“Gaming leads to surge in rickets” was Friday’s headline on free London tube-rag, The Metro. According to top scientist blokes, today’s youth are leading such sedentary lifestyles that their ickle bodies aren’t soaking up enough of the sun’s delicious rays and are at risk of contracting all sort of horrible illnesses linked to Vitamin D deficiency – like rickets, or bone deformity if you will.
Of course, it’s a little sensationalised – this is a British tabloid of course – so while grabbing platinum medals on Bayonetta isn’t the healthiest way to spend a sunny afternoon, pretty much anything that keeps kids indoors could potentially lead to these illnesses. Watching The X Factor, twiddling your thumbs, reading a Dan Brown novel or playing ping pong with Susan Boyle CDs as paddles could be picked on, if they’re done inside, but the magical headline randomiser picks out the latest craze that some adults don’t quite get: gaming!
If gamers aren’t heading outside, they’re obviously playing the wrong games. There’s no way you can play a Legend of Zelda game, with little Link traipsing around a magical countryside finding treasure and saving princesses, and not be compelled to venture into your back garden. Everything from Pokemon to Tomb Raider, from Fallout 3 to Broken Sword, all with their heavy emphasis on exploring the natural world, led me into the wild and mysterious world of the British countryside to explore, scavenge and discover the real world.
And then there were sports games that made me forget for two seconds that I wasn’t completely inept at athletics (although I’ll kick your butt at long jump!) and led me back into the scary outside world once again. Tony Hawk and Skate didn’t make me want to sit in the dark for hours on end playing games, they made me want to get out there and learn to skateboard. Nevermind the fact that my balance sucks and I never learnt to go in a straight line, let alone pull off a 360 degree Jehovah’s Witness back-side-front-side nollie, I still hit the concrete (sometimes literally) and soaked in that awesome Vit-D. Eat that, scientists!
Don’t forget about handheld games (especially Boktai on Gameboy Advance, which boosted your powers when the special cartridge soaked up solar energy), and boiling hot afternoons spent sorting through people’s junk at the great British car boot sales, hoping to swipe a Super Metroid cartridge for 50p.
Sitting in a pitch black movie theatre or settling down with a new DVD probably isn’t boosting your Vitamin D bar or earning you anti-rickets achievements either, but films are socially acceptable and (gasp!) adults watch them too! It’s for that reason that I can’t wait for gaming to finish seeping into the mainstream, and for some new media scapegoat to materialise. “Augmented reality, poker playing, holographic sexbots lead to surge in rickets”, would be a far better headline.
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