Saturday, June 28, 2014

Wow, it's been years since I posted anything on here. Well sorry loyal fan. But here's a new one.
I’m going to preface this by saying that I greatly enjoy video games. Especially single player games. If the kids are in bed, and Addy is doing her homework, it's a great way to de-stress before going to bed. However, as much as I enjoy them, I've come to the realization that they are a COLOSSAL waste of time. I mean, think of how many hours we spend on silly things, like getting every Riddler trophy and solving every riddle in the Batman games (which I loved doing).
"But James," some of you are saying, "you only play your game at night when literally there is so little you could do, it's either play the game, watch TV, or go to sleep."
I hear you, imaginary people who may care what I think. Truth be told, you may be right. Although, I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to bed WAY after midnight, only to come crawling into work the next day, so tired that I fight sleep the whole time I'm working. I am no longer a teenager, and do not have the ability to go on little to no sleep like I did then. Besides, have you actually looked at the things they show on television lately? Space Jam was on VH1 last night, and I wanted to share that amazing movie with my kids, but every time there was a commercial I had to change it because of commercial for horror movies about killing babies, or reality shows about people dating while they are nude. NOT something I want my children to watch.
Video games have literally done nothing to help me better my life at all. All those hours that I have personally wasted playing beautifully made games like Skyrim, all of the Assassin’s Creeds, and Batman Arkham Asylum, City, and Origins.
An argument could be made that through Skyrim I learned a lot about anthropology and understanding the way people lived. It could be said that through Assassin’s Creed I learned a lot about history. Through Batman I learned something amazing as well… How to be the Batman Very important thing there.
I find this argument to be laughable. In Assassin’s Creed and Skyrim I ignored all those possible education elements in favor of straight up gratuitous violence. With Batman, I know that I will never have Batman’s super power (being ridiculously rich), and I have not once actually felt any of the punches that Batman has thrown or been hit with.
I say these things, not because I dislike video games. Again, I love video games, and if given the chance, would play them for a living. However, there are so many better things that we could be doing with those hours we spend veg’ing in front of a television set. When it comes down to it though, what exactly are we accomplishing? Hours upon hours of time wasted, when we could have been interacting with our fellow human beings, or working out (which this writer surely needs to do WAY more often), or God forbid, actually doing something to help our fellow man.