decor
Wick and Skull
Let’s assume the budget for the gamer in your life is a little less than a new TV, PS5 or Xbox Series X. If this is the reality, then maybe you should think about a candle or two. Seriously, these aren’t your average bath candles.
Wick and Skull is a small startup composed of Canadians living in Los Angeles who had an idea. A great idea that takes your gaming experience to the next level, immersing you deeper than ever and hopefully creating memories that will last forever, after all scent has the strongest attachment to memory. We all have memories of gaming, whether thats playing The Legend of Zelda on a wooden framed CRT or Halo LAN parties in 2001 with 8 teenagers. However as time fades, so do those memories because they aren’t linked to our sense of smell.
Smell has the strongest connection to our memory, according to Discovery, this is because scent bypasses our thalamus and goes straight to the smell centre known as the olfactory bulb, which is directly connected to our hippocampus and amygdala. Putting it simply, this means it goes straight to the emotional processing part of your brain instead of stopping along the way like some other senses.
Wick and Skull started from making candles for personal use that would help elevate the gaming experience, however the team at Wick and Skull quickly realized that had an idea that needed to be shared with the world. Wick and Skull is essentially creating an additional dimension for gaming by transporting you to these worlds you’re already getting lost in. 4D gaming anyone?
One of the best parts about Wick and Skull is how they keep their candles fresh and timely by rotating in new scents designed around the latest and greatest games so you can always experience something new. These aren’t your typical bath candles either, everything is made with intent, from the scents to the packaging, all of which are designed with the gamer in mind. Wick and Skull are currently sitting in the middle of a blue ocean with no one else targeting gamers in a candle industry that is expected to be worth 13.38 Billion in 2028
There are scents like “Crafting Table” designed for lovers of Minecraft or Zelda as it incorporates smells of grass, sage and sandalwood. All elements that would be found in these sprawling worlds. “Hell” would be targeted to the Doom or Hades lover as it features hints of Saffron, Sandalwood and Smoke, which can make you feel like you are right there in the underworld beside Zagreus. “De Dusty” has notes of Bergamot, Cedar and Musk that feature all the elements that you could find in a game of Counter Strike or even checking for loot in PUBG or Warzone Pacific.
You can either get just one candle and put it under the tree or in the stocking or you can give a gift that will keep on giving the whole year, with a subscription where you can get 1-3 candles a month including some of their best sellers as well as some of their new or limited candles. The candles also have a 35+ hour burn time meaning you can use it to finish 2 or 3 games on average and you’ll never have to worry about a day one patch.
Enemies: By Marie Bergeron
Want to display some gaming art in your house but don’t want to make it seem like your house reeks of Mountain Dew. Marie Bergeron has created a limited edition series of minimalist art featuring enemies from the universe of Super Mario. These limited edition prints feature characters like lakitu, koopa, cheep cheep and a few others.
The prints are 8”x 8” but with a nice framing and purchasing 3 or 4 from the series, you could create a nice statement wall that tastefully displays your love of the famous Nintendo series at all times. Marie Bergeron is a freelance artist/illustrator/graphic designer currently living in Montreal, Quebec.
The minimalist design of these prints means that you could put these anywhere in your house from the gaming room, to a guest bathroom or even a nursery. A perfect gift for that newly expecting gamer.
https://www.iam8bit.com
Books
What happens when the power goes out, you don’t have a generator or battery packs and the ability to game is no longer. Keep the love of gaming burning alongside those candles with a book that would be interesting for even non gamers. Seriously, these are cool books that you can proudly display on the shelf or a coffee table, unlike some of those extremely hardcore gaming books.
Any of these three books will be a perfect gift for anyone who appreciates the medium of gaming and hits on the nostalgia of gaming from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, which are having a bit of a moment right now. Easily the best thing about any of these books is that they don’t fit into a box. It’s part history book, part gaming book and part art book. Here are three awesome books for the refined gamer.
Arcade Game Typography: The Art of Pixel Type by Toshi Omigari
Yes, this book is called Arcade Game Typography but almost everything in this book came to a platform that you likely owned from Atari, Nintendo and Sega. The book looks at how fonts were created using pixel mapping. All of the fonts in this book were created using an 8x8 pixel grid, which makes how different all of these 272 fonts look from one another all the more impressive.
Arcade Game Typography features classic examples that any retro game would love including Ninja Gaiden to Out Run. The book puts an emphasis on how creative artists needed to be when their toolkit was limited to just an 8x8 grid yet are still able to make their font feel completely original from other fonts of the time.
