The chapter opens with Ethan Gilsdorf’s introduction to
Rajeev, a once addicted player of computer games. Although he now attends a
business school with aspirations to become a writer, Rajeev quickly begins to
tell Gilsdorf his virtual story. After college, he was pressured by his family
to attend medical school, a path he never wanted to pursue. Rather than
challenge his issues with school and his parents, he turned to video games. The
distraction he had been searching for quickly became an addiction.
Gilsdorf reflects on stories he’s heard of men in Asian
countries dying from dehydration and exhaustion after playing marathons of
games for two to three days. Rajeev tells him he would play games for twelve
hours a day, barely eating, losing a lot of weight, and doing the bare minimum
of his schoolwork. Although quitting the addiction resulted in his failing out
of med school and moving in with his parents, Rajeev finally was free of the
gaming world. Now, he plays games sometimes but realizes how boring they are,
telling Gilsdorf, “I cannot believe that I played them” (Gilsdorf 203).
After listening to Rajeev’s story, Gilsdorf goes on to
recognize another, that of Levi Hunt. Hunt was a member of the North Carolina
National Guard’s Infantry Medical Platoon. He, like a surprising number of
other military members, plays video games. Gilsdorf reckons that when fighting
in a war like the one in Afghanistan, where nothing is clear-cut, soldiers look
for a world where decisions are black and white. In real life, justice through
serving in the military is hard, and games online can give players a sense of
purpose, a sense that they’re really making a difference.
Finally, Gilsdorf understands a third point of view behind
computer games from Nissa Ludwig, a woman with an undiagnosed muscular disorder
that prevents her from walking and moving around normally. For her, playing
games is a release that she can no longer physically perform. Her characters
online can run, jump, fight, build, and help others in ways she no longer can. As
she describes it, in game she could, “… role-play a hoofed and horned,
eight-foot-tall, 600 pound tauren and no one … knew Ludwig was disabled unless
she told them” (213). Not only did gaming distract her from the suffering and
pain she endured daily, but it also gave her the opportunity to do whatever she
no longer could in real life. She now had new skills, tasks, and hobbies to
consume her time, instead of reminiscing of what her life used to be.
Discussion Questions:
Discussion Questions:
Why
do you think Gilsdorf included these stories from people who had different
experiences with gaming?
Whose
story most closely resembles Ethan’s, and how do you think he would react to
hearing a story similar to his?
By Helen Schmidt
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