Greetings World (Wide Web)!
For those who don't know me my name is Jason and I love video games. I am 30 years old and have been captivated by colorful bits on screens for 23 years. My first memory of anything video game related came in the hallway outside my third grade classroom. While waiting in line for something that I can't remember (we always had to wait in lines for things didn't we?) someone had a magazine with a colorful cartoon-like figure jumping over a mushroom and a frog-looking thing hot on its tail. It was animated as if it were a photo taken of some world where cartoons came to life and did fantastic things. It the first issue of Nintendo Power with Mario being chased by King Wart in Super Mario Bros. 2.
While this was intriguing to me it was pandemonium for others. Never before had I seen this sort of crazed reaction to something in a magazine. Kids started calling out to this boy--I'll call him Stan--as if he had Willie Wonka's golden ticket. He was for that moment the most popular kid on the second floor of Upson Elementary School. They were negotiating things like being his best friend or doling out their lunch money. All for only a glimpse at this wonderful periodical. What was it they wanted to see? I had to know. I was able to push into the jumble of craning necks and stretched out hands and arms to see that what was in the magazine were pages full of little screens depicting the level layout of the video game on the cover. I made sure to act like I knew what everyone was talking about. Thus began the wheels turning in my head.
I grew up during what video game historians call the resurrection of the video game industry. From 1983 to 1984 the industry experienced an economic crash that would last well into the decade. At the time, arcades and home consoles shared dominance but it was the home console war that imploded leaving a large crater (and some say many landfills of unused over-produced games). With Atar, Intellivision, and ColecoVision having competing consoles as well as the recent addition of third-party game developers the market became flooded with merchandise due to over-projected sales outcomes and many companies subsequently folded. Fast forward to 1988, since 1985 the Nintendo Entertainment System--known familiarly as the NES--was gaining momentum as the popular choice of kids to play games at home. Commercial marketing was effective with a tie-in television shows such as "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show" and "Captain N: The Gamemaster", commercial ads for games like the Legend of Zelda, and a tie-in breakfast serial featuring Maria and Link from the Zelda games. By 1991 the NES was ubiquitous enough to have a reduced price of $100 and come with a the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridge which was a great buying incentive and probably aided the Mario franchise's popularity. Nintendo saved the extinction of video gaming and will forever be remembered for this contribution.
So I have rambled on enough now that you are probably saying, "Dude get to the point," so I will. My love for video games can be surmised by Sigmund Freud, pioneer of psychoanalytic psychology. Foundational to his theories of human development are the Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle. Freud supposed that humans are hedonists because they traverse life seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Throughout the life cycle, humans obtain new strategies to handle this dichotomy. As a child, seeking pleasure is raw and uncontrolled which explains why a child may throw a tantrum when denied something such as a toy or snack. As we grow and mature we begin to understand that the things that make us happy (i.e. pleasures) are not always readily available but delayed be obstacles. In short, life gets in the way and we must find ways around these obstacles to obtain our pleasures. These obstacles are part of Freud's Reality Principle and hallmark to the idea that hard work reaps rewards. My own experiences can attest to this.
Ever since that episode in the hall I was obsessed with getting a Nintendo controller in my hands. Of course there was no shortage of kids in the neighborhood with an NES, so most of my hang out spots ended up being other kids' living rooms. I began to pick kids to hang out with because they had an NES. One kid even told me that his mom said I only befriended him just to play The Legend of Zelda (I'm not proud of this but its true. He was at least two years younger than me which went against the neighborhood social hierarchy). I was on a mission to consume as many hours of game time as possible and it was only a matter of time before I began to envision my own opportunities to covet this wondrous piece of technology.
Christmas 1989: In my family Christmas and birthdays were your best chance of getting cool new stuff. Therefore I naturally made the logical connection that what I wanted (Nintendo) was what my family wanted to get me. Like Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" I daydreamed then dreamed then daydreamed then dreamed...I even made sure to plant subtle hints to my family:
Me: Hey mom!
