Surely, surely Jackie can talk him out of his City of Heroes addiction, maybe by using these tactics from good ol’ Pat Robertson:
Q: My 18-year-old son is hooked on computer games that have magic spells in them. I’m concerned, but what can I do?
A: Once they are 18, it is tough. Nevertheless, as a mother, sit down with your son and say, ‘We are Christians and love Jesus. This kind of conduct is hurtful to you and damaging. There are demons.’ You need to explain to him the reality of demonic possession. You begin with one of those games and it draws you in. Remember the stuff that happened out there at that tragedy in that high school near Denver when those boys had played a computer game and acted it out to their classmates? These things are dangerous. You need to sit down and talk to him and say, ‘I love you and this is the way it is.’
Bring the biblical verses that show him how these things are wrong. You can find a number of instances. Get a concordance and look up ‘spirits’ and ‘demons’ and look up the ‘devil,’ ‘Lucifer,’ and ‘Satan’ and show that they are not just fun and games. You need to show him the consequences and he will listen. And do a lot of praying that the spells he may be under may be broken, because it is possible for someone to get transfixed like they do with Dungeons & Dragons. They play those roles so much and it takes them over.
Hmmm. Maybe Jackie should talk to him about his addiction to D&D, too. Perhaps an intervention is in order …
(via J-Walk)
City of Heroes…
World of Warcraft…
[Insert Massive Multiplayer Online game title of choice here]…
It’s all the same. It’s all addictive. It’s… that way by design.
Don’t get me wrong. I love playing the games and given the chance, you’ll still find me gravitating back to the computer to play when I have some downtime.
The key here is “when I have some downtime.” I got off of City of Heroes because I saw how much time I was spending on the game and then I considered what it would be like a few decades down the line, talking to grandchildren. Would I want to be regaling my kids about the time that I took on Carnival of Shadows ten levels higher with my Force Field Defender? Could I be as passionate about this one game, or any other game, as I would with something else that might be more lasting?
That’s when I decided to tap into the creative part of my core, which I had suppressed in college and which I have been struggling to resurface. As gamers, I have no doubt that there is plenty of creativity around and seeing Doyce’s writing, I know there’s plenty waiting to get out there, too.
It’s just a matter of finding inspiration in what you’re doing, rather than let the easy hedonism of the game get in the way. Video games are like a drug to me. It’s just that, right now, I think there are bigger and better things to do with my time.
Einstein, Leonardo, and Prince all had/have the same 24 hours in a day. It’s just a matter of what you do with them.
(Mind you, there are now 2.68 microseconds fewer than Einstein and Leonardo had, but that’s not even a blink’s worth of time.)
Well, that’s one reason why I haven’t gotten into MMORPGs myself. I already have enough hedonistic pleasures chewing up 10 of my 3 free hours per day. 🙂
Ten levels?
Uh, I mean, yeah, an intervention.
I am going to give him a month before I re-prioritize for him. Because, as he is very fond of pointing out, this was entirely my fault. Then I will have to go in to the office with the cattle prod and well things will get ugly.
If nothing else, cattle prods are probably really good for unformatting hard drives …