Nerdish Leanings: The Vicious Circle of Video Game Addiction

Part I: Justin establishes a tenuous link between the week's theme and his chosen topic.

Video games tend to set people up into a vicious circle of addiction. The longer you play video games, the better you get at them and the worse you get at everything else in life by comparison. Additionally, the more you play them, the less people will hang out with you, and the more free time you'll have to play games.

Add to this a system where when you finally finish a game on its "normal" difficulty setting, you unlock the "real man" difficulty setting and have no choice but to remain seated, thumbs permanently bent by years of button-jabbing. Throw in some jiggly animated boobs and explosions, and get the poop-sock ready.

They might as well just build a crack-pipe directly into the controller.

Part II: Justin makes a shocking confession.

It may shock and awe you to learn that I have been trapped in the vicious circle of game addiction, one which has been continually reinforced since I first wrapped my fragile, un-carpal-tunneled hands around a boxy NES controller many years ago.

The list of games to which I've been addicted is shamefully long. When I think about all of the things I could have achieved had I not been busy jumping on turtles, rhythmically tapping, or pushing blocks around, it makes me so angry that I have to shoot some zombies.

Ever see "The Wizard"? Most people were quick to realize that it was a thinly veiled commercial for Nintendo products, aimed squarely at the wallets of a generation of young people. The Power Glove's badness notwithstanding, there was a much more insidious message to the film. The main point of the film, in my opinion, was to trick impressionable kids into thinking that their ability to play video games might some day have a practical application. This is obviously complete malarky, but the point was made well and here I am, 18 years later, still hooked. Other works guilty of perpetuating this myth include Ender's Game, the Last Starfighter and that episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where Meatwad plays "Moon Master."

Part III: Justin calls upon visual aid.

Part IV: Justin takes a break to shoot some zombies.

Part V: Justin returns to finish his post.

Justin Douglas writes "Nerdish Leanings" for The Bathtub on Monday afternoons.  You can e-mail him at j.d.bathtub@gmail.com.

Comments

[KELLYq]

ha ha

[Lauren]

NO MENTION OF SMOOTH MOVES?