Why We Don’t Have the Cure For Cancer Yet

The reason, I believe, that we do not yet have the cure for cancer and have not come up with any groundbreaking inventions within recent years is due to video games.

Video games primarily prey on those traditionally good in school, and obsessive in nature. They utilize math and science and fake people into believing they are doing something worthwhile. It is especially prevalent here at Iowa State among engineering and Computer Science majors, but a particular game called “World of Warcraft” has caused many of these otherwise talented folks to drop out. They spend entire nights on the game, fufilling quests and trying to improve their characters and their fake bank accounts.

Perhaps what should be done is putting an end to the unconstructive games such as these and giving tax breaks to video game developers who refocus their efforts on creating instructional games which teach their users valuable skills excluding “magic” and “mining”. If, for example, World of Warcraft forced their users to learn about math or science in order to complete quests, or to write papers on various educational subjects in-game and earn points that way, more could be learned.

In any case, I’m sure that video games have somewhere along the line caused one or more people with the ability to come up with a cure for cancer to go astray. Those hours spent in front of the console of choice would have gone into research and bringing fresh ideas and approaches to solving the world’s ills. No wonder I have heard talk of politicians who are considering banning certain games.

Although the Constitution does not allow for this type of regulation, I think its good for people for think for themselves on this issue.

Of course, no one can deny the positive affect the gaming industry on technology, especially graphic technology. Without the funding from all of these addicts, there would be little or no incentive to drive the graphics technology forward at such a rapid pace. Other technology that benefits is hard drive technology, memory speed, and graphics/sound cards.