I'm glad we didn't have video games when I grew up. TV is bad enough, but these motherfuckers are worse, they are systematically draining our youth of the single resource you really have in your life: time. 99% of kids are playing them most every day, and your mind turn completely off any useful pursuit when you do that, you're a thumb-wrestling vegetable.
Talked to my nephew today, he's about to turn fifteen, and what's his great plan for the future: make video games. That's the interest he has in life. Wow.
Godsakes, people, do something. Build model ships. Write a blog. Write a book. Study mathematics. See the world. Build a house. Learn to paint. Do something, anything other than working on increasing the number of virtual aliens you can kill in virtual corridors.
Eric said:
I consider gaming an emerging art form. It's a medium that can be used to tell stories no other can manage. Games can capture your imagination and take you places you'd never think to go. It has yet to be fully utilized but when it is no experience will be able to duplicate it.
I think back to my childhood when I spent most of my spare time with a controller in my hand. My brain wasn't dead. Far from it. It kept expanding beyond what 4-color palette could show me. I'd spend hours making up my own stories that took place within a game's universe. Whenever I saw a cool design I felt compelled to reproduce it with my crayons. Whenever I noticed a flaw in a game I'd think about what they could have done to make it better. Games really expanded my horizons.
Any hobby can be a waste of time and any art form can produce crap. If you build a lot of model ships I'm sure you can get so good at it you can completely zone out while your hands do all the work, and photographs can present blurry walls as well as beautiful women. Video games are hardly in the same league as other art forms. The technology is still in its infancy in a lot of regards. It can be used to produce nothing but mind-dulling distractions and in fact that may happen. As it stands numerous games have been produced that are well-written and/or visually stunning. Psychonauts is an excellent example of the first- it's a game where you take control of a psychic that gets free entry into a camp for people like him because of his gifts. Later he finds himself within the subconscious minds of those around him and he has to help them face their worst fears. All of the characters, even the minor ones, are fleshed out with their own unique quirks. An example of a graphically stunning game would be Braid- it looks like an honest to god painting.
I can't forget to mention the truly inspired music that's come from gaming, either. So many of my favorite songs came from the games I play. A fine example would be the forest theme from a game called Star Ocean: The Second Story. (You can download a remix of it here. It's moved me every time I've heard it.
I'm not as interested in gaming since I reached my 20s but I'm excited to see where it will go.
I've gotten hooked on one of those dancing games (Dance Dance Revolution and the like). I started when my doctor told me I had to lose some weight and get my cholesterol levels down a bit. Since I have to spend some time exercising, may as well enjoy it...
ReplyDeleteStrike "learn mathematics" from your list. They do more damage than video games! ;-)
ReplyDeleteFor better or worse thats the way the worlds going. They used to say young people, unemployed, crims etc should have a spell in the army. In the future all armies will be virtual. Those video gamers are going to have very good employment opportunities.
ReplyDeleteA lot of games are beneficial. For example strategy games, online games involving teamwork etc.. since they develop certain skills.
ReplyDeleteCertain online games develop social skills for those that cannot get out to see other people.
Certain games which focus upon something historical like leading the Armies of Rome (Rome Total war, Age of empires) teach you much about the era the game is based upon.
Its all interactive so it keeps you brain busy. So its much better than TVs.
... his great plan for the future: make video games.
ReplyDeleteDo you know, what this all involves?
Since some years, one of my nephews has similar plans: He wants to make computer generated movies, which needs great skills in software handling and developping, and in design, too ...
Now he is an intelligent young man, soon he will join a well known movie academy (if he succeeds in the entrance examination, which has a big rejection ratio - I wish him all the best). He is very skilled in this topic now, far ahead from what I know about this. Maybe in a few years he will contribute to movies like Matrix, Transformers, Wall-E. Not bad, I think :-)
By the way, the basic "problem" seems to be very old:
Unsere Jugend ist heruntergekommen und zuchtlos. Die jungen Leute hören nicht mehr auf ihre Eltern. Das Ende der Welt ist nahe.
(Keilschrifttext, Ur, ungefähr 2000 v.Chr.)
translated:
Our young people are run-down and undisciplined. Young people don't take any advice from their parents. The end of the world is near.
(wedge writing, Ur, about 2000 BC)
I'm trusting creative forces, even if they go sometimes strange ways not understood by me ;-)
It's a question of proportions and of age.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best pedagogy teachers I had is working with addict children. He deals with all kinds of addictions: drug, alcohol, video games... All these can be very harmful and are dealt with the same methodology.
