In Defense of Gaming
Here's an excellent article on reading as a leisure activity...I do agree that these days there seem to be less people reading for leisure, which is unfortunate. However, I disagree with the writer when he said "playing video games requires less effort than reading"...try games like The Longest Journey, Deus Ex and even the Thief series, which requires active reading and some cunning puzzle-solving as well.
Not all games should be lumped under the Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog categories, just like not all games should be labelled as "mindless violence". How would normal people have a chance to conquer lands and learn about European history and politics (Medieval: Total War), build an economic empire from scratch (Capitalism), learn about strategies of war and economics (Warcraft, Starcraft), tuning up cars (Need for Speed), flying a plane (Flight Simulators), urban warfare (Full Spectrum Warrior), covert and special operations (Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell series) and examples too numerous to mention?
Gaming does not replace leisure reading, just as watching musical/artistic performances do not replace reading. Saying this replaces that is too simplistic. These are all but Distractions of various kinds.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who cannot appreciate some things that you do, and will tend to slam what you like because of ignorance or simply because they don't understand it. I was describing an example of a masterfully-created and highly imaginative (albeit rather gory, but hey, what is it compared to the movie "Seven"?) scene in Hitman: Contracts to a 100% non-gamer friend recently, who was immediately disgusted and slammed my gaming hobby as being morbid, violent and, well, sick.
No point playing a violin to a cow, as a Chinese saying goes...
Here's an excellent article on reading as a leisure activity...I do agree that these days there seem to be less people reading for leisure, which is unfortunate. However, I disagree with the writer when he said "playing video games requires less effort than reading"...try games like The Longest Journey, Deus Ex and even the Thief series, which requires active reading and some cunning puzzle-solving as well.
Not all games should be lumped under the Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog categories, just like not all games should be labelled as "mindless violence". How would normal people have a chance to conquer lands and learn about European history and politics (Medieval: Total War), build an economic empire from scratch (Capitalism), learn about strategies of war and economics (Warcraft, Starcraft), tuning up cars (Need for Speed), flying a plane (Flight Simulators), urban warfare (Full Spectrum Warrior), covert and special operations (Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell series) and examples too numerous to mention?
Gaming does not replace leisure reading, just as watching musical/artistic performances do not replace reading. Saying this replaces that is too simplistic. These are all but Distractions of various kinds.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who cannot appreciate some things that you do, and will tend to slam what you like because of ignorance or simply because they don't understand it. I was describing an example of a masterfully-created and highly imaginative (albeit rather gory, but hey, what is it compared to the movie "Seven"?) scene in Hitman: Contracts to a 100% non-gamer friend recently, who was immediately disgusted and slammed my gaming hobby as being morbid, violent and, well, sick.
No point playing a violin to a cow, as a Chinese saying goes...
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