Gaming to the Max. Max Aberle Spends Hours at a Time Destroying Bad Guys on Video Games. This is the New American Childhood.

Elizabeth Leland

By Elizabeth Leland
Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
Sunday, May 1, 2005

When Max grows up, he wants to live at Best Buy. It may sound like a crazy idea to you and me, but Max, who is almost 12, has it all figured out.

He would sleep curled up in one of the leather recliners in front of the flat screen TV toward the back of the store. He would eat at Taco Bell. He would play any video game he wanted, "Halo" or "Mortal Kombat" or "Grand Theft Auto," in the middle of the night if he wanted, for as long as he wanted.

Even now, living at home with his parents, Max plays video games for several hours in a day.

He could climb a tree or throw a football or bike around with the neighborhood boys. He could fly his remote-control airplane or shoot hoops or practice an ollie on his skateboard. Maybe he could build a fort or walk the dogs or kick a soccer ball. But Max is indoors on a pretty Saturday morning, slouched on the sofa, thumbing the controls of his Nintendo DS.

He is Game Boy, child of the 21st century.

When it rains, you won't find Max reading a Hardy Boys mystery or tinkering with Legos. He spends his free time in a video fantasyland, killing any alien or thug who steps in his way.

Is this the end of civilization as we know it?

Maximilian Aberle lives with his mother, his stepfather and his twin sister, Kiki, in a cream-colored house on a pleasant street in the Eastfield Ridge subdivision in north Charlotte. He is a polite child who stands when an adult walks into the room, shakes hands, answers "Yes, ma'am" and "No, sir," and kisses his mother goodnight. He likes girls and scary movies and pepperoni pizza.

Nowadays, he's learning to play "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" by Green Day on his electric guitar. In 10 years or so, after he graduates from college, he wants to design video games. If he can't do that, he might train to be a police officer. Or he might work as a cartoonist because he likes to draw.

Most of all, he likes gaming.

What 'Pong' begat

Video games haven't been around all that long. Maybe they didn't exist when you were a child. The first coin-operated arcade game came out when Max's mom was a teenager: "Computer Space" in 1971. It was a flop. Next came "Pong" (by today's standards an excruciatingly boring tennis game on a dark screen), and nothing would be the same again. Because what Pong started, "Space Invaders" revolutionized.

You sat in a bar or video arcade and shot at an armada of alien spaceships beeping and dropping down at you. What a blast! Shoot enough of them, rack up enough points, and move to the next level. That lasted through Jimmy Carter's presidency; then in the early 1980s the PC brought computers and video games into homes. Max owes his pastime to Gunpei Yokoi of Kyoto, Japan, who invented the portable Game Boy and introduced it to America in 1989. It fit into a boy's pocket - another revolution.

Now, nine of every 10 kids play video games.

Gaming is the fastest-growing part of the entertainment industry, as exciting to some adults and as frightening to others as another electronic breakthrough, in the 1950s, the television.

It's fight or flight for Max

On a Saturday in early February, Max holds a sleek silver-colored machine slightly smaller than a paperback copy of "The Hobbit." He pops it open like a book to reveal two 3-inch color screens. It is the Nintendo DS, a wireless video game system, his Christmas present.

Max's Nintendo DS is one of only two his mother could find in Charlotte in December, a month after they went on sale, when everyone seemed to be trying to buy one for Christmas. She bought one for Max and one for his nephew, $149 each. Nintendo has now shipped 6 million worldwide, to Japan, North America and Europe.

There's Max on the sofa, looking as if he's not doing much of anything, twiddling his thumbs. Look closer. His right thumb dances between four buttons on the Nintendo, his left thumb navigates a black cross-shaped directional pad.

He is playing "Spider-Man 2," a video version of the movie. From the backlit LCD screen, a story unfolds the way it would if Max were reading the comic book or watching the movies. When he starts the game, thousands of pixels merge into a picture of Spider-Man, in form-fitting red-and-blue bodysuit, racing through the streets of a miniature New York City.

For the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to play, Max the boy takes the role of superhero. He hits the button beneath his left thumb, and Spider-Man runs or crawls, backward and forward. With his right thumb, Spider-Man kicks and punches and spins a web. "There's this bus and it has bad guys on it and all these bad guys get loose," Max explains. "I'm killing the bad guys. You've got to kill all 23."

Max moves his left thumb, and Spider-Man sprints down the sidewalk. A bad guy steps off a bus in front of him.

"Ah-hah!"

Max's right thumb flies into action.

A part of Max's brain called the amygdala senses a threat, even though it's a game. This almond-shaped mass beneath his temporal lobe controls his emotions. It sends signals through the central nucleus, ordering Max's body to react. "Ah-hah!"

His adrenal glands unleash a surge of hormones into his bloodstream. Adrenaline, epinephrine, norepinephrine. His heart beats faster, his pupils dilate, blood flows into his muscles and limbs, extra energy for running and fighting. His perception of pain diminishes.