It would have been amazing if Arcade Game Typography was slightly larger and in a fully hardcover format to truly make it a coffee table book or a statement piece for any gamer or modern art lover but at only around 20-30 dollars on Amazon, this book is large enough and sure to be loved by any gamer.
Artcade: The Book of Classic Arcade Game Art (Extended Edition)
The good news is that the other two books are big enough that they would be perfect as a coffee table book. Artcade is a massive 356 pages, measuring at almost 12 inches wide by 6 inches tall and featuring full bleed, high quality lithographic print. Of course this is a book that you want to display open at time, and the sewn binding not only ensures a long lasting quality but also gives you the ability to lay it flat on the table. Artcade also comes with a very sturdy board slipcase that will keep the book looking new for a long time.
SNES/Super Famicom: A Visual Compendium
This last book is truly a dealers choice as Bitmap Books offers many different compendiums ranging from the NES to the Sega Master System or even some Atari’s. The console that warms my heart the most would be the SNES. At 536 pages, there isn’t a Super Nintendo memory to be missed is this coffee table book. This book takes visual look back into the early 90’s featuring game design, box art, fonts, small write-ups and anecdotes that should make it feel like you are snacking on your Dunkaroos again.
Artcade and SNES: A Visual Compendium can both be ordered directly from the publisher and at great prices. It doesn’t matter how many books you order the shipping remains at a low 16.95 with tracking from FedEx with each book only being 29.99 each. The only downside is that the publisher is located in the UK, meaning the prices are in Sterling Pounds, which is more valuable than USD or CAD.
All of the books on their site both come with a free PDF version that you can take with you anywhere, but the best way to experience these books is to have an actual tactile book on you table that you can feel with your hands. It also makes for wrapping something to put under the tree easier, because you can’t wrap a PDF.
Hardware
Backbone One
Do you have a casual gamer on your list who only really plays mobile games on their iPhone or maybe hardcore gamer on your list who uses the latest and greatest technologies available like cloud gaming from Xbox. You might be surprised to hear that there is a gift that fits in both of these categories. Technically, its the perfect gift that no matter what type of gamer you get it for, because it covers such a wide range of gamers.
The Backbone One is a very slick controller that essentially turns your iPhone into a Nintendo Switch. It doesn’t have the first party Nintendo titles but with the ability to use PlayStation Remote Play or Xbox Project XCloud or Apple Arcade you will have plenty of exclusive games at your disposal, no matter where you are. Apple Arcade for the casual gamer has some fantastic exclusive games
Often imitated, never duplicated feels like it should be the tagline for the Backbone One. There are plenty of grips available that connect to your iPhone but none that feel as good as offer as much functionality as the Backbone One. The Backbone one works on 24 different models of iPhone from the most current all the way back to the iPhone 6s.
The Backbone One connects to your iPhone using the lightning adapter, leading to the lowest latency possible, it offers pass-through charging meaning that you will be able to game 24/7 without sleep, it has a 3.5mm jack to allow for connection of a headset allowing you to immerse deeper into the game or communicate with your friends and it also has the Backbone App for added functionality including recording and editing clips.
Small caveat: With the added functionality that Backbone has recently put into their app, they have now added a subscription fee, which in 2021 shouldnt be surprising. There is some silver lining though, if you have ever owned the Backbone App before now the service will remain free for life. If you are new to the app and hardware, then you will get one free year of the service and then will need to pay around 50 bucks a year to truly realize the potential of the device, but if you don’t want to pay you can still use the hardware and one of the best built controllers for iPhone for free but without all of the features of the app. These are all pretty consumer first decisions.
It’s not locked to any device, meaning that if the gamer in your life upgrades their iPhone, the Backbone One will be able to move from one device to the next. While these might be a strength, it could actually be a weakness of the device. The only drawback of the Backbone One in my mind is that it relies on iPhone continuting to use the lightning connection for charging which is how the Backbone connects. For just over a hundred dollars for the device, this feels more like nitpicking because Apple likely won’t be releasing a new charging format on their phones anytime soon.
Switch OLED
Not wanting to put the obvious gifts on this list, I still felt compelled to put on the Nintendo Switch OLED for many reasons. First, let me talk to the lapsed gamers, who used to have a love of games when they were younger but drifted away from gaming. There is a reason that when the pandemic of 2020 started, the Nintendo Switch was one of the hottest items around, its always fun.
If you haven’t played a console since the Wii, then you will feel right at home because the Nintendo Switch has almost everything that made the Wii popular. Get a Nintendo Switch OLED, snap off the joy cons during this holiday gathering and have a bunch of laughs with everyone just like you did when Wii Sports was what happened before and after dinner.
