I didn’t get my first video-game console until after I was married. It was an old black Xbox, the kind my friends had owned years earlier. But video games had not been a part of my life in high school, and I was eager to make up for lost time.

There’s an ongoing debate about the relationship between video-game violence and real-world violence, with arguments and evidence on both sides. There’s causation and correlation; and nobody can agree on which argument owns the moral high ground. I didn’t really care about all that, though. I just wanted to fire big guns and shoot aliens.

After I defeated the aliens, I decided to skateboard across London, run from cops, dunk on Kobe Bryant, and infiltrate German military bases.

When I got my first real job, with a salary and benefits, I splurged and bought a used Xbox 360. This new game console had better graphics: when I slashed somebody’s throat it sprayed bright red blood across the screen in perfectly rendered detail.

I loved it.

[ continue reading @ Convergent Books ]

[ image: Maʝicdölphin ]