Video Games Are the Background

Video games are the background noise of today's generation. Just as their parents grew up with the constant hum of the television and their great-great-grandparents grew up listening to the radio, today's millennial generation has been exposed to video games since toddlerhood. Some these games are advertised as educational while others make no pretense at being anything other than entertaining. Many of games are violent -- some very so, some less so. What most of these games have in common (whether they are aimed at teaching toddlers their numbers or entertaining young adults with first-person-shooter tactics) is their highly stimulating effect. There are so many colors, so many flashing lights, so many quick shifts from one angle to another.

The effect of such stimulation is not discussed as much as it should be. While there is a great deal of discussion of the effects of violent imagery on the users of video games (and this should be discussed), there is less focus on the ways in which the constant highly sensory experience of playing nearly every video game affects users. This is an important point, for these effects last beyond the time in which the games are played. In other words, the effects of video games lasts throughout the day in terms of ability to learn, to concentrate, to relate to other people.

Objectives

The objectives of this paper, and especially of the fictional story that is at the center of it is to paint a picture of what it is like to be inside the mind of a video game player while that person is playing the game and then to follow along inside the mind of the person while he goes through his day. As he goes to school, talks to friends, eats lunch, goes to an after-school job, goes home to have lunch with his family, he sees the world as if he were the protagonist in a video game.

This game contains some violence but it is certainly not as violent as are most video games. Because there is so much focus in existing research and commentary on the effects of video game violence, I decided to focus on another area of the gamer experience. This perspective was actually suggested by a high school teacher who remarked that students over the last ten years seem to find it harder and harder to concentrate in class and she thought that it might arise as a result of playing video games. Video games tend to reward not the ability to concentrate for long periods of time or even for short periods of time. Rather, they reward people for being able to react very quickly. This is an important skill in some contexts: Someone who wishes to join the police or the army, for example, might find a first-person shooter game to be good training.

However most of life is not like being in a gang war. This is something that we should all be grateful for. But because life in general is not like this, we should also be aware of the fact that video games can have negative consequences in a range of daily activities. Moreover, these negative consequences have feedback loops: Because video games tend to make people act in less social (and sometimes even more anti-social) ways, gamers have a hard time making friends and other meaningful relationships, which tends to push them farther into the world of playing video games, which in turn makes it even harder to make authentic connections with others.

The highly stimulating nature of video games makes them exciting and highly pleasurable to play. However, it also makes it hard for many people to find the "real" world sufficiently interesting to keep their attention.

Outline of Story

This story takes place over the course of a single twenty-four hour period in the life of what I believe to be a typical "gamer." The protagonist of the story is named Robert. He is nineteen and is in first year at a junior college and works part time after school at a fast food restaurant. He lives at home because he cannot afford to support himself and, in fact, he is not all that interested in supporting himself. He finds it easier to be supported by his parents for the most part. He and his parents get along fairly well, but they find themselves baffled by his attraction to video games and worry that he is a bad influence on his two younger brothers, who are beginning to devote more and more of their time to playing video games as well.

As Robert gets up, goes to school, goes to work, comes home, and interacts with his family, the narrative voice inside his head is that of a being that Robert calls the Game-master. To some extent, the Game-master is Robert's alter ego. The Game-master is the kind of person that Robert would like to be -- smart, hip, and cool. Or at least this is how Robert imagines someone who is smart, hip, and cool would act. But the Game-master is also the voice of the many, many games that Robert has played since he was a young child.

Throughout his day, Robert is asked what he wants to do with his future. He thinks that he has an answer to this question: When you're done with one level, you go to the next level. But what is never clear to him is that there is never a clearly defined next level in life as there is in a video game.

Gotta Get 'Em...

At first Robert didn't realize that it was his alarm clock that was going off. Partly that was because he was very, very tired. Anybody as tired as he was would probably sleep through an alarm about seven times as loud as this one was. But Robert had another reason for sleeping through his alarm: He didn't even realize that it was an alarm. Well, he knew it was an alarm. He just didn't know that it was an alarm clock. He thought it was the countdown clock on the third level of Vampire Stock Car Racing, his latest favorite game.

It was such a new game that only a few of his friends had it. This made him feel good that he was so far ahead of everyone else: He loved to have a game before anyone else did. But it meant that he pretty much had to play it by himself, without being able to play online with anyone else. He hated that, although he had connected with some other players in Russia. That was pretty cool -- to be able to play with someone in Russia. But he thought it was about time to make copies of the game to give to some of his friends from high school. Since he graduated last year he didn't see them very much any more.

