• by Amanda , June 7, 2007

At the risk of annoying my boyfriend and all of his fellow gamers, I have decided to write the second installment of my diatribe against the video game.

After reading my last blog (and lovingly outlining all of the ways I was wrong) my boyfriend offered several points in defense of video games, and gamers in general. Some coincide with the posts in response to my other blog, and others were completely new. So, here are just a few:

- Video games are similar to any pastime done by oneself... Like reading, gardening and watching TV, gaming can be done alone; this does not make it a pastime for the socially inept.
- Video games provide an “escape” from daily life, just like other forms of entertainment… some even have storylines like in books, music and TV.
- Video games can promote creativity, imagination, and problem solving skills.
- Games can promote treasured themes like justice, democracy and heroism.
- Twenty-something males don’t necessarily meet with their friends at bars or for “poker nights” anymore; gaming provides the social outlet and interpersonal connection that these activities once did.
- Games are hobbies, not vices.

That being mentally processed and mulled over time-and-again, I still hate video games.

- Unlike other hobbies, gaming takes over most of one’s time and most of one’s paycheck.
- Despite the fact that gaming is a “social” hobby these days, I will point out that most of the time spent playing is alone in one’s den, which does not push it into the ranks of a social activity. Not even a little.
- Hobbies are fabulous. Many of us have more than one. Many gamers, don’t.
- Video games are not a means to an end… there is no final outcome/artifact produced other than bragging rights.
- Games are bloody, noisy and violent… I don’t like movies or books like that either.
- Many posters last time mentioned I should be lucky that my boyfriend isn’t out doing crack, drinking and philandering with other women; I am incredibly distressed to find out that these are the only options for pastimes other than gaming. If this is the case, I am certainly blessed to have a gamer in my life.

I should also mention that I’m not attempting to dissuade anyone from gaming. Just airing frustrations… I find video games annoying, but I don’t ask that people convert to my favorite pastimes. I’m also not condemning video-game lovers themselves. I hate the games, not the gamers.