By Tom 'passable complexion' Waters
July
1st , 2007
Perhaps adult hardcore gaming is a means of delaying a realization of
deep seated homosexual tendencies. Men
who like to play with men in a prepubescent fashion, sharing joysticks together
on a couch for days on end and shooting their big guns together. Stranger theories have been introduced |
There are two breeds of gamers: the kind that play when
they can with a full, rich life, passable social skills and other hobbies, and
then there’s the other kind. They make
Star Trek fans look like the belle of the ball. The latter half has either never had relations with a woman, wouldn’t
know what to do with a woman, never will have relations with a woman, or all of
the above. The latter half couldn’t
carry on a simple back and forth small talk if their real lives depended on it,
or if extra lives in their favorite fantasy game were at stake. I’ve been both. I was a hermit gamer for a
long time, spending time with other people only when they sat down within ear
shot and watched me click and zap my way through the latest conquest. Then I
grew up. Then I realized that there are buttons outside of a television that
are a lot fun to push and some of them are either on women’s clothing or right
on their person. There’s no strategy
guide or walk through for that, my friends.
Vampires have a better complexion and constitution than
the hardcore gamer. Whereas nosferatu
thrive on the blood of innocents, gamer geeks guzzle endless gallons of
Mountain Dew Code Red, impregnating the small salt map of acne all over their
pale and bloated bodies while choking down candy bar after candy bar after
candy bar. I used to feel superior to PC
gamers when I was a couch dweller and now I feel superior to both. I get things done in my life. I have a
girlfriend. I have a good paying job
with class and status. I go outside of
my house for entertainment on occasion and I don’t rest my dinner on top of my
unwieldy and gelatinous stomach until the load screen pops up. I have a life. This sucks sometimes because I am not the
master of an imaginary universe and I have trouble finding the time to play the
small cornucopia of games that I buy on a regular basis. We all make choices and I choose to interact
with my fellow man while their conversations consist of fan fiction, bulletin
posts on Lara Croft’s sexuality, and heated World of Warcraft lineage
discussions.
Hardcore gamers are pathetic, but it’s refreshing to know
that they’re a dying breed. No matter
how hard they try, they won’t be able to impregnate their television sets, they
won’t reproduce and their numbers will dwindle. Publicly traded McDonald’s stock will plummet. Sweat pants, IGN, G4 and the entire line of
Little Debbie’s products will go the way of the dodo when these great
lumbering, wheezing, foul smelling dinosaurs click on to extinction.
The silver age in the industry won’t last forever. Eventually kids might realize that there’s a
great wide world in store for them and that physical movement is actually
pleasurable, especially when it involves expunging fluids besides their own
urine in a reclining office chair during twelve hour lan parties. When this happens, cellulite margins the
world over may decrease. Candy bar sales
will spike and fall, and sweat pants will lose their stock value. Acne creams and asthma inhaler values will
decrease while the collective fat and voluntary retardation in the nation will
rise.
Shopping at a videogame store, I notice the same
personality traits I see when I shop at a porn store; a legion of men (zombies
really) with dead eyes staring straight ahead without interacting with other
patrons scanning the stacks for the single best pleasure on the shelf. A battalion of thoughtless morons and half
wits who have given up on the ideal that they will ever have sexual relations
with someone of the opposite sex who have opted for a simulated reality by way
of substitute. It’s that very same
substitute that keeps them from having a healthy, fulfilling life but like any
addiction, they choose the latter anyways. They keep coming back for that rush. I had a philosophy professor who asked his class if we’d exercise
impulse control if we were given a small portable box that had a button that
provided the ultimate pleasure or if we’d click it all day long. Those boxes exist for some men, and they’re
videogame consoles.
Hardcore gamers are pathetic, listless, and
unproductive. They’re unattractive, half
witted and socially inept. If they did
something worthwhile with their lives I believe I’d drop dead from the
shock. We’re raising a generation of
morons and lazy couch recliners who will have zero abilities to obtain gainful
employment and even worse odds of starting a family. They’re extincting themselves, and hopefully
in another fifty years the entire subculture will be obsolete. While the medium is entertaining and ground
breaking, I can’t say enough for moderation. Life is full of surprises, challenges and obstacles that are a lot more
intrinsic and extrinsic than the latest yearly installment of Madden or
Thugfest.
Occassionally, I’ll try to get back into gaming the way
that I used to when I was 13. When I was
a kid, I’d play seven hours worth of Metroid in the basement when I wasn’t
reading comic books, trying (and failing) to get girls, or scoring cigarettes
and going out with friends to cause trouble. I can’t do it anymore. I have too
many responsibilities and my mind won’t resign itself to sit and vegetate for
more than two hours, which is a good thing, I suppose. When (notice the when) you grow up, your
obligations take precedence over mindless entertainment. Sure it’s art and sure it improves your
hand/eye coordination, but do you really want to go to your grave telling your
mom on your deathbed that optimal hand/eye coordination was better than an
active and interesting life?
Most hardcore gamers are at least forty pounds
overweight. Most hardcore gamers play
more than four hours of a given game everyday and have a diet like Calvin from
Calvin & Hobbes, shoveling down Ho-Ho’s, Mountain Dew and Chocolate Coated
Sugar Bombs. Most hardcore gamers are
too busy playing Final Fantasy #352 to wash under the folds and flaps in their
gelatinous and neglected bodies. Most
hardcore gamers brag about finishing games that no one’s ever heard of to
fellow hardcore gamers. They live in a
Never Never Land of increasing escapism to deal with the fact that they’ve
pissed away their lives atrophying away on a couch, a computer chair or a bean
bag, some of the only furniture constructs that will hold their fat asses.
There was a great industry crash in 1986 when the market
completely dropped out from under it and kids lost interest. It lasted all of two years. As much as I depend on the business, we could
use a new market free fall. I don’t see
it happening. News services like to
complain about how obese children are now, but how many of them do we see
playing outside? What percentage of
teenage girls have to put up with their boyfriends cracking out in front of a
television with their friends for six hours because they don’t know any better
and because it’s a core social mechanic to their generation?
No good can come of this many boys and men staving off
doing something with their lives by lobotomizing their brains through an analog
stick. I’m interested in the long terms
effects. In fifty years, the average
American weight may rise by twenty pounds. Leading men in the movies could have a terminal case of adult acne from
pixie sticks and Wild Cherry Pepsi consumption. It’s got to stop somehow, if only to put an end to the horrendous
videogame-to-movie translations. They’ve
been keeping The Rock’s career on life support for the last five years when he
never deserved a career in the first place. Perhaps adult hardcore gaming is a means of delaying a realization of
deep seated homosexual tendencies. Men
who like to play with men in a prepubescent fashion, sharing joysticks together
on a couch for days on end and shooting their big guns together. Stranger theories have been introduced.
I buy more games than I play, thinking that I’ll get
around to them eventually. I am a slave
to marketing and advertising, and I generally never get around to finishing
half of the titles I pick up, which I can live with. What I wouldn’t be able to live with is the
notion of finishing all of them and short changing the rest of my life. Work, girlfriend, books, writing, cleaning,
exercising, socializing, and leaving the house without having to waddle or
operate a small pulley system to get my fat ass off the couch. I have a life. I leave my house on a regular basis and I
stimulate my mind and maintain my relationships with people. I’ll take the high score on that over a three
year consecutive streak on the World of Warcraft any day of the week. We’re beyond the Grand Theft Auto
controversy. The sooner the media
demonizes another flavor of the year the sooner kids will lose interest in it
and grow up to be something or someone meaningful.
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