Yahoo News brings us a bizarre story of how video games are yet again making the world unsafe for the average person. Or, at least, how they are making it harder to pop into a pub with your mates for some chips during the Man U game.
Along with foreign players and a lack of proper coaching, video games are being blamed as one of the factors in England’s recent lack of proper young talent in the grand old game of Football (or, as us dumb Yanks call it: soccer). Apparently, before the era of consoles, children in the UK had little other entertainment than playing soccer in the streets (or dodging IRA carbombs), and this led to England being an international powerhouse in the sport. Or, at least, that’s what the article would have you believe.
Excuse me for being a huge jerkface, but this argument is even more suspect than the “video games make people stab babies” one. England can’t field soccer players because of video games? Maybe it has more to do with the fact that they are just having a slump? Or maybe now that British children have been given options, they have chosen the one more interesting to them? Personally, I’d rather play Halo than kick a ball at a Spaniard any day.
[UPDATE: For all you anglo-saxons complaining about folks calling the sport ‘soccer’, get over yourselves. Destructoid is based in America, and in America it is called ‘soccer’. ‘Football’ here involves overpaid fat guys smashing into each other while hopped up on opiate based painkillers and blow, which is a far cry from your hooligan-spawning national past time.]
