I’ve been a gamer for most of my life. I was about 10 years old when we became the first family on the block to have “Pong.” Owned an Atari after that, sort of got out of it during the college years, but picked up a Sega Genesis around 1993 specifically because my brother had it and whenever we hung out we’d play Madden - and he’d crush me, because I didn’t actually have Madden. So I got my own console, and it’s been downhill ever since.
I’ve mostly been a fan of sports games, such as the aforementioned Madden. Bought that one every single year, in fact, from 1993 through 2006; didn’t buy this year’s version because the little girl was about to arrive and I had things to do besides playing video games. In recent months the little boy and I have played Lego Star Wars extensively, finishing the game; newfound Star Wars fan that he made me, I also have Battlefront and Battlefront II (where I’m one stinking objective away from finishing the “Rise of the Empire” campaign, and if anyone knows how to defeat the Jedi in the Death Star hangar, please e-mail me immediately).
On the PC it’s been the Age of Empires I and II, even better was Civilization III, Battlefield 1942 and a few others. I just picked up Rome: Total War; haven’t figured out how to really play it yet, no time.
The general rule when I got a new game, at least pre-kids, was to wind up awake at 2 a.m., unable to pull myself away. That’s more true of the PC games, which tend to be deeper; there have been a few sleepless nights along the way, where you find youself playing at 4 a.m. and think, well, I might as well just keep it up until the sun rises. It’s been quite a while since I indulged in that, thank God. But the games can indeed be addictive, as detailed in the New Era’s lead story today by the Associated Press; now, some doctors want this officially classified as a psychiatric disorder - in order to help “addicts” get help and get off the pixelated sauce.
In one sense, it sounds kind of ludicrious. In another… well, let’s just say the little boy shows the signs of someone who could spend way too much time hooked into the PS2 or the computer; his mother won’t allow it (she’s the kind of mom who, on a nice day like today, basically throws him out the door and says, “Go play outside,” which is a good way to be). But of the traits he’s inherited, this interest seems to be one of them.
Which bugs me, in a sense. So I’ve been very careful about showing him any of the games that can be too violent - and I don’t go in for Grand Theft Auto or any of that stuff. Neither will he; those games will not be permitted in our house. The World War II games will be, though - though violent, there’s a historic aspect to them. But not until he’s significantly older, until he’s ready for it.
With video games, as with anything else, parents have to exercise a degree of control that too many parents just can’t be bothered with these days - or don’t have the wherewithal to be bothered with, or don’t want to be the bad guys. Parents have to sometimes be the bad guys. And sometimes I think that if more people realized that, we really wouldn’t need doctors - nor, for that matter, the legal system - to spend so much time worrying about our kids.
