The Daily Sam: The Video-Game-Industrial Complex
Video games, you may have noticed, are big. Entire generations have been lost to video games. A recent Congressional report on the alarming amount of time Americans spend playing video games was cancelled when the aides responsible for producing the report became addicted to EverQuest II. There is a worldwide epidemic of video gaming, especially among young people, aka the little whipper snappers.
According to video game journalist Geoff Keighley, online gamers are considered addicted when “player’s eyeballs begin to bleed and hands become detached from their arms.” But is this really a problem? Annual video games sales are now larger than the Pacific Ocean and are rapidly gaining on Snickers Bar sales. Clearly American culture is thriving. Our collective manhood is demonstrated in hits like Tom Clancey’s tactical military game Ghost Recon, while Wii allows people like my niece Sophie to kick my ass in digital tennis, which in no way threatens my male ego. I am much too emotionally secure. I have no problem with that, or with the fact that my daughter Laura can beat me in real tennis. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m cool with it. Everything’s fine.
But have we lost our way as a nation, much as I have in this blog? There was a time when video games taught us enduring values. Back in the 80s many of us spent 734,486 hours and 23 minutes playing Donkey Kong after work. In this classic game the main character, a plumber named Mario, was on a mission to save a kidnapped princess from a giant ape. (They never explained where the ape came from or who Mario was.) Donkey Kong, carrying the princess on his back, attempted to escape by ascending a tower that was under construction while throwing barrels down at Mario to prevent him from climbing up to rescue the princess. Obviously, Donkey Kong was a game that taught you something valuable.
But those of us who are old and were there at the beginning remember the Zen koan of all games: Pong. Now that was a video game at its essence—mano-a-mano, or, mano-a-machino. Pong is the Truth. Pong is the Light. Pong is the Way.
So what’s next? How should I know? I’m too busy playing. Ask somebody else—somebody smart—somebody who’s twelve years old.
About Sam
Sam Barry is the author of How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons and coauthored Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now with his late wife, the author and founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders, Kathi Kamen Goldmark....
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...but you don't have a problem, Sam.
You don't. No, really. You don't need to enlist for group therapy sessions.
If you really want to impress kids.....
tell them how you used to play solitaire with REAL CARDS on a TABLE!!! They will assume you did this by candlelight since obviously electricity had yet to be invented. The under 12 crowd that I told that to were speechless which really isn't a bad thing when you think about it.
The Zen koan of all games: Pong
Sam, coincidentally I just got a part-time contract with Sony Computer Entertainment/Playstation (doing some editorial stuff) so this really made me laugh. I am sharing your post around the office. Wow, I am learning all about the new games, and ooh, ooh, games aren't just for boys any more and especially the ones coming out in the next couple of years -- I can't talk about them because I'd have to kill you of course. But even today PS3 is amazing. I used to zone out on Pong back in -- hmmm -- the turn of the 80's, was it? Then my sister got a marketing job at Atari and my little brothers loved her more because she got them free PacMan. Before I got this Sony gig I have to say I truly disdained gaming, thinking it was just for teen-aged boys, but after seeing Flower, Uncharted, Heavy Rain I'm a convert... Oh, and my baby brothers, who are now 40, think I'm cool again.