-A 16-year old World of Warcraft player runs away from home with a 40-year old mother of 4 he meets online. Wow. I mean that title says it all. This kid had what is increasingly referred to as “gaming addiction,” a very real problem that has caused very real casualties. Put simply, video games are like psychological alcohol: used responsibly, they’re fine, but it’s all too easy to let it get out of hand. What happens next is grim: infants dying because their parents ignore them, kids screwing their lives up and never leaving the house, depression, suicide.
Of course, video games as a whole get blamed. We should ban them all, they breed killers, etc. What amazes me about the people leading this charge is that they are obviously not students of history. Has anyone heard of a little thing called Prohibition? How did that go over, exactly? The lesson we should have learned from that debacle was simple: institutionalized Puritanism is wasteful, stupid and even dangerous. No one’s denying that video games can cause harm, but pinning blame on them is the result of simplistic, two-dimensional reasoning. At the end of the day, people have a right to screw their own lives up if they choose, and you can’t take that away from them. And anyway, more than 90% of gamers manage to balance the activity into a healthy overall lifestyle, there’s a thriving international community that is brought together through the medium, and charities like Penny Arcade’s “Child’s Play” have done real good in the world. This is not the mob at the Roman Coliseum, it’s an art form.
In my opinion, these harsh reactions to video games are identical to the ones levied against comic books years ago, and they stem from cultural elitism more than anything. In the 1940s, idiots with medical degrees were trying to convince everyone that Batman and Robin would incite homoeroticism amongst young children. This is no better. People who don’t like video games can easily project all kinds of nasty things on them, and then they’ll drudge up whatever “science” they can to reaffirm their calloused assumptions.
And while we’re on the subject of these so-called “concerned parents,” let me address something I read in the article mentioned above. The statement claimed that this 16 year old was suffering from a gaming addiction which “prevented him from going to school.”
Prevented him? What in the hell? When I was in the seventh grade, my father saw my report card and stated flatly: “Either these grades improve, or I throw your Nintendo 64 away.” My parents would have set fire to the TV and made me watch before I would have been “prevented” from getting an education by a freaking toy—and I was the spoiled kid, too. It’s one thing if your son/daughter has serious problems, that you can’t help, but most of these teens are either psychologically healthy or they have something that can be handled. And anyway, if every single one of them was just a bad seed and the parents couldn’t have done anything, then it really wouldn’t be the video game’s fault.
-Sam Mendes is likely directing the next Bond movie. Thank God. Due to MGM’s financial troubles, nothing can be official yet, but it seems pretty likely. Word around the campfire is that Daniel Craig didn’t like the negative reactions that “Quantum of Solace” got, so now he’s pushing his weight around and demanding Mendes get the job (they worked together on “Road to Perdition”). Personally, I’m glad he’s doing that, no other Bond star has ever demonstrated such a vested interest in these things. And he should care, damn it, it’s his face up there on the screen, it’s his image taking the blows if this thing doesn’t work. I’m glad Craig cares enough about quality to be bothered by bad reviews, and I’m glad he’s not afraid to flex some muscle and get what he wants.
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