Dallas Morning News, TX
07-01-07
So your kid's quit violin practice and refuses to golf? Fear not. There's always
video games
Michelle Slatalla
Like a lot of parents, I've always thought the phrase "child prodigy" had a nice
ring to it.
Until recently, though, I was thinking along the lines of "violin prodigy," "tennis
prodigy" and "child model prodigy." But after a few setbacks – one of my children
claimed a skin sensitivity to rosin, a second refused to develop a clay-court drop
shot, and the third pulled me aside on the set to confide that some of the other
models "smell funny" – I realized I might need to consider other possibilities.
So it was with some interest that I recently learned about another, less
conventional route for budding prodigies: video games. Among the quickthumbed contenders competing in the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Event in
New Jersey earlier this month was a 9-year-old Long Island boy so adept at the
Halo 2 shoot-'em-up game that he already has won thousands of dollars in prize
money.
Nicknamed Lil' Poison, Victor M. De Leon III spends about two hours a day
honing his Xbox skills in his basement in Holbrook, where as reported in The
New York Times recently, "his tiny thumbs jabbed away at the controller, causing
virtual mayhem of gunfire."
He finished out of the prize money in Jersey but already has product
endorsements, expense-paid trips to tournaments and a bank account that his
father says has almost enough to finance a private-college education.
One doesn't have to be a visionary on the order of Steve Jobs to foresee the
changes that Lil' Poison's success could portend: celebrity gamers gracing the
covers of sporting magazines, network-televised video game tournaments ("The
Twitchbowl"), and full athletic (or whatever) scholarships to Stanford.
I could imagine some other things changing, as well. After all, I have my own 9year-old.
Me: "Sweetie, get back on that console. You need to spend another 45 minutes
mastering your Half-Life 2 gravity gun moves."
Her: "Please, Mommy, can't I take a break and do my math homework for a
while?"
Me: "We've been over this before. How do you expect to get into a good college
if you don't reach Level 27?"
Her: "But my hand hurts. This leather glove makes it sore."
Me: "Ice it for five minutes."
The whole family could get involved. My husband, who never really liked playing
sports with the children but who was rather good at Quake in his day, could
coach. I can see him now, standing in his sweats with a whistle around his neck,
his leather glove raised in exhortation, air typing.
With luck, my daughter eventually might head down the same path as Johnathan
Wendel – known to his fans as Fatal1ty – who has won 10 world titles. He
received his first video game when he was 5; now he is in his mid-20s, having
amassed $500,000 in prizes and with his own clothing line.
I realize my plan may face resistance. Although for years it's been perfectly
acceptable for parents to foster their children's special talents in certain arenas –
national spelling bees, soccer teams that travel to Sweden for tournaments –
there are those who fear that the growing popularity of video games will destroy
childhoods with the same ease as a Halo 2 player annihilating mutant alien
races.
Some of those naysayers belong to the same camp that in earlier days opposed
such subversive ideas as television, comic books and Elvis' pulsating hips.
As Dmitri Williams, assistant professor of speech communication at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, put it in a phone interview: "When a
new medium shows up, there is almost always the same patter of reactions to it:
Is it going to make us sick? What is it going to take the place of? What is it going
to do to culture or morals?"
On one hand, studies show there's no doubt that exposure to violent games
contributes to aggression in young children, says Dorothy Singer, a Yale senior
research scientist and co-author of Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age.
But on the other hand, other factors – like warm relations with parents, good
grades and plenty of friends – can eliminate the risk, says Douglas Gentile, a
psychology professor who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State
University.
The bigger issue, he said, is that turning a 9-year-old into a world champ of
anything could rob her of a well-rounded childhood.
Which is why I would need to get Chloe off the couch for some fresh air and
physical activity.