And for school kids, he teaches circus. Children and adolescents lack risky goals in their lives, so he gives them the possibility to experiment risk, to be brave, but in a safe surrounding. One can feel brave jumping down from a two meter hight, even if there is a net.
Neeraj, obviously I am not dumb enough to believe that today's youth are worse, or worse off, than they have been. This post was just a rant about something I don't like, and a hope that it might facilitate a little bit of thought about how we use time.
ReplyDeleteNeeraj, obviously I am not dumb enough ...
ReplyDeleteOf course I know, and that's not what I wanted to express - sorry, it's sometimes not easy for me to write in English and to have all possible side effects in mind at the same time ;-) It's much easier for me to write about scientific topics ... I have to practise, and appreciate feedback.
This post was just a rant about something I don't like, and a hope that it might facilitate a little bit of thought about how we use time.
Yes, I understand that, and of course one can make bad use of his precious lifetime triggered by nearly everything. And, meeting young people, whenever I can I try also to make a bit more aware about this.
I just wanted to give a "good" example, and to express my trust into creative forces.
Just to interject a thought here, content.
ReplyDeleteI read an article in the newspaper the other day about a video game that is about raping women. From the article, you first go after the mother and rape her and then you start hunting for her two daughters.
I agree for the most part with Eolake, but these games do exist and "somehow" society needs to place some sort of controls on their content. Here in the USA, people can publish just about anything because of our freedom of speech. I'm not sure how you control these games in that environment, but it's frustrating, at best, to see this stuff.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but OK.
ReplyDeleteI have the extreme position that expression should be absolutely free. It should require hard evidence that any expression is harmful, for it to be regulated.
Eolake, you're correct, that comment was off subject and I'll save it for another day.
ReplyDeleteI believe on subject though, is my hope that the majority of people (kids) today have greater aspirations than to write video games. While the pay can be very good if you're good at it and there is a need for entertainment, I'm not sure what kind of society we'd have if everyone wanted to create games (ugh!).
Now, how the heck did I create two copies of that? Eolake can you remove one of them?
ReplyDeleteYes. Done.
ReplyDelete"Yes. Done.
ReplyDeleteTHUS SAYETH THE LORD."
See how much I improved your response? You could stand to work on your showmanship, Eo. ;)
I consider gaming an emerging art form. It's a medium that can be used to tell stories no other can manage. Games can capture your imagination and take you places you'd never think to go. It has yet to be fully utilized but when it is no experience will be able to duplicate it.
I think back to my childhood when I spent most of my spare time with a controller in my hand. My brain wasn't dead. Far from it. It kept expanding beyond what 4-color palette could show me. I'd spend hours making up my own stories that took place within a game's universe. Whenever I saw a cool design I felt compelled to reproduce it with my crayons. Whenever I noticed a flaw in a game I'd think about what they could have done to make it better. Games really expanded my horizons.
Any hobby can be a waste of time and any art form can produce crap. If you build a lot of model ships I'm sure you can get so good at it you can completely zone out while your hands do all the work, and photographs can present blurry walls as well as beautiful women. Video games are hardly in the same league as other art forms. The technology is still in its infancy in a lot of regards. It can be used to produce nothing but mind-dulling distractions and in fact that may happen. As it stands numerous games have been produced that are well-written and/or visually stunning. Psychonauts is an excellent example of the first- it's a game where you take control of a psychic that gets free entry into a camp for people like him because of his gifts. Later he finds himself within the subconscious minds of those around him and he has to help them face their worst fears. All of the characters, even the minor ones, are fleshed out with their own unique quirks. An example of a graphically stunning game would be Braid- it looks like an honest to god painting. (http://savetherobot.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/braid01.jpg)
I can't forget to mention the truly inspired music that's come from gaming, either. So many of my favorite songs came from the games I play. A fine example would be the forest theme from a game called Star Ocean: The Second Story. (You can download a remix of it here: http://ocrmirror.iiens.net/songs/Star_Ocean_Second_Story_Ocean_of_Tears_OC_ReMix.mp3) It's moved me every time I've heard it.
I'm not as interested in gaming since I reached my 20s but I'm excited to see where it will go.
Fair enough. Post updated.
