Console Gamers = Wireheads?

In his ground-breaking work Ringworld, Larry Niven introduced the idea of the wirehead, a person who gets wiring installed so he can directly stimulate the pleasure center of his brain. These sad addicts wasted away with smiles on their faces.

Console games have come a long way since the introduction of Pong in the '70s, gradually introducing superior graphics, stereo sound quality, immersive and even innovative gameplay, and elements of storytelling. They have enjoyed obvious, global success, dominating the free time of an entire generation of young males. Are console gamers becoming wireheads?

I have certainly experienced the siren call. I held out for a very long time, shunning all of these games after kicking a difficult arcade game addiction during my freshmen year in college. (The booze and the women helped a lot.) While I refuse to buy a console system of limited lifespan and utility, I have played several comparable games on my PC. And when I say "played," I mean that I spent long hours on many sessions, probably the equivalent of weeks of my life playing just these few games. I struggled with some joint pains that might have been warnings of future carpal tunnel. I overcame motion sickness while learning to play Vampire: Bloodlines. And I finally I pulled back, to spend necessary time dealing with real life: my patient girlfriend, my absent friends, my job and my distant family.

My next-door neighbor seems to have fallen to the addiction, and hard. He's just a few years younger than me, but lives the life of the eternal lad, literally playing console games for an average of 20-30 hours per week. Double that when he gets a new game. Sometimes he has friends over, to play multi-player or pvp games, and sometimes he even leaves his place when it isn't a work day. The rest of the time, there is a steady thunder of gunfire and explosions audible next door, punctuated by the occasional screeching tires or whirring helicopter blades. A week ago on Tuesday night, he was doing laundry in our communal laundry room, as was I. On Sunday, I noticed that he left his clothes in the dryer all that time, and left another load sitting in the washer all that time. I had to move his wet clothes so I could use that machine. No mildew... yet.

Wirehead? Not yet, but getting close. I heard that some guy in South Korea died of dehydration a few years ago after a three-day marathon of non-stop online gaming. That dude was definitely a wirehead.

yeah, I'm definately going this way but I think everyone needs some kind of diversion. Like I've come to totally understand those husbands that come home and first thing first, they have a scotch to take the edge off. I totally get that now.

Me, instead, I fire up the Xbox360 and play for up to an hour. It just totally unfocuses me from work and gets my brain wired on something else. Last night I played Bioshock and was happy as a clam. My fiancee asked me if I wanted to go see Star Trek on IMAX last night and I basically couldn't even communicate cuz I was so wired in.

Anyway, I definately agree with this article. I don't think it has the addictive properties of a MMORPG or anything but I've been playing consoles for almost 20 years and I definately get the whole wired-in thing.

I was a HUGE console gamer for 30 years and finally left it for....board games. The thrill has been waning ever since I got back into gaming.

A testament to that was when I sold my 360 (thanks Count Orlok!) it was the first time ever that I had sold a console.

My wife was shocked when I did it, considering I've kept all my working consoles (my Intellivision and Nintendo have since passed on) for years and years.

As the song goes " The Thrill Is Gone!"

I miss Utopia on the Intellivision

Black Barney wrote:

I miss Utopia on the Intellivision

Utopia was awesome. And as i think about it, it was the only "Sim/Civ" console game I really ever enjoyed playing.

Buying rebels to fuck up your "neighbour's" island was amazingly bad ass, or warships to sink fishing boats.

Aw Barney, see what you did there, you brought a tear to my console-less eye.

I have never deleted any of my PC games. Even Fallout is still on my computer. I keep meaning to try a new character and some different strategies.

I loved Utopia. Weren't the sound effects awesome? i.e. the rain falling on crops, a hurricane destroying something, the fishing boat catching some fish...

Wirehead? Not yet, but getting close. I heard that some guy in South Korea died of dehydration a few years ago after a three-day marathon of non-stop online gaming. That dude was definitely a wirehead.

That wasn't the first (or probably) last tie it's happened either. Speaking of South Korea, did anyone see the story about the Lineage II fans who beat a kid to death IRL for killing another kid's character in the game? After he was buried, they apparently started threatening his family.

