Dear Editor,
Darren Seiber: Your article about gaming was absolutely ridiculous. It was clear what you thought you’d accomplish, but you should have put a little more thought into it, and, at the least, tried to put some semblance of reason behind your orgy of cheap rhetoric.
Some of your points were No. 1: Game companies spend a lot of money on flashy commercials – Well, duh. So do colas, drugs, cars, movies and any other number of popular items. You know why? Competition.
Every game manufacturer knows that they’re in fierce competition. You don’t think it’s a coincidence that systems such as the Wii, the PS3 and the 360 all came out so close to each other, do you?
Each manufacturer knows that most gamers are only going to drop the couple hundred dollars for a new system once and like good businesses, they want that new system to be one that they made. Slick advertising sells products. That’s just a principle of business.
No. 2: “Sixty-nine percent of American head of households . admit to playing video games.” Wow, there are actually people brave enough to admit to playing games, even once in a blue moon? And, wow, did I read this right? This dark art is practiced by a whole two-thirds of the head of households in families? With such a big number, video games seem like the true plague of the 21st century – until you consider some of the other statistics that affect these same American households.
How the percentage of those same head of households that admits to having cheated on their spouse (45 percent of men, 35 percent of women)? Or, how about the number of those households that will eventually break apart in divorce (about 50 percent)? I don’t try to impose my own morals on other people, but I’d rather my future spouse partake in some friendly gaming every once in a while than sleep around.
Elliott

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