ReplyDeleteI see neither of the links I pasted worked properly. Just as well; I should have thought to use tinyurl anyways. Here they are, fully functional:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/adf44k
http://tinyurl.com/b726qe
They worked fine for me. (You can see I put them in the post.) But yes, short URLs are good.
ReplyDeleteGodsakes, people, do something. Build model ships. Write a blog. Write a book. Study mathematics. See the world. Build a house. Learn to paint. Do something, anything other than working on increasing the number of virtual aliens you can kill in virtual corridors.
ReplyDeleteDo you do any of those things? I'd like to know how much of the world you've seen.
NOt that I'm disagreeing about video games. When I was akid they existed but were basic. Atari 2600. The early nintendo. We'd play for an hour or so and get bored and go outside and play. Now games and so elaborate they require a huge investment in time.
The older generation always hates the new thing. When TV was new a lot of people raised on radio thought it was an abomination. Maybe they were right. I watch way too much of it myself, but at least I didn't when I was a kid.
I've visited Sweden, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Norway, and USA, and I've lived in Denmark, Scotland, and England.
ReplyDelete"Now games and so elaborate they require a huge investment in time."
ReplyDeleteNot really. Sure, if you want to get really good at a game you'll have to spend a lot of time with it, but games now have frequent save-points, in-game tutorials, and they don't last much longer than the games of old if you only consider the main story.
Most shooters can be completed in about eight hours. RPGs still average in the 40-60 hour range and usually someone that's into RPGs will forego television and they won't buy any other games until they're finished with the one they're playing. In fact games are made and marketed to people who only buy one game a month, if that. The experience has to be involving if they're going to get people to pay $60 for it. They've always used a form of this tactic; they'd extend the length of an hour long game by making it really %$^&ing difficult, now they do it with deep gameplay and elaborate stories.
It might take a while to develop the basic skill set to play a certain kind of game, but once you've got it down it'll carry over to nearly everything else within the genre. After a while all you need to know is which button does what and you're good to go.
And don't forget the Wii and the DS. Both systems are easy to pick up and they're great for a quick fix. They're gimmicky but fun, and someone unfamiliar with modern gaming can easily pick up the basic skills they need for more advanced games with these systems.
Even MMOs have gotten a lot more casual friendly. WoW is commonly viewed as a huge timesink and in many ways it is, but overall it's one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available (15 USD a month) and if you manage your time well you never have to spend more than three hours online on any given night (not even that if you don't care about the high-end content). The game is practically designed for the casual player. Anyone who gets addicted either lacks self-control or has no greater ambitions in life, and in the latter case WoW isn't the problem.
So really, you only have to invest as much time as you want to spare.
Eo,
ReplyDeleteLately, while sick and terminally unmotivated for "anything", I've been playing for more than 14 total hours the Superman Returns game. It's FAR from brain-rotting. Immediately after the short tutorial intro level, you start facing challenges which forced me, a seasoned gamer over 30, to use my brain and find strategies and tactics. [And therefore not let myself completely melt with complacent fever.] I worked on ONE assumption: that there had to be a way for every difficult foe. And indeed, it turns out that the game is NOT of very poorly balanced difficulty. It just forces you to find solutions. I'm telling you, those mutant gargoyles were a challenge.
I beat every single battle of that game without using help guides OR cheat codes.
Hey, I think I *should* write a guide for it, there is no complete one yet on my usual reference site.
My only real complaint about that game is that the PS2 graphics for the city of Metropolis are of low quality. It feels that it was designed for the newest consoles and adapted. And the map is not clear to use. The rest is all good. FANTASTIC flight controls, feel incredibly natural, instinctive, Superman-like. Now for the clever bit: since Supes is indestructible (even Kryptonite only saps his energy and forces him to recharge), the health guauge in the fights is actually that of Metropolis. Superman cannot fight forever, because he must avoid the destruction of the city he protects from baddies. More or less significant repairs occur between battles and from rescuing injured citizens to a nearby ambulance. Works great, very coherent system.
My 4½ y/0 nephew loves "sandbox" games like this precise one. I load a save where no event missions occur, and let him have fun flying Superman around and using the powers. (Or better yet, going wild in Bizarro on the rampage mode!) When he's old enough for it, he'll have action figures. "Real", material toys. I've always loved those. (Yeah, I'm still a big kid, SO WHAT?!?)
Videogames are, very precisely, sophisticated toys. They are what you make of them.
