Videogames should be a part of every Christmas in a spiritual, traditional, and legally-enforced sense. Unfortunately, however, our letters to the United Nations demanding that anybody not playing a videogame at Christmas should be executed have been ignored, and it has allowed one Scottish hotel to ban gaming during the season.
Don't worry, hotels don't yet have the jurisdiction to ban all videogames in the world. It's just banning them within its own walls, because it believes that gaming isn't a part of "traditional family values." The hotel will ask guests not to bring videogames into its establishment. If they do, Santa Claus will die of cancer.
"As a father-of-four, I’m well aware of the role that computer games play in youngsters’ lives and they undoubtedly have a place," says managing director Steve Leckie. "However with Christmas holidays being the ideal opportunity to spend quality time with our families, we’re asking our younger guests to set their consoles and games aside for just a few days of the year and, instead, sample some new activities which they may never have tried before."
Seriously. Santa. Dead of cancer. Arse cancer. Do you want that on your conscience!?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
12:40 PM on 11.11.2009
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Y'know, not in a hotel?
Free Xbox 360
I can recall certain videogames that just made that christmas for me. FF VIII, Tony Hawk's 3, Pokemon Silver, Earthworm Jim, Warioland....ah nostalgia
a) Christmas is traditionally depicted as a family gathering.
b) The hotel wants to establish itself as a family-friendly chain.
c) In their minds, most video games are played separately- not by the family as a whole.
d) Therefore, they set up an ad campaign SUGGESTING (not banning, as even the BBC article states- look at the quote if you don't believe me) that families leave their game consoles at home so that the families can spend quality time together. Whether or not the families do this is irrelevant; the important thing is that
e) The hotel chain successfully depicts itself as a family-friendly chain.
Simple enough?
"Sorry Billy I would've brought your other presents but the Hotel barred me from bringing them on the premises. Enjoy your socks!"
They probably don't want all those kids plugging their consoles into the backs of their TVs. shifting the Tv's around and unplugging things.
Yes. That being said, I will be spending my Christmas in Scotland this year. If there are any British female DToiders who would like to get a heaping spoonful of this manly love machine, you'll know where to find me that week.
I'm glad this manager has a handle on how stressful the holidays can be and is only thinking of the families private down time.
Parents are all too eager to just hand the kids a DS to shut them up and as we all know there are zero other ways for kids to be miscreants without a video game system in their hands.
this is very intrusive and what activities do they have to offer? go swimming in a freezing pool? spend money getting drunk at their bar? use their internet for whatever reason (porn)? bad move hotel. you cannot dictate what people do to have fun. you cannot.
Excellent.
Also, I guess these guys have never heard of Mario Party, eh?
95% of all people over the age of 50 know nothing and don't care to know anything about video games. There is no story here - just old people being old people. Just like how people born in the 20's would always go on about "that dreadfull rock and roll music", people born in the 50's, when your average computer was the size of a room and graphics didn't even EXIST yet, will always complain about "those dreadful video-games". You can't stop it.
But it's nothing to worry about. In the 80's and the 90's, the fundamentalist Christian right tried to get every violent movie banned, along with rap music. There was hysteria over TV shows turning people evil, and many parents tried to stop "satanic" heavy metal. Guess what, they failed. The Utah State government tried to ban porn, and arrest anyone caught with it, until the defence pointed out that according to cable subscriptions, Utah was one of the highest consumers of cable porn throughout the entire USA. The law was quietly dismissed.
The games industry, like the movie industry, is too big to be destroyed. They can try to stop and impede it (like they have in Germany), but they can't destroy it, because the technology to create games is well known and games can be distributed over the net and patched and modified, so it can't be controlled by the government. It's also too popular to outlaw.
Chill people. Chill. We aren't living in Orwell's 1984. And just because old people act like old people doesn't mean we are heading towards that day. Let the elderly retire and sink into the inevitable dementia that awaits us all.
What is throwing Alka-Seltzer into poo supposed to do?
Unless playing games IS your way of spending time with family, then by all means, please go ahead, and enjoy the holidays. I remember years ago when I was able to convince my whole family to play Mario Party. Those were good times...
People! Why are you ignoring this guy's post!?
Sounds like the Videogames (in General) Defense Force is over-reacting a tad...