Revenue from video games worldwide reached $180 billion in 2020, an increase of 20% over the previous year, surpassing the sports and movie industries combined (Just the News, Dec. 27, 2020). While there are video games that are relatively innocent and might be used in wise and godly moderation, these are not the most popular ones, and even with these there is always the danger that video gaming will become an addictive waste of life’s fleeting hours. There is also the ever-present danger of getting drawn into truly wicked games. “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Pr. 27:20). A former gamer says, “Visiting families, I’ve seen ‘innocent’ children’s games having advertisements for violent games that showed texts like ‘kill’ or ‘headshot,’ including the bloody graphics. Other advertisements contained gambling, women with very few clothes on, and so on. I’ve yet to see the first video game on a smartphone/tablet that doesn’t have such advertising.” Video games are so addictive that thousands of husbands and wives have been virtually abandoned for make-believe games played in cyberspace. In other words, they have been abandoned for nothing, for a figment of the imagination, for pixels on a screen, for less than soap bubbles. Video games are designed to be addictive. The developers and markets are in the business for money. They are not innocent promoters of entertainment. If you let them, they will steal your time, your heart, your holiness. The multi-player online video games are so addictive that they are likened to drugs. EverQuest is called “Never rest” and “Ever crack,” World of Warcraft is called “World of War Crack,” Halo 3 is called “Halodiction.” The most addictive and dangerous are the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing) games. Nothing takes over young people’s hearts and minds more than these.
(Friday Church News Notes, January 1, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)