Just a heads up for those interested. There's a Panorama Special tonight on kids addicted to gaming.

It promises to be an interesting (read:BIASED) documentary (read:WITCH HUNT) on which gaming will be the route of all evil and be the sole reason people turn to terrorism/stabbing people/gun crime etc etc from playing Viva Pinata for too long!

 

Bah, not got time to watch this as I'll be gaming on GT5 all night, then going out on to do a few street races and traffic light GP's.

 

Well, that was a load of tosh.

Mr. Livingstone has it right: some people have addictive personalities and if it wasn't games it would be something else.

 

Do they suggest that everybody should stop gaming and "go and play out in the street" so we can all be stabbed/raped/pimped/mugged.

 

Well i've just wasted half an hour watching that rubbish..

Bold claims at the start, which petered out throughout the programme..

You knew it was on thin ice, when they called Lara Croft - Laura Croft lol


And the addictive tricks used by programmers - reward loops lol

But the biggest thing they kept saying and ignoring, is that the games arnt

addictive, its the people, who have underlying issues/ are susceptible to

these programming techniques..


So whats new? Ive been around computers since the ZX80/81, spent

countless hours playing them and im not addicted...

Its not addiction that drives me to do a 18hour stint on a game, its sheer

bloody mindlessness, and me being competitive, and not wanting to be

beaten by a machine lol.


Ive bought games on a Friday, and finished them by the Sunday, .. purely

because i want to get to the end . once i finished it, that was it, i didn't

go back and play it again.

I play guildwars on the PC, ive had it about 3 years now, i'll never finish it,

its too vast, i dip in 2 to 4 times a year, play for a few days, then drop out

to do other stuff.

The kids they interviewed gave the reasons they did it quite openly.. boredom, nothing else to do etc...

look back 10 -15 years what did these bored kids do... dungeons & dragons-- space marines etc

And before that, books etc

Nothing changes, only the medium that they can use.


Mart

 

Just watched it on i-player, made me want to play on the xbox! lol