I have some nieces and nephews in school now, and it amazes me how vilified videogames are. When I was in school there were these sorts of Puritanical crusades, but it was rap music or Southpark and the like. It's amusing to see the older generation fall into being the Puritans they used to hate.
It's also got me to think about videogames a lot, because I used to think it ruined my life, but now seeing the next generation having to deal with this Puritanical crusade, it's made me think about how videogames impacted me. I came from an alcoholic (like "regularly see her passed out in the kitchen floor" in the morning as I went to school alcoholic) mother's household, and I think videogames were what was holding me together. And looking back at other kids with similarly broken households, they all chose different vices; and although I haven't gone far in life, they've done fuckall and are in way, way worse straights. Of course, the ones without broken households probably did the chad drug-use life, but they were psychologically able to get away with it because their homelife wasn't a mess; but I'm not talking about those kids. What I'm talking about is–if what you have to work with dealing with a broken household–then videogames is the preferable vice.
I recall an acquaintance and his brother in High School who I came to realize that he had a really shitty home life. I knew he played a lot of games and his brother was a stoner. It was really interesting seeing how their lives completely diverged simply due to their vice of choice.
If I didn't sink days into Civilization II alone, I probably would've been even worse off trying to pretend my way into being an alcoholic. That, and at least I learned something while playing Civ II (I learned more world history from that game than I did High School, that's for sure). That brings me to another point because I'm not even sure if I buy the argument that they're always a negative. When you're playing games, at least you're actively engaging, thinking, doing something. Yeah, sure, call them escapist fantasy lands; but when some kid spends his time reading to enter and escapist fantasy land, you're O.K. with that all of a sudden, even when that was the point of your complaint just a moment ago? We entertain the notion that other forms of art engage the mind into a higher realm of challenge and existence, but not games? Regardless, though, even if they are a negative,
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