Balance, balance, balance...

Copyright (c) Noelle Adams. All Rights Reserved.

When you step up to the bathroom mirror in the morning, does an overweight, fluorescent skinned, all-round greasy geek squint back at you? Because that’s that the media would have you believe a gamer look like – a misshapen creature that survives on a diet of junk food, displays little concept of personal hygiene, and grows twitchy at the prospect of face to face interaction.

Even if we don’t use the label “gamer” to describe ourselves, game players know the damage such stereotypes do to our favourite pastime. Anti-gaming activists clearly view gaming as a Jekyll and Hyde potion that warps ordinary people into anti-social freaks.

It doesn’t help that the mainstream media seems to ferret out all the stories that portray gamers as deviants. For example, towards the end of June there was much discussion about whether the American Medical Association was going to have video game addiction listed as a mental illness, alongside alcoholism.

Personally I don’t have a problem with such a classification – people can develop compulsions for all kinds of “substances”. This includes the usual scapegoats, like drugs and gambling, through to more unusual examples, like shopping, MXit and video games.

Anything can be used as a crutch with which to hobble away from reality. It‘s just that gaming attracts a lot of flack for supposedly crippling people’s social skills, and sometimes their very humanity.

You read a lot about isolated gamers who have died as a result of their addiction – “cat assing” for so long that their exhausted body self-destructs. Then there are those well-documented cases of unbalanced gamers tracking down online rivals for revenge in real life. There are even examples of negligent parents more concerned about their character’s “pets” than providing love or sustenance for their children. In July, a couple in Nevada were arrested for severe child neglect stemming from their Dungeons & Dragons Online obsession.

When it comes to damaged social skills, Internet gaming is where most fingers point. The irony is that massive multiplayer games are highly social creations. Their major appeal is interacting with other players instead of just computer generated characters, with their hyper-scripted responses.

Some online games, like World of WarCraft, even reward players who break from playing. Granted, the introduction of a Rest state was more about balancing experience gained by casual and “hardcore” gamers, but the flipside is the longer players are in “real life”, the more bonus experience they gain when they return to the game.

The bottom line is that it’s perfectly understandable when people use gaming as an escape from certain real life pressures, like looming exams or… er… magazine deadlines. Just be sensible about the amount of time you spend playing. A balanced, well-rounded life is always best. Mix things up – take a break from gaming to enjoy other entertainment forms, explore a hands-on hobby, socialise or get some regular exercise.

And if you ever find that your reflection matches the creature described in the first paragraph, then perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your gaming lifestyle.