My dad likes to rehash that in his poor, rural Lebanon family in the Forties, they had no toys but those they made with bits and sticks, "we played with literally nothing". (Not sure you'd agree with his use of "literally" ;-) But I bet he also knew boredom, and came up with some pretty stupid stuff to do sometimes. That's how you end up taking "private catechism lessons" with a priest: no better place to be...
Well, me, I mostly loved books. My Dad viewed comic books just like you talk about videogames, "worthless, nearly nothing to read in them". Well, hell, I loved comic books to bits, but I ALSO loved books with not a single picture, not even on the cover sometimes. Read Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island before I was ten. You gotta trust the children to make their own choices, provided you trust that you've educated them well as persons.
I rest my case. (Phew! What's IN that dang suitcase, anyway? Weighs like a ton of bricks. Talk about carrying a chip on your shoulder. ;-)
Ben,
I love learning from the educational parts of some games. Read all the info of the various places in the PS2 game Carmen Sandiego: Secret of the Stolen Drums. Opening level made me hear for the first time about a "Guggenheim Museum", in NYC. ;-)
Only disappointment, was that you don't actually need ANY of the info to play the game in full. Not a single necessary hint in there. I've seen more detailed documentation on fictional universes.
Like Neeraj points out, the skills for making videogames or CGI movies are often quite similar. VERY long gone are the days where you simply dodged "laser" pixels while hammering or squeezing the single fire button for hours. Which still trained some incredible hand-eye coordination, I'll tell you that!
Some games I instantly fall under the charm of. Like Saga Frontier, with its watercolor fairy tale book styled backgrounds. Or Discworld, which introduced ignorant French-cultured me to Terry Pratchett's awesome humour. I love geometry-based puzzle games. Adventure epic frescoes like Final Fantasy IX. There's some truly artistic wicked shit to be found in videogames.
Of course, there's also some stuff that's just meant to nab your cash and rot your brain.
Just saying that you should consider things with less contrasted perspective, Eo.
Other random remarks:
I heard of Gouraud Shading with the PS1 game Toshinden. Gouraud mathematical functions are quite advanced. To use that stuff you'd better understand how it works. (Oops! Sorry, Bert, but there ARE maths in videogames. "I cannot tell a lie." ;-)
I've been rather busy filling my MP3 walkman with fave musics ripped from my videogame CDs. Some of that stuff is just fuckin' great. Among which, those of Magic Carpet, Terracon, Tetris, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Overboard!, Rayman, Colony Wars, Sentinel, Swagman, Lemmings: adventures of Lomax, Tomb Raider, Warcraft, Little Big Adventure, Katamari Damacy, Mickey's Wild Adventure, Bug Too, even a track from The Smurfs on PS1...
"And for school kids, he teaches circus."
"Circus? How about a real job?" -- (Sans Famille, Hector Malot)
Did you know that in the days of Molière, actors were not allowed to have a christian burial? Considered as not being true working people, and their nomadic lifestyle as the sure promise of an "immoral" lifestyle.
Would you state today that acting is not a real job? (Seems to pay the bills for some...)
"This post was just a rant about something I don't like"
Ah, well, it's okay then. Boys will be boys.
We all went through the Ranting Phase. You'll outgrow it eventually. ;-)
Or you'll stay stuck in it like some immature Lebanese folks I won't name. ;-) again.
"Our young people are run-down and undisciplined. Young people don't take any advice from their parents. The end of the world is near.
(wedge writing, Ur, about 2000 BC)"
H.O.W.L.! Howling Of Wild Laughter! :-D
That one was priceless, Neeraj. Oh, I'm SO stealing it for my act!
"a video game that is about raping women."
Never heard of THAT one. Definitely tops the "Hot Coffe Code" in GTA-San Andreas.
Then again, you can find all sorts of very sick stuff amongst PC games. Including propaganda games for neo-nazis, or about the Palestinian Intifada... I heard that the game about the Hezbollah facing the 2006 Israeli attack was actually quite realistic and immersive. (Search "Truthful Pledge" on Wikipedia, or the link in my blog's early archives.)
I'm very curious, but still haven't managed to find and try that controversial game. The rumoured PS2 version doen't seem to be coming out. Pity, it's said to depict the actual geography of South Lebanon. Never been there in the flesh.