Mom: Yes?
Me: Can I get a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas?
Mom: (Leery) What's that?
Me: It' this really cool...gibberish, gibberish gibberish...(a kid's version of explaining anything they want is loaded with cool, awesome, and amazing and spoken really fast as if the brain is trying to mouth is trying to keep up the images generating in the brain.)
Mom: How much is it?
Me: Only $100 (it was actually $150 but who's counting).
Mom: No that's too expensive.
Me: Aww come on Mom!?
Yes I was a smooth operator. However I was not dismayed yet. I continued to project thoughts of acquiring a Nintendo and made sure to talk and think about it as much as possible. I even memorized the size of NES Control Deck box and its printed images for future daydreaming. In psychology this is defined as magical thinking: one's way of rationalizing causal events through seemingly unrelated thoughts, actions, utterances, etc.
Christmas Day I was nervous and excited at the same time. Under the tree were gifts of all shapes and sizes and I easily sized each up. In my house everyone took turns opening a gift from their presorted pile while the parents judged one or two to be special enough to be moved up or down the queue. Again the reality principle took effect as I surveyed the presents and made sure to keep the ones that looked like my coveted NES for last. As the unwrapping commenced I was beat back by unwanted clothes and gifts deemed "useful" by my mother but all was not lost as my resolve remained steady until the last few gifts.
Of the potential candidates to be an NES Control Deck was a indiscriminate garbage bag listed as "From Santa"; now of course I had already know for at least two years that Santa was Mom but for my sister's sake we both received stuff from the Jolly Ole Elf. Whatever was in the wrapping was heavy; much heavier than what I expected. At this point I was pretty certain that my dreams of a NES this year were trashed (pun) but I was not expecting what sat on the floor before me. I opened the bag and saw a tacky blue vinyl bowling ball bag. I unzipped it to find a marble red eight pound bowling ball. Etched in the surface was Brunswick Lucky Strike in cursive. My brain went blank. Deep in the recesses of my mind something stirred like a ambulance siren getting closer and closer but this was more like a tone or ringing. Then crack! Tears leaked down my beet-red face. I sobbed uncontrollably. All my pent-up energy, stored over the months, was harnessed into that moment and released into a geyser of anger, frustration, and sadness. How did my Mom misread all my signals! How did she reach the conclusion that a bowling ball could replace the sheer elation that could be derived from the pixilated awesomeness on our 20-inch Mitsubishi!? In the words of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, "Parents just don't understand."
It would be another two years until I was able to obtain my own NES. After that infamous Christmas day I understood that somethings needed to be earned. Freud would say that I had reached the point where the reality principle took over the pleasure principle leading me to a more mature level of cognitive development. By 1991 my paper route earned me enough to go to the local Toys'R'us and walk out with my own NES. I handled the beautiful glossy box as if it was a new born infant, gently laying in my mom's trunk to make the trip home. Never comprehending the sheer complexity that a television and a cable box could offer I had the NES up and running by my bed time. But all was right in the world. There would be plenty of time to spend after school jumping Mario over goombas and koopas in the Mushroom Kingdom; and as my story unfolded video games became an integral part of my life. With every city I have lived and every dorm room, apartment, and now condo, there has been a Nintendo console sitting next to my television--from the cathode rays to the plasma.
Everybody has a story to tell. Mine happens to be how video games have shaped and keep shaping my life; how the complexity we call human behavior meshes (or not) with this modern-day activity. With each post I plan to offer a topic that combines the psychology behind our behaviors and the video gaming world in a hopefully fresh, educational, and enjoyable way. Currently I am finishing up my Masters in Psychology to fulfill my interest in the crossover area of behavior and video gaming. I hope those who read my posts will enjoy my take on this subject and I welcome comments, questions, and ideas.
Happy gaming!
Jason
