What kind of Gamer are you?

A gamer in Taiwan passed away at an Internet cafe last week, and no one noticed for a full 9 hours. Check out the story HERE. Another dies from playing Diablo III for 40 hours straight!  Fuck me Dead, thats obesession, Plonkers

I'm not saying video games are like shooting heroin into your forearm. I totally get that the victims had other shite going on in their lives. But, half of you reading this know a World of Warcraft addict and experts say video game addiction is a thing. So here's the big question: Are some games intentionally designed to keep you compulsively playing, even when you're not enjoying it?


Oh, hell yes. And their methods are downright fuckin sneaky.  Remember Skinner and his rats?

Imagine a rat in a cage. This is a special cage that has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage. The rat is bouncing around the cage, doing whatever it is rats do, when he accidentally presses the bar and hey, fucking presto!  a food pellet falls into the cage!

The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet, of course.  In no time at all, the rat is furiously peddling away at the bar, hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage.


Sound familiar gamers?  Many of your games have "levers" you need to pull or press to get your reward.  Many of the games involve collecting things and needing some sort sustinance.  Many of the games keep you coming back to press that lever.

A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

 

The danger lies in the fact that these games have become so incredibly efficient at delivering the sense of accomplishment that people used to get from their education, partner or career. We're not saying gaming will ruin the world, or that gaming addiction will be a scourge on youth the way crack ruined the inner cities in the 90s. But we may wind up with a generation of Plonkers working at the local supermarket when they had the brains and talent for so much more. They're dissatisfied with their lives because they wasted their 20s playing video games, and will escape their dissatisfaction by playing more video games. Rinse, repeat.


Do you think video game addiction is a serious problem to the point of being life threatening?

My Game....Its Your Move

If you have a wee person in your home between the ages of 2 and 17, you will be familiar with the video games they play and how much time they spend behind the controller.

Nintendo, Wii, online gaming, iPhone, WoW, Kinect, Playstation, PSP - as parents, we are all familiar with these terms but your kids will be able to tell you even more about them.

Oh, I can hear you saying "Yeah, but I limit them to the amount of time they spend gaming".  As parents we are immediately on the defensive as there seems to be a negative stigma attached to kids and gaming.

Did you know that 91% of kids between the ages of 2 and 17 (that's about 64 million people) are regularly playing video games? 

Video games are often used as a scapegoat for many of the issues affecting today’s youngins. Supporters for outdoor play often bitch that kids spend too much time indoors playing games. Health experts preach that kids need to get their fat arses up off the couch, put down the video game controller and start moving around.

Politicians and parenting groups flap their lips about games desensitise children to violence, expose them to questionable content, profanity and promote addiction.  Fuck that shite

While blaming video games seems like a fucking cop-out, it’s important not simply to dismiss the concerns that so many parents have raised about video games today.  Many of these issues are perfectly valid and legit and only through understanding what causes such suspicions to arise, can parents sniff out ways to deal properly with them.

BUT

Jane McGonigal PhD is a world-renowned game designer of alternate reality games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.  She believes in using current research from the positive psychology movement, and argues that games contribute powerfully to human happiness and motivation, a sense of meaning, and the development of community. She say sgames can provide an environment where:

• difficult things are possible, encouraging optimism
• things are naturally interesting, provoking curiosity
• players have a sense of urgency, providing motivation
• actions are immediately meaningful, inspiring awe and wonder

In her other works, Jane describes how games are in fact developing important skills within societies that will be critical to overcoming global challenges facing humanity.

So mum's, fret not if your precious little peeps are bashing the controllers for a couple of hours a day, they are, afterall improving their lives!

Interesting theory.

Check out this video.

Five out of four people have trouble with fractions.

ca·si·no (prounced /kəˈsēnō/)

Noun: A public room or building where gambling games are played.

I detest gambling but I love people-watching.  And The Casino is one of the most fun places to do it.  Have you ever watched people play casino?  It's fucking hysterical because you almost always see these all of these characters as you walk through the casino floor.

