by Eric Summer
I thought for this week’s column I’d take a break from the hamfisted musical harangues, and write about another subject close to the blackened lump that passes for my heart.
So, today’s topic: video games.
As everybody knows, I like video games a lot. Hell, I WORK at a video game company, and I love my job. But I was thinking about video games today, as I often do, and I started to think about the games I played during my formative years, and some sinister thoughts started sneaking into my head unbidden (as they often do).
It seemed to me that the kinds of video games I played as a kid might have had more sinister and sneaky effects on my generation than I’d ever dared to imagine.
Keep in mind that, like Eddie Izzard, I don’t do active research. I basically just let things occur to me and spew them out as I see fit. Research takes a lot of time (this is, after all, my lunch break) and effort (not my favorite thing under the best of circumstances), and I’m not really qualified as a researcher in the first place. The only kind of research I ever do involves looking at the descriptions of entrees on a restaurant menu. I “research” what kind of ingredients are in the food, and make my decisions based on that. That’s research Eric-style.
Anyway. Video games.
The first video games–you know, Pong, Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc.–had one common feature: you couldn’t finish them. No matter how long you played them, and how good you got at playing them, they never ended. You’d eventually lose. And this had a huge impact on the kids that played them (like me); namely, it prepared them for lives in which no matter how they struggled, or how good they got at something, or how much (for instance) practicing of a musical instrument they did, they couldn’t possibly ever succeed. The deck was obviously stacked, and there was no chance for any of us. Kids of this generation grew up (for instance) depressed and fatalistic, conditioned to the idea that nothing was ever gonna work out.A few years later, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was introduced to America, and kids my age rejoiced. There was a whole new generation of games! Metroid, Super Mario Brothers, Contra, Ghosts and Goblins, Castlevania, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Thousands more, all waiting to be played! But the games of the NES, and the Sega Master System (Sega), also had something in common: although most of them had a clear ending (you could win these!), they were almost all really goddamn hard. There were no save points when you needed them. Everything was always trying to kill you. Walls and floors and flowerpots and puppies meant instant death to your little 8-bit alter ego. You got the idea that you could win, but not until everything in the entire world had had a go at you. Maybe it was a slightly more hopeful message to send to the kids, and some undoubtedly came out of this era of gaming with a stronger work ethic for all the hardships they had to face to help Mega Man beat Dr. Wily six thousand times.
The other feature that came out of the NES epoch, however, was the advent of cheat codes. For many, it didn’t matter that the game was hard. If you pushed some buttons in the right sequence, you could become invincible, or invisible, or skip hard parts of the game entirely.
And this, I think, was the most damaging thing kids could have learned: the fact that, though the game was hard, and every hula-hoop girl and park bench and pigeon on every corner wished for your bloody demise, if you had the right connections you could cheat. And some kids, as they grew up, ran with that notion.
Many put it to use in everyday life, and carried it to their jobs with them. They cheated skillfully and consistently enough that they somehow figured out the cheat codes for being alive. The only conclusion I can draw is this: that if you clean out the closet of any random politician, advertising mogul, celebrity, titan of industry, or major record label owner, you will find, somewhere in the back, covered with dust but still functional…a Game Genie.
It’s a scary thought, but there’s no other possible explanation.
photo originally published here
[...] Let me explain that I’m inherently sort of a capitalist. I’d like to believe that ideally, when goods and services and art are traded for money, the best things should make the most money. The cream should rise to the top, if I may be permitted a stultifying and vomit-inducing cliche. At the same time, I have no faith whatsoever in the style of capitalism practiced in America, for one simple reason: it’s way too easy to cheat. The cream is not often allowed to rise, and a handful of people are able to make feces crowd the cream right out of whatever the hell metaphorical liquid things rise to the top of. To wit: new band’s album isn’t selling? Buy up a few hundred thousand copies of your own product to create a fake buzz. Trouble getting a single on the radio? Throw barrels of cash at some half-bright radio promoter, and he’ll play the HELL out of that single for you. Probably even let you share his coke and fellate you a little bit for your trouble. In the abundance-driven marketplace of entertainment, there’s always a way to throw money at something until it’s forced out in front of the consumer’s face. Too many unscrupulous bags of douche have the cheat codes. [...]