40% of American adults play video games

Under what is quite possibly the stupidest headline ever written by Wired (“Who Shall We Kill Tonight”) is the story about the AP-AOL Games poll that showed 40% of adult Americans play video games. Now, aside from the obviously vested interest in inflating that number, why is this such a surprise? The article’s example is a 29-year-old graphic artist, someone who would spend a considerable amount of time on a computer and would be drawn to that platform for entertainment. And, at 29-years-old, squarely in my generation, this gamer is someone who, like me, probably grew up during the high-points of gaming to date: Commodore, Atari, SNES, Doom and the advent of online gaming. We’re a generation weaned on video games and the generation that brought those games and platforms into the homes of our families.

The really interesting point in this article, which I’m not certain was correlated in the poll, was the amount of TV that this group watches. I know I share the feelings of the illustrative quotee in the Wired story when she says: “I watch less and less TV. I turn it on and the shows are just idiotic[.]” Every $REALITY_SHOW_N that pops up is one more nail in the coffin of my advertiser-funded television viewing. Even the news is idiotic, with placed ads, no objectivity, and the integrity of a ruble.

Link to Wired story


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