"I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets." - President Ronald Reagan
Last Sunday I spent several hours playing video games because there wasn't football to watch and my car is a lost cause. While this is completely normal in my suite-we even had some guys watching us play video games-I realize that most women on this campus didn't spend the better part of their day in front of a buzzing box of electronics.
However, I've played video games for at least fifteen years of my life and have therefore been privy to their importance in the socialization of men. Video games are not going anywhere-hell, when Space Invaders came out twenty some years ago, it caused a national coin shortage in Japan.
The average gamer today is thirty years old, so women need to plan on many more years of guys who can sit in front of a television for hours, talk excitedly about sitting in front of a television for hours when they aren't, and then do it again.
A friend from home has logged over fifty-four days of leveling up in a game, camped out for sixteen hours straight to get an Xbox 360, and spent $7600 in years on these games/systems, rendering him celibate and making me look good in comparison. Another friend met his current girlfriend over an Internet game, and she lives in Seattle-I guess some gamers get laid.
I was initially handicapped by parents who believed playing outside was more important, but luckily I had friends whose parents either understood or gave up. We played Tetris on the original bulky GameBoy (remember battery packs and Game Genies?), entered the 99 lives code for Contra on NES, and memorized the secret boxes in Mario Bros.
When I discovered the original Atari in my uncle's basement, a day suddenly disappeared from Christmas vacation. Finally I had found a universal language that guys could immediately connect on and instead of remembering hundreds of actors and sports stars, everyone knew Mario and Luigi. Instead of acting awkward with the new kid in your basement, you asked if he knew how to play Bubble Bobble.
Many women will never understand why two-thirds of all the physical altercations I've experienced in life occurred mere feet from our television sets. Pit five guys against each other in loser-out MarioKart Four Player Battle, and fourth place never goes easy. Convince your friend to play just one game of Madden and assume you'll both be busy for hours-it never ends because we don't want it to.
Trash talking is okay; tampering with competitors' controllers is not. No one presses "Pause" to talk to a girlfriend in the middle of MarioTennis and God help the man who walks in front of the TV to get another beer when I'm trying to swing for the fences in MVP Baseball.
This is the time to prove yourself as a man and a video gamer, and respect must be earned as men are left to establish our own hierarchy without spears and mastodons. Any of my friends will tell you that if we're playing Golden Eye, it's first to twenty frags in the Complex with Pistols on License To Kill. We'll spend the next day regaling the battles like we actually accomplished something.
Women can leave us alone ("Listen, I know how important video games are to guys-let me know when you're done, but take your time") or participate quietly ("I'll be Peach, you be Mario, and I don't need a handicap-I've played this before, remember?") but feigning interest is frustrating ("Oh, Halo sounds fun, can I play?") because we don't have the time or patience to teach you to play in front of our friends. That should be saved for a private moment when every time I melee you during a Slayer Rocket Launchers Only Death match, you take off an article of clothing to distract me. That's something my friends can't do.
300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, Maryland 21620 | 410-778-2800 | 800-422-1782