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Sbudda · 12-01-2004, 10:28 AM

Let's see.... I've had An Atari 2600, the NES, the Super NES, the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, the Gamecube, the Dreamcast, the Gameboy and the Gameboy Advance. I think that's it. Oh yeah, and more computers than you can shake a stick at (for a total of 6 PC's and 2 laptops over the course of my life).

Despite all of this I still played sports, I did very well in school (and when I did poorly it was due to women, not games), and have gainful employment. In fact, when you have all of these systems and your parents only bought one of them (ahh 1986), being gainfully employed was the way that I was able to accumulate these systems. It taught me the value of a dollar (most of my systems are pawn shop systems), the value of hard work, and the value of getting everything done that I needed to get done before I started playing.

At the same time, it gave me something to play with my parents - my father was pretty old and couldn't really play basketball with me, but we had a great time playing Double Dribble back in the day. The old NES version of Jeopardy! was a good family game too.

Now I've had my share of marathon sessions trying to beat the latest Final Fantasy, and up until a few months ago I was part of a gaming clan that competed in FPS games that took up a few hours a week. But never was it a problem, I simply played while my wife watched 7th Heaven (I hate that this is allowed in my house).

My hand eye coordination is amazing. There was a study that proved that surgeons that played at least 6 hours a week had fewer mistakes with endoscopic surgery. The Army uses a number of FPS games to teach the value of squad manuver and command structure. As a person who was always interested in figuring out how things worked, playing games got me interested in game development, and later enterprise level computer programming - which is what I do now.

It is my opinion that people who choose to shield their children away from different aspects of life are doing the children a great disservice by not allowing them to find a moderate position when they make decisions on their own. I would never suggest that games are the end all be all solution for people - but I wouldn't suggest hiding it as if it were a bad thing either. I was forbidden to watch horror movies as a child, but my wife was forced to watch them all when she was a little kid. Guess who still gets scared at those movies today (that would be me).

Right now I live far away from my parents, but every now and again I can still pop in Tiger Woods and play a game of golf with my Dad over the Internet. I would think this would be a difficult thing to do had we not bonded over games like this in my early childhood.

Don't you hate it when you get quite far in your post and forget what the origonal poster was talking about? Ah well, this should be my cue to stop then.

12-01-2004, 10:28 AM	#49 (permalink)
Sbudda Tilted Location: Atl	Let's see.... I've had An Atari 2600, the NES, the Super NES, the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, the Gamecube, the Dreamcast, the Gameboy and the Gameboy Advance. I think that's it. Oh yeah, and more computers than you can shake a stick at (for a total of 6 PC's and 2 laptops over the course of my life). Despite all of this I still played sports, I did very well in school (and when I did poorly it was due to women, not games), and have gainful employment. In fact, when you have all of these systems and your parents only bought one of them (ahh 1986), being gainfully employed was the way that I was able to accumulate these systems. It taught me the value of a dollar (most of my systems are pawn shop systems), the value of hard work, and the value of getting everything done that I needed to get done before I started playing. At the same time, it gave me something to play with my parents - my father was pretty old and couldn't really play basketball with me, but we had a great time playing Double Dribble back in the day. The old NES version of Jeopardy! was a good family game too. Now I've had my share of marathon sessions trying to beat the latest Final Fantasy, and up until a few months ago I was part of a gaming clan that competed in FPS games that took up a few hours a week. But never was it a problem, I simply played while my wife watched 7th Heaven (I hate that this is allowed in my house). My hand eye coordination is amazing. There was a study that proved that surgeons that played at least 6 hours a week had fewer mistakes with endoscopic surgery. The Army uses a number of FPS games to teach the value of squad manuver and command structure. As a person who was always interested in figuring out how things worked, playing games got me interested in game development, and later enterprise level computer programming - which is what I do now. It is my opinion that people who choose to shield their children away from different aspects of life are doing the children a great disservice by not allowing them to find a moderate position when they make decisions on their own. I would never suggest that games are the end all be all solution for people - but I wouldn't suggest hiding it as if it were a bad thing either. I was forbidden to watch horror movies as a child, but my wife was forced to watch them all when she was a little kid. Guess who still gets scared at those movies today (that would be me). Right now I live far away from my parents, but every now and again I can still pop in Tiger Woods and play a game of golf with my Dad over the Internet. I would think this would be a difficult thing to do had we not bonded over games like this in my early childhood. Don't you hate it when you get quite far in your post and forget what the origonal poster was talking about? Ah well, this should be my cue to stop then. Last edited by Sbudda; 12-01-2004 at 10:59 AM..