Never calm enough to GO there... Maybe it has a free roaming mode? One can dream! ;-)
Um. Back on topic. There are a lot of sex games on PC, some of which with very unsettling levels of violence, sadism, rape, mutilation, etc... I think it should simply be considered and treated just like movies. Remember when all the buzz was about how movies would be the unraveling of our whole society?
Make a rating system mandatory, and then ensure that informed adults have free access to whatever they want. Not like the major national distribution outlets in the USA enforcing censorship terrorism and economic blackmail by blocking the availability of anything which they have some motive for morally judging.
Responsible free expression, PERIOD. No less, no more.
"but it's frustrating, at best, to see this stuff."
As I said, you shouldn't be confronted to such a sight if you don't want to. Should have its place, where people will only go with the full knowledge of what they'll be seeing. Like strip bars.
Let people be fully free to access it, or to not be exposed to it, and that's that, everybody happy except for those who want to unconstitutionally control others' lives.
Jerry Falwell doesn't want us to masturbate. Osama BinLaden doesn't want us to drink "impure" alcohol. Same difference.
End of potentially digressive section.
"my hope that the majority of people (kids) today have greater aspirations than to write video games."
Or to become actors? Or rock musicians?
Other times, same fundamental subjects. What IS futile exactly? Where's the core difference between Shakespeare's plays, and Tobey Maguire jumping aroung in super-hero tights pointing sticky fingers? Between fantasy playing with carved wooden figurines, or with a hi-def pixel videogame character? It's still storytelling of some sort. Needless entertainment? A means to a deeper reflexion? ["With great power comes great responsibility"...]
What "people" and "authorities" SHOULD do, is the least possible. Just think very carefully and define the unacceptable. And leave the rest alone.
Things have a way of working out by themselves. It's part of my homebrew philosophy.
"I consider gaming an emerging art form." [Eric dixit]
I think it's maturing fast. Already close to home, I'd say. Things are going way faster than with cinema.
"It's a medium that can be used to tell stories no other can manage."
You don't effing say! It finally allows you to ACT in these stories, not just passively follow suit. Man, that's just awesome.
Playing videogames is way less "decerebrating" than watching TV. Being active means that you take decisions, and that you're physically doing something. With the right game, it's not far from getting moderate exercise.
Or intense exercise, courtesy of Wii Sports and even the PlayStation Eye Toy camera.
I can't wait for the day I have room enough to really use that gadget. Exercise AND lots of fun? Rock on!
I'm also eager for my Dance Mat, currently gathering dust because my room is too small for it. (Working on a "residential system upgrade". ;-)
And it allows for some excellent quality time of fun with the little ones. Some of the stuff I've very carefully chosen is for all ages. Should have them back to their parents wonderfully exhausted for bedtime.
I know, I'm a saint. ;-)
"The technology is still in its infancy in a lot of regards."
Not really in agreement with you there. You could say the exact same thing about movies (these two share A LOT in common): once they were silent and B&W, today they're Hi-Def, soon in stereoscopy. One day, in full 3-D, and after that we'll have holodeck novels like in Star Trek, or direct projection with brain feed...
I say if videogames can give us realistic-looking images, sounds and actions, they're "reasonably mature", and the rest is mostly up to the imagination and creativity of the people making them.
Would you say comic books took storytelling out of its all-words infancy? It WAS a technological progress...
Psychonauts? Yes, one of the truly great games I can't forgive myself for not thoroughly playing YET. So many gems, so little time in real life...
Naughty Dog really makes some formidable stuff, too, like the Jak & Daxter series. Other great games include the penultimate Crash Bandicoot: Crash of the Titans, and the Ratchet & Clank series. There are many excellent games which ALSO manage to be visually great.
Then again, my main gripe about Tomb Raider 1 was that Lara's profile was just one big textured prism, which they soon fixed in the sequel. For the rest, it was very nice-looking for the time. I'm getting me the Anniversary re-edition. TR1 was a perfect example of a game that entertains you, brings action, and makes you THINK. And observe. And watch your step! (SPIKE PIT!!! Ouch. Too late. Alas, poor Lara, I knew her well.)
"But yes, short URLs are good."
Me, I just use [A href=...] HTML coding. You get used to it fast, and to inserting a URL into a shorter seamless in-paragraph text.
