I've never been what you'd call a heavy gamer. Sure, there was that time I neglected to ask beforehand what exactly my official duties would be as The Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion Boy of the Year (BOTY) 1994. But even as a fatass I didn't game a lot. Just an hour here or there, with an occasional marathon thrown in for obsessive measure.

And then I started reading game blogs. Joystiq, Kotaku, GoNintendo, stuff like that. Without making excuses for my behavior, I was young, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But a funny thing happened on the way to the internets: the more time I spent reading about games, the less time I spent playing games. Then came Destructoid, and the problems really started.


Actual size.

At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but my condition persisted -- nay, worsened. Fearing for my health, I consulted a physician. He determined that I had bloggus interruptus -- literally, video game blogs were taking away time that I previously would have budgeted for games. Then I found out he wasn't a doctor at all, in direct contradiction of the handwritten cardboard sign he was holding when I encountered him by chance under a nearby overpass*.

But the diagnosis was uncannily accurate. Could it be that my addiction to gaming blogs (such as this one) was cutting into my precious game time? So I decided to conduct an experiment. I decided to wait until an expansive, free update for one of my favorite games of this generation, Burnout Paradise, landed. Adding motorcycles and night/day cycles to a happy mindless sandbox centered around seeing how high you could launch off a ramp the compacted metal cube that had recently been a car? Can't. Miss.


Launch it good.

The evening of the experiment approached, and I awaited the results with sweaty palms. Would I join in an online frenzy of adrenaline-fueled destruction that I had been advocating? Or would I spend yet another freakishly short hour reading about games, and the gamers who game them?

Dear gentlegamers, you have been agents of SCIENCE this evening. This blog confirms my sad condition. Robot Father, forgive me, for I have blogged and read blogs, and I have not gamed as I should.


He also does Bar Mitzvahs.

And yet, dear reader, ask: what of yourself? Have you been reading this game blog when you should have been gaming? I am too complicit in this crime to sit in judgment. But perhaps you should be tested for bloggus interruptus. Dusty console? More than one video game blog open in your tabs? A video game blog bookmarked where there was no bookmark before? A double-digit leaderboard rank? These are but a few warning signs.

It could happen to you.


Not the military conscription, just the accusatory pointing.

*I have lodged a complaint with the American Medical Association concerning "Dr." Fielgud, and I urge you to be aware that should you run into him, he is most assuredly not the one who makes you feel all right.