Play Meter

TH E LAST WO RD
·sy blaming 'Pac-Man' do we
avoid blaming ourselves?
By Richard P. Carp e n ter
IUUSTRA TION BY ROBERT SOUlE
Take any game, and use it as a scap egoat for problems.
new game is sweeping Massachusetts. It's called
Pin the Blame on Pac-Man.
The rules are simple . Take a video game-
Pac-Man or Donkey Kong or any of the others that go
beep in the arcade-and use it as a scapegoat for all
parent-child problems . Holler and howl that the games
are Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with V and that
stands for Video .
If you're a good player, you can get your community
to impose a moratorium on the games, as Boston is
trying to do, or even ban them outright, as Marshfield
has done .
A
88
Pin the Blame on Pac-Man is new, and yet it isn't.
Throug h the years there have been similar games with
similar goals-games like Blast the Beatles and Take a
Poke at Presley. It's so much fun , and it's so easy, to
decla re that the kids are misbehaving or wasting their
money or being led astray by something that has
nothing to do with you .
One thing, though. You have to do a lot of ignoring
when you play Pin the Blame. For instance :
• Ignore the other side. Pay no heed to those who
say that when the kids are playing video games, they're
not pushing drugs or breaking into buildings. Smirk
when you hear that the games are actually good for
hand-eye coordination and introduce youngsters to
the computer age.
·
• Ignore reality. Work hard to convince yourself
that if the kids weren't playing the games they' d be
(chuckle) studying or (heh-heh) reading a book. Never
give it a thought that they might be vegetating in front
of the TV instead of being an active participi!nt in some-
thing else.
• Ignore the motivation factor. Never let it enter
your mind that, to get quarters for the games, some
youngsters don't beg or steal but actuall y earn the
money through a paper route or other job .
• Ignore the kids. Be deaf to their cries that they
play video games because they ' re fun; because they ' re
something special to their generation ; because , after
all, they can play the games better than you .
• Most of all , play down your role in your chil-
dren ' s upbringing. Perish the thought that you might
offer alternatives, or be able to talk to the youngsters
about limiting their game-time and spending , or that
you might even do something together.
And that's how you play Pin the Blame on Pac-Man .
If you study the rules real hard , you ' ll be a winner. Or
will you?
Richard P. Carpenter is a member of Th e Globe staff
and has three children who spend time and money on
video games .
(Reprinted courtesy of The Boston Globe.)
P1.A Y METER. October 15. 1982