Actually, when he thought about it, he hadn't even seen very much of them when they were still in school together. That was probably because he didn't actually show up to class all that much and when he did he slept through most of what happened. The thing was, he was tired then from staying up all night playing games. But mostly he was just totally bored in school. What teachers did in the classroom was just totally dull compared to what happened on his laptop. The teacher's voice just went on and nothing ever happened in class. The thing about video games is you know what you're supposed to be doing. You have instructions. You have directions. There are levels and really, really cool things happen when you follow the directions.

Robert realized that he was still in bed and his alarm was still going off. It wasn't the alarm from the game. It wouldn't make sense if it was the alarm from the game anyway because he was past that level. Except maybe there was the same alarm at another level. Maybe there was some sort of rebirth-type that went on and you kept traveling through the same world over and over again but as a different avatar. That would be pretty cool. Gotta get 'em -- gotta get whatever it is that's coming at him this time.

Robert closed his eyes again. The alarm must have stopped at some point because when he woke up again it was quiet. Quiet except for the fact that his mother was in the room and she was very angry with him. He could tell that she was yelling at him but the weird thing was, he couldn't actually hear what she was saying. It wasn't even her voice that seemed to be coming towards him. It was the voice of one of the Viking Warriors in the game. Not in the game he was playing now, though, he remembered. Sometimes it was hard to remember which game was which. Actually, that happened a lot.

Robert thought that this was actually very cool. He liked the idea of picking all of his favorite characters from all of his favorite games and making up his own new game. That would be so cool. And then he could make all of the characters do exactly what he wanted them to do. Like the Viking Warrior standing in his room. He could take out his laser sabre and just blow her away. Just blast her. Watch her head just explode and her brains drip down the walls. Wouldn't that be cool.

Even though the person in his room still looked like a Viking Warrior -- although his friends and he called them something a lot less polite than that -- he figured out that it was his mother. He staggered out of bed and gave her a hug. He really liked his mom. She was nice and smart and didn't hassle him very much at all and she paid his bills and fed him every night. Now that he was mostly awake she didn't look like one of the evil Viking Warrior Queens at all. She just looked like a mom who was annoyed that her son was about to miss his second class of the morning, having already slept through his first class.

Robert pulled on the pair of sweats that was on top of the pile behind the bathroom door and ran downstairs. He heard his mother -- still sounding like his mom -- telling him not to run on the stairs. He told himself that he wasn't running. And he wasn't: He was flying on his personal spacecraft. This was from -- he wasn't actually sure. He remembered it was from some game he used to play. Or maybe he had just watched someone else play it. He wasn't really sure. It wasn't like it mattered which game something came from. It was only important that it was cool. This spacecraft was kind of like a, damn, he couldn't remember what it was called. Kind of like a water ski thing. But this one was bright green and it made these really cool sounds. Like a tiger. Or something like that. It roared.

Yeah, he knew that there weren't really sounds in space because you need atmosphere to transmit sounds. See Dad -- I did pay attention in physics. But he loved the sound that the craft made and he loved the way it rocked side to side as it slipped past meteors and laser bursts. Bam! And those excellent green sparks. It was like a dragon and a race car put together. It was the most excellent car.

Oh right -- he was in his car. Not a cool spacecraft. Just a car. A Honda. It was fine. Exactly the kind of car that you would expect people like his parents to buy. Sensible. Reliable. Good for the environment. And about as boring as -- as wet towels, as his grandma would say. What was the point of even starting the ignition of a car like this. Nothing interesting would ever happen in a car like this. Hell, you could barely even imagine something interesting happening in a car like this.

Damn. Did a cop see him run that stop sign? He hoped not. That was stupid. He could have hurt somebody. And it wasn't as if he didn't know that stop sign was there. He had grown up in this neighborhood. He could probably drive these streets with a blindfold on. Okay, not such a good idea, but still. He probably could. He knew that stop sign was there. So why had he just blown through it. Okay, he knew that answer to that. He was thinking of how to do that thing with that cool dagger. Well, it wasn't a dagger because it was bent like a lightning bolt. Okay, maybe it was still a dagger. He didn't know what else you would call it. But it was excellent. And he liked the fact that you could put it in your belt or down your boot. There was even a scabbard that you could wear down your neck.

But was the dagger for the vampire or just for the vampire hunter? Damn, he couldn't remember. The thing was, you could play the game from different characters. Well, not that that was anything new. But only someone who was totally clueless would play the vampire hunters. They were -- they were the kind of people who would actually like to drive a car like this Honda.

