Not Just for GenY. This posting is in regards to Bernie's post on 11/1/00. Bernie brought up an interesting point. Age is another perspective from which to consider the topic of "violent" video games. I could be wrong but I think Bernie might have implied that my opinion on the topic is colored by my age. With that I must disagree.

I know quite a few people who are 10-20 years older than myself and they're much more into games than I am. In fact, some of my seemingly liberal opinions would be conservative compared to theirs as far as this topic is concerned. Since I'm at it, I'd like to share a brief story with everyone that I find hilarious.

As I'm sure everyone knows, I'm one of the younger people in this department. Quite a few people in this department have been "kind" enough to make sure I knew it. That's a whole other story in itself. ;) Back to the main one.

Anyway, I was working in the IML lab one day when the topic of video games came up. Two of my "favorite" people from this program decided to use this opportunity to poke fun at my age. They were no more than 10 years older than me, 15 at most. They made fun of the fact that I enjoy games like Quake, Unreal, etc. They pointed out, in their infinite wisdom, that I still enjoy childish games like Quake etc. because I'm young, have too much time on my hands, and perhaps immature. I'll keep this story short by saying that they went on for 15 minutes about this. Their unwarranted egos were just growing incredibly.

Funny enough, 3 months later they were playing Quake 3 Arena. By all accounts, they were fanatics about it. To my knowledge, they played it during the week, and they played it during the weekend. They played it more than me! Can you imagine how much I was laughing inside when these hypocrites were asking for my advice about the game?