ok guys, i gotta ask
Men, help me understand. I'm coming to you with a willingness to comprehend and so hope that someone in the great big OUT THERE will be able to shed some light. Show me the way. Make me see.
Why oh Why do grown men play video games?
I live with a grown man right now. He's smart, funny, reads, can carry a tune (no he can't, I was just being nice), earns a sizeable income, has a sizeable -ahem - bank account, has fathered two marvelous children (both with myself) and yet. And yet. There's this one thing.
Vids.
Because they call it Vids, don't they ladies? Gonna go play Vids with Joe. Me an' Joe are just gonna sit around and play Vids.
Why.
Now before you MEN out there get all worked up the way that MEN do over this issue I already know I am lucky OH SO lucky that he's not out drinking or cavorting with loose women. I know it's fucking great that he's not addicted to gambling or shopping on ebay for one of a kind evening bags, his favorites being from the 1930s or 40s. Dammit, People, I know all that.
But Why. Why Vids.
I'm not even saying that I think Video Games are stupid. I do, but I'm not saying that. I'm saying I don't get the appeal. The degree of devotion.
Look, I can see sitting down for thirty minutes once in a while with good old Sonic The Hedgehog (shut up, I know Sonic is so 15 years ago). Where I get lost, chucked aside on the road of understanding, is when a Grown Man with a Woman to Love and Be Loved By cannot function as a regular human being because of a game. I have hobbies, things I like to do. But these things don't render me a blubbering idiot. You can still talk to me while I'm scrapbooking or ironing or collecting stamps and I'll answer you, carry on a witty and engaging conversation. A guy playing a video game is as reposnsive as a corpse. As alert as a drunk passed out in the gutter. They are consumed by these games and I wonder why, is all.
I. Wonder. Why.
Which is what brings me to you now, Internet at Large. I am here to ask if anyone, man or woman, knows what it is about video games that captivates a grown man so thoroughly, so maniacally. I'm not suggesting that grown men SHOULD NOT play video games. I only seek to understand the obsessiveness with which these games are enjoyed. I only seek to understand. Knowledge is my goal. Just a little knowledge.
posted by Style Me Organized at
Thursday, December 09, 2004