Each his own style. :-)
Anon reminded me of something, with that Atari 2600 mention:
There was at least one great game on that quaint old jalopy. True, it was great because it was two-player. Each controlled a gun cartridge moving forward in a maze (don't ask!), and capable only of changing directions at crossroads. The other thing the cartridge was able to do, was fire a single square "bullet" (I said, don't ask!), also telling it upon firing whether to go right, left or straight at every following intersection. If you made contact with your own "bullet", you caught it and could fire it again. The aim was to hit the opponent 10 times, every time sending it flying as if its rear-bumper was on fire. Cat-and-mouse. Endless hours of fun.
Today it's become Super Smash Bros. But the basic principle remains the same: slugging it in a silly manner.
I miss that game.
"games now [...] don't last much longer than the games of old if you only consider the main story."
True. They just provide more incentive for replay than simply repeating the same identical platform-hopping sequences. They got creative. Often in a good way.
I don't like fighting games much, precisely because of all that combat system you now have to assimilate. I love plug-and-play, with a progressive learning of the subtleties, and not too much of them. I want them rich, not complex.
"In fact games are made and marketed to people who only buy one game a month, if that."
Well, this applies for GOOD games, anyway. :-)
"they'd extend the length of an hour long game by making it really %$^&ing difficult, now they do it with deep gameplay and elaborate stories."
Like I said: they got creative. In a good way.
"It might take a while to develop the basic skill set to play a certain kind of game, but once you've got it down"...
...it'll be like riding a bike. You never lose the skill, time well invested. :-)
"Anyone who gets addicted either lacks self-control or has no greater ambitions in life"
I'm pretty positive that video games, like all addictions, only affect those with a readiness for addiction.
Two days ago, I heard that some Parkinson's medications sometimes caused gambling addiction as a side effect, vanishing upon discontinuation. It's about brain chemistry. And, of course, about how our personality and life experiences express through brain chemistry and modify it. Some people have a readiness for addiction, and trust me, then they'll always manage to find one. Be it socially condemned, or on the contrary glorified.
In conclusion, I'd just like to say that I still read much more than I play vidgames AND watch TV. Put together. My father was always dead-convinced that I'd put my whole life into these cathodic entertainment crap thingies, but...
Then again, I've been on the internet for hours, clickety-clicking loads of chatter. That can also qualify as TV time-wasting leisure activities. ;-)
Things DO have a way of working out.
When you've raised a good kid, you've raised a good kid, and he'll make you proud one way or another.
You just have to raise a good kid. Not leave the making of a person to school, priests and television. NOTHING replaces having good parents. Or parenting figures, of course. An orphan can turn out great too, with the right people.
Now, the question is: do YOU trust yourself for well raising your children, well enough to trust them to be sensible and responsible persons come the age of reason?
In love, in education and in trust, we reap what we sow. Dogs don't breed cats, as they say in French.
Yeah, I was expecting to be put in my place by you. (And Eric did too, double trouble, kool.)
ReplyDelete"I say if videogames can give us realistic-looking images, sounds and actions, they're "reasonably mature", and the rest is mostly up to the imagination and creativity of the people making them."
ReplyDeleteWhen I say the technology is in its infancy I'm thinking more in terms of AI and immersion. Developers can build sprawling worlds but they can't make AI that acts like a living creature. The stories, barring a few bursts of genius here and there, are pretty bland.
Saying that it's in its infancy is an overstatement, I'll grant you that. But gaming is really only starting to mature. In another decade I suspect our entire concept of what gaming is will be vastly different than it is now.
Up until this point we've basically taken the same concepts we started with and we've improved on them with each generation of hardware. There's been a lot of innovation but essentially we're playing beefier versions of the classic archetypes. Now that graphical capabilities have nearly plateaued I suspect that we'll see a lot more imagination put into the medium with the Wii acting as a starting point.
Godsakes, people, do something. Build model ships. Write a blog. Write a book. Study mathematics. See the world. Build a house. Learn to paint. Do something, anything other than working on increasing the number of virtual aliens you can kill in virtual corridors.
ReplyDeleteI'd kind of put writing a blog and building model ships up there as being about as much of a waste of time as playing video games. Reading and writing on blogs is fun, or I wouldn't do, and I'm not putting it down. But it's still mental masturbating.
I'm not a big fan of today's video games, though. Like good Sir Anonymous of the House of Anonymous, I had an Atari. Those were the days! For some reason, though, we did not spend hour upon hour playing it the way kids do today. Today's games are so complex that they take a lot longer to get anywhere.
Bert: Strike "learn mathematics" from your list. They do more damage than video games! ;-)
'Nuff said! ;-)