The Gamers' Paradox

Watching two grown men glued to a screen, playing video games and enjoying themselves can seem quite disturbing at first. Playing video games is thought to be a waste of time that could be used doing something productive like visiting old people at an old peoples home. Videogames are associated as toys for children aimed only at the male demographic. It might have been true three decades ago but as time has progressed only the ignorant will think like this.

People have the idea that playing video games is simple. Just pick up the joystick and push any button configuration hoping that the desired results will appear on the television screen. What they fail to realize is that, playing video games is a skill acquired by continuous practice. Video games come in different hardware systems often referred to as "consoles". Portable videogames are referred to as "Handhelds". There are mainly three companies that are famous worldwide for their consoles; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. For Handhelds there are only two companies facing off in this category. These are Sony and Nintendo. The consoles are never similar. If you continuously play Nintendo's console the "Gamecube", you will have a tough time adjusting to the Microsoft's "Xbox", because the Xbox joystick setup is larger than that of the Gamecube. Like movies, music and professions, there are different categories in the video game library. Adventure, First Person Shooter (FPS), Role Playing Games (RPG), Sports and Simulation are some of the categories of games.

FPS games are the hardest to learn how to play. Imagine if you had to move your left hand forward and backwards to walk backwards. With your right hand you move it up to look down and down to look up. The right hand is also used to look left and right by moving it left or right respectively. That is what its like to play First Person Shooters. It requires good finger coordination for basic movement. Doing other functions like firing will be a bit difficult for first time users.

Second in line of difficulty and requires a high level of intelligence, patience and endurance are RPG's. The most famous RPG is "Final Fantasy". It has an average gameplay time of 40 hours. Basically it has different stories each time a new version is released but the combat system remains similar. Magic is used to defeat enemies. The twist is that some magic can replenish the enemies health or some enemies are immune to the magic. Hence you have to figure out how to destroy the enemies which is not a simple task.

Videogames are also educational. Take for example World War Two games. Companies spend time and money on research trying to bring realism and fact into these games. Some games worthy of honorable mention are "Medal Of Honor", "Call of Duty", and "Brothers in Arms." These games do not provide education and entertainment alone but they arouse emotion. In some segments you lose a platoon or regiment due to enemy fire and you actually feel like how people who fought in the wars felt when seeing their brothers go down. I also learnt the rules of play in American football through a game called "Madden NFL".

A lot of people blame videogames for teens who go on violent rampages killing classmates or police officers. Doom was blamed for influencing the teens who attacked their school in Columbine and Grand theft Auto, a game that you virtually go around shooting at anybody was blamed for the slaying of a police officer. I played both these games and thousands like me have as well but we do not go shooting up places. Violence should not be blamed on videogames but a more rational explanation should be given. It could be that the kids have mental problems. Another is why are the allowed easy access to weapons. It should be noted that a third party female actually got the guns for the two teens involved in Columbine.
An organization was set up in 1994 to rate videogames according to their nature. The organization is known as "Entertainment Software Rating Board." For rating it uses:

• EC for early childhood.
• E for everyone.
• E10 for Everyone 10 and older.
• T for Teen.
• M for Mature.
• AO for Adult only.
• RP for Rate Pending.

If a minor purchases a game rated M, the store can be persecuted and if someone older purchases it for him they are also putting themselves in risk of persecution.

With all these safeguards around people seem to find faults in the gaming industry. People still look down on gamer's thinking that gaming is something simple and it's a waste of time. Games cause people to be violent or create them to be antisocial because all they do is stay at home and play games. What non gamers seem to not know is that gaming has now gone online. In other words a gamer can now play a game with someone in another country. Socialization can take place and a sort of community is formed amongst the gamers. Hopefully in the future people will realize the positive aspects of videogames and not focus on the negative feedback people try to associate video gaming with.