Video Games aren't bad. Period.

We've all seen the townsfolk with their pitchforks and their torches, marching through town to the dark keep on the hill, preparing to burn out the wicked men within. For those men have been judged by the masses as corrupt, unfit, and unworthy of their freedoms and choices. Left instead to be condemned, ridiculed and outlawed for their vile, wicked ways. Over the centuries, the pitchforks and torches change, the keep is no longer a keep, and the towns are much bigger. Yet there will always be the outcasts and the society which judges them. Judges what they do.

So now I'll skip the melodrama, and ignore those other, more secluded groups of outcasts, and talk about myself. The gamer. Since Pong was first unleashed upon the masses, millions of families have watched one or two of their flock succumb to the mystique and fantasy that video games can provide. They watch fearfully as the gamers fall deeper into apathy, until what was once a vibrant human, full of life and vigor, instead stares slack-mouthed and vacant eyed at a television screen, hands twitching on impulse and instinct. Oblivious to the life slowly passing them by. Content to sit in their sweat stains and potato chip crumbs until the sweet call of slumber bades them lower the controller, and stumble to a fitful sleep, punctuated by lights and noise and the silent promises of retribution. And society grimly frowns at that box atop the television, cursing the day table tennis found its way into silicon.

Today it's worse. There are more boxes, with faster silicon, and computers now dominate the desk space in homes across the developed world. Energized photons pulsing with reams of data echo through the void of the internet, carrying messages, information and devilry to millions of pale, hunched recluses across the planet. Touching at last the screen of some poor, misguided fool, alone in his basement who gleefully absorbs every electron of radiation being belted into his feeble brain. For he, in his delusion, steadfastly believes that the things he sees on that screen, the people with whom he's become friends and the events he's participated in are real, and as worthwhile as anything a normal, tanned, fit person would do out under the blazing rays of light.

And for this delusion, he is condemned. Sweaty palms gripping a contoured, matte black joystick shudder in anxiety and anticipation as every foe to appear before him is crushed, bled, blasted and destroyed with no thoughts but reaction and pride. For in this moment, as his breath shudders into asthma-wracked lungs, he is king. All others under the sun can in no way stand against the might of this lone warrior, who refuses to wilt beneath the scourge of the digital enemy, or the disdain of friends in flesh.

While locked in mortal combat with the demons before him, he grips with the doubts in his mind, that what he does, and what he loves can be so totally despicable. Like a sexual predator who steadfastly believes he is not in err, he calmly justifies every vile thing he's done at the screen. Pages of facts and data, and conversation held at length flutter through his mind, all saying what must be true isn't. The things he does, the games he plays aren't bad for him. They are the slaves, he the master. The voices of the multitudes are quiet but insistant. Even so, they are still meaningless, and easily ignored. They've been wrong before, about butter, y2k, asteroid collisions and acne. For every fact today there is another to dispute it. So, the gamer leans back in his form fitting, breathable mesh chair, with adjustable armrests, content that the world is wrong, and he and his bretheren are travelling down dark the road to bliss. Junkies have their heroin, alcoholics their beer, smokers have nicotine, nymphs have men. For every void, there is something to fill it, be it good, bad or painful.

And so the gamers, long since condemned to their fate, unable, unwanted and unwilling to grasp their way blindingly out into the sun, instead pile another layer of nuclear resistant cinder blocks around their cave, and rest assured that when the planet finally destroys itself, they will still be able to flick a switch and destroy the forces of evil.

But one day, someone the gamer cares deeply for, agrees with the writhing masses of the blind. She also takes a torch and pitchfork in hand. And his world, for a moment siezes in confusion. His vanquished foes are for naught. The slain dragons and defeated dictators who lie at his feet no longer stare up at him with dead faces, displaying their fear and deliverance into righteous justice. They are ash. The sweet taste of victory has become coal in his mouth, teeth and tongue blackened with the vileness of doubt. His brow creases and eyes lower. What has this lonely man done with his life? What poor decisions has led him down the dark, dank path, through the bowels of dignity and self-respect? What has he done?

And like a high-res, digitally rendered lens flare slowly arcing across his 19 inch, 32 bit color, trinitron display, the answer stabs into his brain like an epiphany born in light. He's done what he wanted. Plain, pure, simple. His imaginitive memory vaguely remembers things that could have been. His bloody hands retreat from a sutured wound, his new briefcase slides closed, his defendant smiles in satisfaction, and the ground shudders in a violent impact as he loads another mortar, proud to blow the world to bits in defense of his country. He hands the crying woman a parking ticket and slowly slides the needle into his pockmarked arm as he begs on the corner for a dime while putting out the blazing fire. Many things could have been, but only one is. And through the eyes of someone who watches the world through a peephole, choosing a preferred path, no matter how dark, sure beats being pulled down another.

As the realisation hits him, a flood of justification innundates his cramped mind. Freedom isn't a word. It's a truth. And so he can accept her judgement as he has all the others, while she smiles at his sad, lonely disarray.

-Landslide.