Wow -- that was close. Seriously, that wasn't his fault. Not like the stop sign. That woman just opened her car door right in front of him. He was paying attention to what was going on as he was driving. It wasn't his fault -- he could think about the dagger and drive at the same time. In fact, if he reflexes weren't so good from playing games, then he never would have been able to swerve in time.

He slid into his seat in class just in time. Well, the professor was talking to the girls who always sat in the front row but he hadn't really started class yet. Robert hated the girls in the front row. They reminded him of all the girls in high school who sat in the front row and ignored him. He had asked two of them out on dates -- not these girls, the ones in high school. Not at the same time. One junior year and one senior year. And he wasn't really bad looking. Not brilliantly handsome, of course, but really not bad. But both of the girls had looked pretty startled when he asked them out. Just like they thought they he didn't even know how to speak. Like he spent most of his time under rocks.

These girls were just like that. And it wasn't as if they weren't that hot themselves. Not bad, but not like the vampire girls in the game. They were hot. Big, big -- well, breasts. Nice to look at from the front and nice to look at from behind. Big eyes. Nice soft lips. He could just about imagine what it would be like to kiss lips like that. Well, it wasn't as if he hadn't ever kissed anybody. He'd kissed girls at dances. Right at the end of the evening when they had all been drinking a lot out of whatever people had in bottles in their pockets.

By the end of the night, anyone could get a kiss. And if you kept your eyes closed, it was almost as good as it might be as if you were actually kissing one of those girls in one of the games. When you think about it, though, the girls in the front row could never match up with the girls in the games. They weren't as pretty -- that was part of it. But the thing was that real girls didn't do what you told them to. and, yeah, sure, that was the way it should be. A person got to say yes or no to anything. That's what freedom is. You have the right to control your own body.

But what would it feel like to take one of the vampire girls in your arms and, well, he wasn't exactly sure what came next. But it would be good.

Hey -- everyone was already leaving class. Could they tell that he hadn't been listening the whole time? He hadn't fallen asleep, had he? He thought he remembered the professor saying something about how science wasn't as flashy as video games but it was real. But the games were real too. I mean, of course they were real. You had to pay for them, that was for sure. So that made them real, right? And seriously, how could you possibly think that science could possibly be as much fun as mowing down the vampire hunters?

You know what he should do? Yeah, he really should do it. He should tell the professor about the vampire game. Should tell him how exciting it was and how class would be way better if the professor could just make it like a video game. I mean, all those sounds and the way everything jumped around, back and forth across the screen. You didn't really have to do anything. Well, of course you did. You had to be quick, know your weapons and use them, keep on your toes. You had to think like your enemy too, know where they might be sneaking up on you.

But the thing was, you didn't have to think up new things all the time. You didn't have to raise your hand and think of something clever to say or make girls think that you were clever or make your parents think that you had your life under control. You just had to sort of sit back and look at all the pretty lights.

Hey, he was already at work. Wow, he didn't even remember driving here. Okay, maybe he was thinking about that boat on the underground sea. It was totally cool. He hadn't gotten to that level yet, but one of his friends from Russia had told him about. Yeah, his mom said that he couldn't call anyone a friend whom he had never met and whom he didn't even actually talk to but just played with. but, well, he was like the friends he had at home. But what was important is that he had told him about this boat. It had silver sails and there was a sort of magical wind on the underground sea that made the boat sail.

His boss was always telling him to pay attention or he'd burn himself on the fryers. And he knew that it was true. His boss really wasn't a bad guy at all. Robert was late a lot, and his boss just shook his head and told him to shape up. The thing was, Robert was actually a pretty good employee. He was friendly and funny and kept the orders straight. What his boss didn't know was that it wasn't Robert who was working there but Kireka, a samurai vampire in disguise.

Okay, maybe just a samurai warrior. Yeah, that was it. The sound of the popping grease was really small arms fire. Yeah, and the "salt" wasn't salt. It was a special kind of drug that would make everyone who ate food sprinkled with it his slave. It would turn them into a sort of zombie. Yeah. His minions. He liked that.

What? His boss was talking to him. He was always on him about getting a better job. Saying he'd be a reference. A smart boy like Robert could do better. Robert knew how to pretend to listen as he sprinkled on the zombie "salt." Take that! He was creating his armies of zombies. Hundreds of them each day. One day he would rule the world!