You guys think board gamers are bad...

NeonPeon wrote:

I loved Utopia. Weren't the sound effects awesome? i.e. the rain falling on crops, a hurricane destroying something, the fishing boat catching some fish...

Oh man, I used to make a TON of factories cuz it made me mad cash and kept the population by killing tons of them due to pollution. beautiful.


Remember how funny it was to watch a hurricane start at the top and work its way down your opponent's country only to swing back up and hit everything again? lol

I remember my buddy had all his houses together and the hurricane made such a loud noise everytime it destroyed a house.

i loved that game so much

Wireheads indeed! Nice call on Niven's correct prediction. I've seen 'em man, wasting away on my living room couch as nerve centers are stimulated by brightly colored lights and sensuous sounds. Faces devoid of any sign of life or intelligence.

Don't get me wrong, I also was a child of the arcade hall. I spent many an hour playing Tempest and Major Havoc and such. But I was out in the world! I had to get there somehow! I was with friends and other humans. And eventually I would run out of quarters. . .

A few years ago I noticed that entire evenings were suddenly gone as I conquered Europe on my PC. I trashed all my "big" games and just kept "Atari Arcade Hits". I've never looked back. . .

I may be a drug addict, but I ain't no WIREHEAD!

In Japan, they are now worried about soushoku danshi, which translates to "grass-eating boys."

www.slate.com/id/2220535/?GT1=38001

"Shigeru Sakai of Media Shakers suggests that grass-eating men don't pursue women because they are bad at expressing themselves. He attributes their poor communication skills to the fact that many grew up without siblings in households where both parents worked. "Because they had TVs, stereos and game consoles in their bedrooms, it became more common for them to shut themselves in their rooms when they got home and communicate less with their families, which left them with poor communication skills," he wrote in an e-mail. (Japan has rarely needed its men to have sex as much as it does now. Low birth rates, combined with a lack of immigration, have caused the country's population to shrink every year since 2005.)

"...Yoto Hosho, a 22-year-old college dropout who considers himself and most of his friends herbivores, believes the term describes a diverse group of men who have no desire to live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women, their jobs, or anything else. "We don't care at all what people think about how we live," he says.

"Many of Hosho's friends spend so much time playing computer games that they prefer the company of cyber women to the real thing."

Console Gamers = Wireheads = Grass-Eating Boys?

It's funny, one of the big Japanese video game publishers (I think it may be Konami) is actually paying its employees HUGE bonuses to have children. To the tune of $20k if you pop out three. I guess the men there are more interested in designing games than sex. That's so sad I can't believe it.

Aside from the Niven references here, I think Dick totally nailed today's MMORPG/SIMS gaming concept in THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH. All that stuff with the Perky Pat layouts is a DEAD ON prediction of how people get caught up in all this "virtual real estate"/property crap.

Console Gamers = Wireheads = Grass-Eating Boys?

Dude, it's Japan. They've got a guy over there petitioning for the legal right to marry cartoon characters. I'm sorry, I know it's a different culture and everything, but I don't even try to understand it.

Anyone wanna pop a CanD and check out the new furniture I got for my layout?

Kinda like playing Sims on acid I think.

Phillip K. Dick was a mad genius. He didn't even let the pink mind ray from space ruin his writing. I think it got even better! The VALIS trilogy is some of the best philosophical fiction I have ever read.

Shellhead wrote:

In Japan, they are now worried about soushoku danshi, which translates to "grass-eating boys."

www.slate.com/id/2220535/?GT1=38001

Console Gamers = Wireheads = Grass-Eating Boys?

This article was great. Basically, socially awkward manboys in Japan have ritualised and given a philosophy to being a socially awkward manboy. They are useless with women, excessively play video games and stay indoors all day. All this, not because they are socially awkward manboys but because they reject modern consumerism. Brilliant. A perfect excuse.

Japan is fantastic. I found out this week that death from overwork is so common in Japan that they have a word for it, Karoshi.