Tell them.
Tell your mom, tell your dad. Tell your friends, tell thier friends. Tell your aunt, tell your uncle. Tell your coworkers, tell your customers.
What am I gonna do? I’m gonna do something about it. Whether I have to write up a study, start a lan cafe and begin a voluntary survey, go around the world and ask lan parties, gaming stores, anything! or even write up some article and send it to every newspaper that matters and every major magazine that matters. I’ll do something and find some way to get the word out that this fearful view of games and technology is destroying humanity.
To begin: I am a gamer.
what does this mean? does it mean that all I do is play games? that I refuse to talk to anyone but my computer? that I’m a living representation of the mockery characters portrayed in Pure Pwnage?
It means that I play games and am proud of it. Are they necessarily electronic games? no. I love Monopoly, Whatzit, Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, Yahtzee, and even the millions of games with a standard 52 card deck. I also play D&D, LARPs, and Quarters. Do I have tatoos? nope. Do I smoke crack? nope. Do I talk l337 speek in public? nope. Do I program? nope. These aren’t traits of gamers. Gamers don’t have to just play video games.
To define Gamer, we must look at the word. It’s derative is Game. The obvious conclusion is that it means “one who verbalizes a Game”
Is Bowling a game? Are there people addicted to it? (I’ve seen people whom I swear live in bowling alleys. They spend thier livelyhoods there and have no lives other than bowling)
What about poker?
What about Basketball? ZOMG!
FOOTBALL?!?!! HOLY ALL THAT IS RIGHT! You mean that I hit the sensitive spot of the American pride that is football?!
Don’t ever refer to a gamer’s problems with games like Wporld of Warcraft until you’re ready to talk to me about “Fantasy Football” and all the billions of money that is BLOWN on being a “spectator” a role that is so unhuman that I feel that the sport has made a mockery of what it means to live. That’s right. I came out and said it. I said that football and all other SPECTATOR SPORTS ARE MORE DAMAGING TO THE HUMAN LIFE THAN VIDEO GAMES HAVE OR EVER WILL BE.
I can play a game. I can watch a game, but the most unique trait of gamers is that we will be partaking of the interaction a good 95% of the time or more. If that unhealthy? or healthy in the fact that we could be physically handicapped and are challenging our brains to games which are proven to not only:
a. Improve hand-eye coordination so well that it’s advised that surgeons play video games.
b. produce some of the best puzzle solving skills that the education system has ever seen.
but even if we aren’t physically handicapped, I’ve never seen someone atrophy from playing, in fact, it still uses muscles to interact with a game right? It doesn’t take muscles to watch football on TV. It’s been proven to use less energy to be a spectator than it is to SLEEP. ouch. I’d rather play my games, thank you, I’ll keep my brain alive.
A large trend associated with Gamers has been the introduction of “gaming drinks” a line of herbally and minerally enhanced soft drinks and teas that contain chemicals known to either suppliment the body or enhance performance. But why? why would we need this? so we can sugar rush/caffiene rush our games with lbinding speed and such shaky vibration that we will never accomplish anything? nope. In fact, I’ve been tracking the benefical effects of Guarana since it’s debut to the US soft drink market back in 1995 as Josta by Pepsicola. The drink quickly became my favorite and I drak it every day at school up until it’s demise. Why? not because it was soda or tasted good. The first day I tried it I saw the label’s claim to Guarana being some mysterious and awesome plant from South America (every day we were told in school that the rain forest had many millions of cures and you might as well call this one of em). It’s been observed to exhibit awesome signs of improved memory and thought process as well as Physical endurance. It’s one of those plants that makes the body think and move better. I was hooked. I’m a perfectionist and perfection of the body and mind is one of my crazes.
What does that have to do with gaming? Puzzle-solving and physical endurance are needed in most games. (endurance you ask? yes, I’m sure your thumbs and wrist can get tired too, what about your eyes? your arms? sometimes games require lots of talking)
When it all comes down to it, the most played games (going by sales and popularity) are dealing through interaction within a predefined or even undefined social environment. Does this make them isolating and cause of inroversion? hell no. An introvert will play Tetris over Oblivion. Even combat is a social interaction related to strong feelings of emotion. Hatred, pride, defense, and even love are known to spawn combative moments. How many times have you swatted a fly in defense of your lunch and not ever realized the relation to using a BFG 50million on some scumzoid arthropod invader in some game? They’re both arthropods, they’re both invading your space, and you’re using an equal amount of emotional defensive rage on them. (“get AWAY, fly!” vs. “bam! hah! take that!”, who is the most angry?)
In the game World of Warcraft, there are many quests called escort quests, where you will usually fight monsters in defense of your escorted companion. Sometimes this is for the experience, usually for the reward (money, items). In wartime scenarios, a supply transport is protected and escorted. Usually for the reward (SUPPLIES!).
I can relate ingame scenarios to ones that are entirely unrelated to games all day long if you wish. Games are created as a reachable extension of living for those that choose not to put themselves in a harm’s way to accomplish the feeling that others have either already lived at cost or no cost to thier lives or livelyhood or have meerly imagined and wish to share thier imaginational creation to others in a means that is most easily experienced with the utmost pleasing effect.
I lost it for now, and that’s why I want to create some sort of study or something, and not in the name of fame, fortune, or some other stupid claim, but to right the wrongs of people that write “offical studies” that completely and biasedly bash this subject in the name of the fear of technology!
-out
I would like to see a continuation of the topic