Video games are pervasive. It is a safe assumption that there are few - if any - undergraduate males on this campus who have never played Madden. One would be hard-pressed to find a female on campus who has never at least heard of Grand Theft Auto, let alone sat idly by as her boyfriend played his fifth round, pleading, "Let me just switch cars and kill a cop, and I'll be done, I swear."
For that round. According to the New York Times, "games for video consoles and PCs have become a $7 billion-a-year business." The popularity of gaming reached a fevered pitch in early November when the release of Halo 2 garnered $125 million in its first 24 hours.
And according to an October article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "TV viewership among men aged 18 to 34 declined by about 12 percent last year, while that group spent 20 percent more time on games, according to Nielsen Media Research." Video games have a strangle-hold on many college students, mostly men, and their star only continues to rise.
"[Playing video games] always infringes on my work," freshman Rob Kastoff said, though he sees a bright side in that fact that "if no one on my floor had it we would be getting in a lot of trouble, simply because there would be nothing else to do besides drink when we weren't doing work."
Kastoff prefers Xbox to PlayStation 2, and his favorite games are Tony Hawk and Fight Nights, on which he averages about an hour per day with friends. Though many stigmatize video games as an anti-social tool of destruction, many of the men at Tufts see video games as a tool for forging bonds. As Kastoff explains, he likes Fight Nights because it is a multi-player game, and "what boy doesn't like competition?"
Simon Baumer is a senior at Ithaca College who logs a self-estimated hour or two every week. He believes that, although he still enjoys video games as an upperclassman, college males play more as underclassmen.
"In general, people have less friends, school isn't as demanding and they have a lot of evaporating downtime - as classes increase in difficulty and students become more involved in the school and community, they have less time to waste," Baumer said. "I know for me and my friends, the amount of free time we have in the week is proportional to the amount we play."
Senior Joel Wertheimer found that moving to an apartment with people who preferred different games aided in his struggle with addiction. "I'm a Madden fan," Wertheimer said. "If it weren't for life getting in the way, I think I'd play Madden all the time on PS2."
"Unfortunately, life and living in an Xbox-Halo 2 dominated apartment interferes with that," he continued. "Sophomore year, there would be all-nighters of Madden, but those days have sadly, but maybe for the better, ended."
Some universities are helping to spur the trend. According to an article in the Massachusetts Sunday Telegraph in November, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) instituted a major in interactive media and game development this month, which will entail "an emphasis on both the technical and artistic aspects of game development and interactive media."
"Nationally, games are growing faster than any other entertainment sector," Professor Mark Claypool, co-director of the major at WPI, told the Telegraph. "It's very popular, and there are also some very sophisticated technical issues behind the games."
Many students see video games as a positive alternative to that other tool of distraction, TV. "I don't have TV up at school," Baumer said. "So [playing video games] is my mindless droning time, but it's better than TV watching because I'm still using more parts of my brain and cognitive functions."
There remains that minority on campus for whom video games have little appeal. For senior Niki Luhur, this is the case. Luhur plays once a week or every two weeks, lending him to describe himself as "atypical," with a split amongst his friends of avid devotees and indifferent watchers.
However, even Luhur concedes that certain games demand attention, such as Madden and Fifa. "On some games, everyone plays," Luhur said. "If you ever come across someone who plays Madden, they play it non-stop."
"When this kid first got the new version of Grand Theft Auto, it was just on at his house for weeks," Luhur said. "He was obsessed."
Luhur credits his current apathy towards video games to the fact that he grew up in Indonesia - where all video games are pirated. "Instead of $50 for a game, you spend $1 or $2, so everyone has a lot of games, naturally," Luhur said. "It's so cheap. So I played a lot of video games just because everyone had them." Eventually, though, "I grew out of it."
Though for many, video games may occupy a fleeting phase in their lives, it is quite impressive to listen to a student describe his or her favorite game. The more hands-on, first-person, realistic behavior, the more avid the devotee. In describing Counterstrike, an online PC game that allows networking and fighting other real players, Luhur's enthusiasm was palpable.
"It's the most popular game of all time," Luhur said, explaining "it's like a full-on war simulation game. Scenarios- that's the whole game. What's cool is it's just really realistic."
This week's Campus Comment, coming out on Friday, features students sounding off on violent video games that simulate JFK's assassination or require killing prostitutes for additional points.
