Daily Mail: DS a "small but toxic drug"

May 7th, 2008, 19:43 Posted By: Shrygue

via Computer and Video Games


With The Guardian's sudden acceptance of video games, we thought we could soon be out of a job. Thank god for The Daily Mail, which continues to publish biased games editorials.

In an article entitled "Ninten-Don't... How I watched my children turn into monsters the minute I bought them a computer game," columnist Rosie Millard documents her "selfish desire to be Mother of the Year" by buying a DS for her four kids to share. One each would have been a good start.

After importing it straight in from Hong-Kong and "crammed with a 'bundle' of 20 games including Brain Trainer, Fifa 08, and Nintendogs" (*cough* flashcart * cough), she found that leaving four children unsupervised led to arguments about who would use it next.

"It was eight in the morning," she writes. "No one had eaten breakfast. The curtains had not been opened. The beds had not been made. The dog had not been walked. Our habitual regime of a ten-minute morning music practice had been abandoned."

Never mind the problems with the DS; call the NSPCC. That's not a happy home - it sounds more like a workhouse.

"Gabriel", she adds, "became obsessed with playing the football game Fifa 08: over meals, on the loo, in bed at midnight." Whilst we realise that anyone whose parents had named them Gabriel would resort to escapism, we can't help but wonder how the little angel was able to do all this. Surely Millard realised that she might need to use some control over when the DS could be played?

Apparently not. According to her, it's all Nintendo's fault. "Our Nintendo had taken the guise of a small but toxic drug which, little by little, was poisoning my children."

The story does have a happy ending, though. At least for Millard. "At the same time that all the children started crying and yelling before breakfast, I spotted Phoebe's cello and I realised that she had not got it out of its case all week."

Shock-horror! A child has enjoyed something not imposed upon them? Call the police!

"Yet she had notched up probably around eight hours on the Nintendo. There and then, I made my mind up. The Nintendo had to go."

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