<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yesterday, I was playing my fifth game of Pokemon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire. Don't laugh, it's to video pinball games what Radiant Sivergun and Ikaruga are to shooters (far and away better than all the rest). I'd played the original one to death (gotten 141 out of 151), so it didn't take me long to get used to the controls and gameplay. I started the game around 9pm. I didn't lose my first ball until after 10 (I got 1.9 billion points). By midnight, my battery started to run out, so I took a break and then went downstairs and plugged the battery pak in and started playing some more. I finally had to stop around 1:30am 'cause I had to work the next day. For those who are interested, by the time I stopped, I had 60 pokemon caught/evolved, almost 7 billion points, and 4 extra balls (on top of the one in play).
The point of all this is not to gloat (check online and you see MANY others who destroy those stats, so there's nothing to gloat about), but during that stretch of time, I had to pause a few times just to stretch my neck and relieve my hands. Same thing used to happen during my 2 hour games of Crazy Taxi. My hand would kill me by the time I was done.
The question is: if you play games to the point where you're going to have lasting physical affects afterwards, what does it mean? Are you obsessed? So competitive that you're pushing yourself too damned much (I mean, these are just freakin' video games, not exactly a contact sport)? Do you just have no life? With me personally, I'm quite competitive by nature, that's why I go for a while on these games sometimes. Never gotten to the point of long-term physical effects or anything, but a sore hand or occasional blisters (original Mario Party; EVERYONE got them, that's why Nintendo was giving away gloves for free :-) have occurred. What, if anything, has ever driven you guys to play that long/hard?</div>
The point of all this is not to gloat (check online and you see MANY others who destroy those stats, so there's nothing to gloat about), but during that stretch of time, I had to pause a few times just to stretch my neck and relieve my hands. Same thing used to happen during my 2 hour games of Crazy Taxi. My hand would kill me by the time I was done.
The question is: if you play games to the point where you're going to have lasting physical affects afterwards, what does it mean? Are you obsessed? So competitive that you're pushing yourself too damned much (I mean, these are just freakin' video games, not exactly a contact sport)? Do you just have no life? With me personally, I'm quite competitive by nature, that's why I go for a while on these games sometimes. Never gotten to the point of long-term physical effects or anything, but a sore hand or occasional blisters (original Mario Party; EVERYONE got them, that's why Nintendo was giving away gloves for free :-) have occurred. What, if anything, has ever driven you guys to play that long/hard?</div>
I was there on that fateful day, were you?
