kot-headerlogo-01 A U

See Games Differently

Subscribe

Views From The Mainstream

kotakuaustralia Avatar
kotakuaustralia

The video games.

They’ve come a long way since the Pac-Men. The invaders from space have been silenced, their piercing screams that once echoed throughout smoke-filled arcade halls, are naught but blips. They came for our children and they took them. They ascended that hellish graphics spire to an infinite fiery dimension and they never returned. That Ms Pac-Man, she had lipstick didn’t she? She winked at me once. It was quite the experience let me tell you.

The video games go blop-bleep-blop and it’s the billion dollar industry now. The Calls Of Duties ring proud, those savage bells of war — they herald a new digital age. The explosions are explosive and the guns are more gunnier than we’ve ever seen before. Sparkling in that light, the source from which I cannot deduce. The night sky, those stars. That haunting moon.

Video games. This is Jon Jonno Johnson. Reporting.

I have children. Long grown up. Flown from the nest to warmer climes. To the city, where the harpies shriek loud in Taxi ranks and Ubers flow like some unearthly wine through the streets of the Inner West. The beards are bushy and the liquor is sweet. The vapes. That vapour. My children are gone now. They have jobs and mobile phones that vibrate in tightly fitted jeans.

My children played the video games. Can you believe that?

I still recall the scents, those Christmas mornings. The sherry, the rum, the port that swirled in my glass as they tore that wrapping paper like ravenous unicorn wolves to reveal that most priceless of treasures: the Nintendo box.

That Nintendo box: that cauldron of spells. Graphical spells that danced like the danciest dancers across my televisual screen. The laughter that echoes in the empty chamber that once contained my beating heart: this is the source of the mirth that sustains me. The video games. Those video games.

Video games have come a long way since the days of pong; horizontal bars moving successfully across a single plane. A long way from square balls and scoreboards. Of dials that dialled to the heavens. Video games.

The video games. I am reporting the video games.

My wife is dead now. I buried her in a lonely grave but I don’t blame the video games. It is the children they corrupt, not the parents. The adults are immune. Our brains are too strong, our flesh hardened. The elements have tested our wiry, sinewed frames and they’ve met their match.

So too have the video games. We can best them. In every facet of our fibres we are the superiors.

But the children. The children we must protect. The children we must save. I may be fuelled by that laughter in my heart. But who can tell? Does that laughter have a side so dark it could swallow the sun?

Some scientists think too much video games is bad for the children.

Some scientists say the opposite of that.

This is Jon ‘Jonno’ Jonson.

Reporting.

You can follow Jon ‘Jonno’ Jonson on Twitter.

The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments

20 responses to “Views From The Mainstream”

READ THE COMMENTS