One of the best things about the Nintendo Switch, is that its almost four years old and what that means is that there are plenty of high quality games that will bring back the feels. No gaming droughts that many have had to endure since 2017, instead only a list of the finest Nintendo products around with many games being the best or arguably the best in the series.
The Nintendo Switch OLED didn’t reinvent the console but it just made everything a little better. The OLED screen is obviously the most dramatic change that boats a larger screen with much sharper and vibrant visuals. It also has a very clean aesthetic that wouldn’t look out of place sitting on a table in the Apple Store. The white and black design looks much more refined and no longer needs to be hidden away in the entertainment unit, instead this one can be proudly displayed.
Sony X90J
Without a doubt, one of the most coveted items for many console gamers is a new TV. However, every gift guide that I have seen either doesn’t include a TV or includes the wrong one. They always include LG OLED, which is the wrong choice for the gamer in your life and let me tell you why. The biggest and easiest answer is that this LG OLED TV will look great for a little while, but when making an expensive purchase like a TV, you want it to last for more than just a few years. OLED TV’s are highly susceptible to permanent burn in or image retention or whatever else you want to call it.
This is just a fact for the organic light emitting diodes, they aren’t built to show the same image for long periods of time, which is what most games do. Either you have your heart containers in the top for games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or your health bar for souls like games including the upcoming Elden Ring or even a compass at the top of your battle royale like Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific. These items will become burned into your screen without a doubt in as little as a few years. I know from experience because I am a gamer, who plays a lot of games like this and this is exactly what happened to my fourth generation LG OLED. I reached out to LG and Best Buy and both explained nothing could be done. You can check out the whole article here with real pics here.
Fast Forward to a better idea and my current TV, The Sony X90J. The sweet spot between cost and performance. Since this panel is a VA panel, which isa form of LED and not OLED, burn in or image retention is basically non existent on these panels or as RTINGS describes the panels “immune to permanent image retention”
The X90J, is also much less expensive than your average OLED of similar panel size, meaning you would have more money left over for other items on this list. Let’s talk about the major pros of the X90J, as if you needed better reasons than price and image retention immunity. The X90J, features everything a gamer could want including a native resolution of 4K with a variable refresh rate of 120Hz, it touts a blistering fast response rate for a TV with 10.0ms when displaying 1080p @120Hz and an even more impressive 11.1 when displaying 4K@120Hz. It also supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision with two input that feature HDMI 2.1.
Okay, so assuming you are reading this looking for what to buy the gamer in your life and all that technical jargon doesn’t make any sense. Let me explain what that all means in a more simple way. The HDMI 2.1 inputs means that you can hook up both your PS5 and your Xbox Series X at the same time and take full advantage of the power capabilities of these next generation consoles. The refresh rate means that you will be getting the 120 frames per second, if the game supports, with low input lag meaning that what you want to happen on the screen is what is going to happen on the screen. Higher response times and lower frames per second means that sometimes you could miss an enemy or miss jumping on a platform if timing is off by a half a second.
Does it have some weaknesses, sure but that includes reflections and viewing angles, so as long as you are playing in front of the screen like most gamers do in a somewhat darkened room, then this is the TV to get. Need more data to back up your decision, then check out the full in depth review here by RTINGS, a site that goes maybe too far when reviewing TV’s.
Accessories
Waterfield Switch Case
Likely by the time you are reading this, the Nintendo Switch will have sold more than 100 million units, which is rarified air for gaming consoles, but more importantly, if you are looking for a gift for a gamer in you life, chances are they already own a Nintendo Switch.
What they might not have is a carrying case that doesn’t look like they are taking part in the Nintendo World Championships with Fred Savage in The Wizard. There will be no power glove, extreme color schemes here, instead Waterfield Designs have created a carrying case for Nintendo Switch that would not look out of place if you brought it into an office job interview.
Sure, you can get a case from Amazon but for a few dollars more you can get something that is made from a small business, looks a hell of a lot better and will likely last much longer. I have had mine since 2017, its been all around the world from France to Columbia To Cuba and all over North America and it still looks the same as the day that I bought it. It doesn’t matter if you are looking to get a case for the original Switch, the Switch Lite or the new Switch OLED, Waterfield has the case you need.
You can feel good supporting this company for a plethora of reasons including that they design and build the bags in San Francisco, the sew the bags by hand, the use only the finest materials including ballistic grade nylon, premium zippers and top grain leather but most importantly they seem like nice people.
When the company started in 1998, it was founded with three principles: Make products to be proud of, treat people with respect, and exercise kindness because we are all human. Now, more than ever the world needs companies that stand by these pillars of humanity.