This is a Rant: Of Video Games and Maturity-Adulthood

[Disclaimer: this is my rant about what I read- if you have anything to say about it you’re open to reply I’m just a dude who wants to vent out here, you can reply if you have any problems with what I say here- nobody will stop you (well unless you’re just trolling since I have the ban hammer right here. capishe?]

I happened to come across one plurk post of a friend of mine where he said that “he totally lost the mood to play games”. At first glance it was totally harmless since there will be moments in any gamer’s life that he would lose interest in playing games.

I mean that happens to the rest of us right?

Then I hit the plurk and saw this as the first reply:

I wanted to flip a table right there and then just because of the ill-conceived perception that being an adult has anything to do with you stopping playing games.

I mean seriously how does that even compute!?  When did a hobby ever become a basis of a person’s adulthood? Yes, that’s right did any of you people-who-love-to-blame-games-instead-of-your-poor-parenting-skills even think that playing video games is a hobby?

No. I didn’t think so.

If you call watching crappy telenovelas, pirated copies of movies or even all those reality shows as the basis for being an adult, I can just tell you that take your adulthood and shove it down your throat. I hope as you choke on it you realize how stupid and close-minded that assumption is.

What makes playing video games any different from watching movies? How is it any different from reading a book? Can both mediums deliver the same experience video games can?

No. They can’t.

No other medium (right now) can beat the immersion video games can give you. Movies and books only show you how big and awesome battles can be, video games on the other hand put you right in the center of it all.

No author or movie director can ever bring the same level of experience a finely crafted video game can.

And maybe that’s where the problem lies, games can be such a great vacuum of our attention that we fail to realize that time has flown by and the only thing we ever accomplished at the end of the day is a handful of quests, that we can’t even use in our daily lives (much like our diplomas and half of the subjects we took at college)

Wasting your whole day away is where I draw the line because this is where people (like the person up there) fail to realize that there’s a big difference between playing video games and being addicted to video games.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen- there is a difference, and I can say that it makes the world of a difference.

How so?

Playing video games is a form of entertainment, deny it or not, it’s similar to watching tv, movies, reading books and/or building kits or whatever. The only difference is that video games have a higher tendency to be addictive due to it’s nature.

I’ve personally seen and heard of gamers who destroyed their lives just because they are addicted to playing video games. However they are just an example of how games can destroy you if you become to addicted to it- which is funnily similar to people getting addicted to vices or even the above mentioned “hobbies”.

That is why I present the argument that it’s not about playing video games that makes us an adult or not, but being able to stop ourselves from playing them when it is necessary.

If you have nothing better to do on a weekend, what’s stopping you into diving headfirst to say, finishing uncharted? Or even playing around 300+ hours worth of Monster Hunter when you have no other responsibilities you need to finish? How is that any different from having marathons of western TV series, animes, movies or whatever koreanovela there is out there?

How is that ANY different hm?

I’ve seen a lot of successful “adults” who up to this day love playing video games. In fact, I have a friend who works as a VP for a construction company who loves playing RTS games (C&C generals is his forte the last time we met) and when he plays against us he would even personally handicap himself just so we have a chance against him. (the we consists of around 3-4 of us against him)

I have another friend who loves playing Starcraft who works as a supervisor for a local telecommunications firm in the country. He plays basketball on saturdays and even attends church regularly. Similar to my other friend he personally handicaps himself just so we have a slim chance of winning against him.

So, you call them juvenile? Can you call them kids? Immature perhaps? I.DARE.YOU.

Adulthood isn’t supposed to be measured by the hobbies you have but being able to stop at it if there are far more important things you need to do. It’s about realizing that what you do is just a hobby, a form of entertainment. Unless you earn a living while playing video games (I still do actually) you can’t make video games your whole life.

And please, stop using video games as the scapegoat of your weaknesses, because frankly blaming others for your own mistakes is the worst form of immaturity there is.

You got burned? Good.