Keith Stuart of the Guardian wrote an enlightening article in the Guardian today in response to Will Hutton's assertion that for young men facing a difficult future of unemployment and mediocrity, it's "...Much better to smoke dope, hang out and obsessively play computer games all day."
Whilst Hutton made some pertinent points regarding the challenges that young males in Britain face today in relation to rising unemployment and a culture of a loss of both fear and ambition, Stuart rightly calls out Hutton's lazy generalisation about gaming representing the inertia of today's youth, as if picking up the controller is the equivalent of rolling up a spliff, pouring yourself a White Russian, and effectively saying "Fuck it dude, let's go bowling".
As Stuart says, "Games could and should be part of the solution with young men. Instead, all too often, they are a convenient figurehead for the problem." He suggests that with games such as LittleBigPlanet, we are seeing a level of interactivity that allows the gamer to create for themselves, and could help to usher in a new, hungry generation of developers that the UK is crying out for.
Given the rate at which the industry is currently expanding, with the PlayStation Move and Microsoft's Kinect to follow the Nintendo Wii into the motion-sensor market, gaming has the potential to evolve and become one of the dominant mainstream activities in living rooms across the country. Unfortunately, in the wake of the government's announcement that tax relief for the gaming industry will be scrapped, it seems as though the main image that people have of gamers is of the saucer-eyed, spliff-holding drop-out that sinks days (and nights-usually nights) into gaming.
This is unfortunate the huge economic rewards that the industry is profiting from, but also considering that gaming, despite massive strides recently, still seems to be boxed up as a geek's pursuit by those, like Hutton, who fail to understand it at a fundamental level. Given that the games industry is one of the few areas in which the UK is seeing steady economic growth, and is also a highly-skilled, carbon-free industry, the decision is particularly disheartening.
It has to be said that while Hutton's assertion is lazy, we can't pretend that we don't all know friends or family members who fit the bill. Indeed, while at university, this particular blogger fell into the trap of losing days and weeks of seminar-free days to gaming, usually at a personal cost to friendships, educational opportunities, and relationships. However, that says more about the individual than the past-time - I'm sure we could all look at people we know and think that they are far too into watching soaps, films, or practically anything else that we don't necessarily find of immediate value to ourselves.
So, while some people may conform to Hutton's stereotype, it's unfair to suggest that gaming is equivalent to giving up the ghost of a future. The fact of the matter is that if people are given opportunities, and are determined, then they will hopefully strive to better themselves. For many of my friends, they can slot in an hour or two of gaming whilst maintaining jobs, partners, and good relationships across the board. However, others that I've known conform to Hutton's 'gamers' to an unnerving degree, and seem perfectly content with it.
The key is balance. Gaming can and should rightly be seen as an entirely acceptable past-time, in which we can escape into a captivating world, and/or enjoy the company of friends, either on your headset or cramped up on the sofa. However, just as films, books, music, pets and practically anything else can offer an escape, gaming also offers an escape to those who genuinely want to retreat from reality. In this case, the problem is not the entertainment source (unless, like drugs, it's highly addictive or harmful), but the person engaging in it.
We can all sink to a low point, but if you have a healthy balance in life, then there's nothing inherently wrong with putting in a few hours with your favourite virtual friends.
The main problem, however, is that when you put down that controller, you've got to make sure that there's enough of a real person left to make a decent stab of doing something with the only life that hasn't got a replay button.