The Slotter – The dittery old lady playing the cheap slots, clutching her handbag and her bucket of coins.  Mavis is wearing smudged orange lipstick and a trench coat.  She is hoping to either win a few bucks, or get some sort of thrill because her husband’s forgotten how.

The Addict - The dude walking around who looks lost and his eyes are about to pop out his skull.  He is about to gamble away his mortgage money and next week he’ll probably be getting a divorce and moving into a cheap hotel. The guy Suited Up so that he doesn’t look like the loser he is.

The Faker – This dude doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. He’s just at the casino to killing time before his next conference and hopes to get a few free drinks and pick up a hooker in the process. This guy is pretending to be single and carefree but he’s a family man with a clear wedding band tan. The Faker is usually hopelessly drunk!

The Cocktail Waitress – The good looking girl wearing the short skirt uniform carrying a tray full of drinks.  She is tired of being hit on a mistook for a hooker. She’s seen it all and just hopes The Faker is drunk enough to slip her a huge tip, by mistake.  She will go back to her one room apartment, count her tips and sleep until midday.

The Big Cheese - this bloke doesn't have the time to gamble for mere dollars, they need a stack full of chips and a familiar dealer. They could win or lose millions in just a few minutes, but the perks of BIG gambling are that they don’t have to sit next to The Addict, who lives and dies with every roll of dice.

The Dealer Swap – This is the croupier the casino sends in when the game table is getting HOT.  He slinks in quietly to the ruffle some feathers and break the flow of the table’s winning streak. Party pooper! Casinos do this on purpose!

The Bouncer – the dude who would rip yer face off if you looked at him the wrong way. He’s there for one reason only, to throw out drunken fuckers.

The Trump – this is the specimen throws money around like its toilet paper.  This FuckKnob wants to be seen and heard. He doesn’t care if he looses all the money in his wallet because he’s loaded and has just made $50 000 in the last ten minues. Sometimes he flaunts his crisp notes, just to piss off The Addict.

There you have it Casino Peeps.  Which one are you?

Bonkers about Conkers

Over at Fresh Eyes on London , Mo reminded me of something I haven't thought about in nearly 30 years.  The game of conkers!

Conkers is a game traditionally played by children in Britain, Ireland and some former British colonies using the seeds of horse-chestnut trees – the name conker is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns to strike each other's conker until one breaks.

Photo Credit

• A hole is drilled in a large, hard conker using a nail, gimlet, or small screwdriver. A piece of string is threaded through it about 25 cm (10 inches) long (often a shoelace is used). A large knot at one or both ends of the string secures the conker.
• The game is played between two people, each with a conker.
• They take turns hitting each other's conker using their own. Usually with loads of nasty hand and wrist bruises.
• One player lets the conker dangle on the full length of the string while the other player swings their conker and hits.

When I was little, my dad used to take us down to the local Bellfield Park (below) where they had rows and rows of massive Chestnut Trees that lined the path.  We would collect our piles of conkers in a plastic bag and take them home.  We'd open them up, take out the seeds and dry them out in our oven.  Dad would help us put the strings through and then the games would begin.  Usually our strings out break before the conkers would though.

All that I can remember of these games is how much we giggled and laughed AND cried because of all the bruises on our hands and injuries that we got from whacking each other with the conkers.

Good memories...

Knickers in the Fan

One of our favourite game sto play when we're getting undressed to go and bath every night is "Knickers in the Fan".

We take our knickers off and stand on the bed and swing our knickers around our index finger, make a wish and see who can flip their knickers into the ceiling fan jumping on the bed at the same time. If we get it on one of the fins we get our wish! Its truck loads of fun and causes many giggles every night when it shoots our knickers all around the bedroom.

We are that nutty family that everyone warned you about....

(Pix cropped from "below the belt" so that no one can see my wee button's nakedness)

The Big Jump when launching yer knickers....