Max can't help what's happening to his body. It's called the flight or fight response, a primal defense that for tens of thousands of years has prepared humans to run or fight when threatened, whether by a saber-tooth tiger or a bad guy in a video game.

Max is now as ready to fight back as if a bully had threatened him on the playground. He jams his right thumb down, and Spider-Man kicks and punches the guy.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" the man screams, and falls to the ground. Dead.

Killing is fun

"Max?"

Max doesn't hear his stepfather trying to get his attention. It's as if he is hypnotized. Typical response. One researcher who conducted brain scans of gamers said they were so caught up in the games, they could stay inside an MRI machine for two hours, while most people can't tolerate the noise and claustrophobia for more than 20 minutes.

"Hey, Max!" his stepfather says. "Step out of it!"

Max keeps playing. A man approaches Spider-Man with a gun. Max's thumbs jam down on the buttons, and Spider-Man escapes by swinging on his web from one roof to the next. There's a bad guy up there, too. Max works his thumbs, and Spider-Man kicks the bad guy.

The man falls off the roof. Dead.

Max laughs. Killing is fun. Max is winning.

Time was, in the 1950s, critics blamed comic books for causing juvenile delinquency, and the U.S. Senate held hearings. Then TV became the culprit. Now it's video games.

Some scientists suspect violence in games has a greater effect on children than violence on TV because children take active roles in the games, rather than just watching. About seven of every 10 video games contain violence, but there's no consensus on what it does to boys and girls..

It's an experiment we're performing on our children, says Douglas Gentile of the National Institute on Media and the Family. His research shows that children who play violent games are more likely to act aggressively and less likely to show empathy and compassion. Other studies support his findings, and some don't. Critics of video games say the effect is even greater, that the games teach children not only to kill, but how to do it.

Spider-Man swings to another roof, another fight, and Max moans.

"I'm about to die," he says. Spider-Man has used up his powers. He falls to the ground. Dead.

Max finally looks up.

"My hands are starting to hurt," he says and shakes his wrists. "They're cramped."

He has been playing for 80 minutes without getting up, an hour and 20 minutes killing bad guys, the time it takes to fly from Charlotte to Washington, D.C. He sinks back into the sofa and closes his eyes.

You do not sass

Max is dressed like a skateboarder. Wide-leg, baggy jeans, black T-shirt emblazoned with a skeleton head, black "No Fear" sweatshirt, black Adios, spiky metal bracelet and a wallet chain like bikers wear.

"All the cool people," Max says, "dress like that."

Max's mother doesn't like his get-up, but she bought him the clothes because he wanted them. If she stifles his creativity, she's afraid it might backfire, that he might try something outlandish. She told him: You can wear the tough look and let your hair grow as long as you behave, you're on time, do your homework and make good grades.

One other thing: You can act tough around your friends, but not around adults.

She has always told Max that his personality and looks will get him places, and she wants him to balance out his good fortune by helping others.

She hopes the clothes are a phase. Last year, in fifth grade, Max's life revolved around classes, lunch, homework and video games. Now in middle school, everything has changed. He's at an age when kids try new things, explore their limits and challenge their parents.

Max's mother and his stepfather, Rick, talked it over.

"Rick says that your hair will go if your attitude suffers," his mother says.

"Would you let him do that? Why my hair?"

"I don't like the Max trying to be Mr. Cool," she says. "Save that Max for your friends. I won't have an attitude."

A few days later, Max has an attitude.

He yells at Nicolaus, his nephew, who is 6 and loves video games as much as Max does, if not more, as only a 6-year-old who looks up to his uncle could love things. What happened next depends on who tells the story. Max's sister, Kiki, said Max hit Nicolaus; Max said Nicolaus hit him. Max's mother intervened, and Max sassed her and rolled his eyes.

This may be 2005 and the video age, but it's still the South, and children are expected to treat their parents with respect. You say, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, sir." You stand when an adult walks in, and you shake hands. You do not sass or roll your eyes.

When Max got on the school bus the next morning, his hair was neatly trimmed above his ears and eyes. He wore dress pants, a buttoned-up shirt, loafers and his stepfather's sweater. He told friends he was going to his grandmother's funeral.

Everybody's gaming

On Valentine's Day, a school holiday, Max wears blue shorts, New Balance athletic shoes and a "CMPD for DARE" T-shirt. He misses his punk clothes, but he doesn't say so.

"I have to have a good attitude."

In January, when he brought home bad grades from Alexander Middle School, his parents banned gaming on weekdays until his grades improved. So Max did what he had to do: He made the A/B honor roll and won back his games. Now he's trying to win back his clothes and his shaggy hair.

"If you eat crust," he confides, "your hair will grow." Max is eating a lot of crust.

He leans on the armrest of the sofa, playing "Spider-Man 2." Kiki and Nicolaus sit next to each other, Kiki playing on Max's old Game Boy and Nicolaus on his Nintendo DS. Rick works on a computer nearby.

When Max has friends over, they do other things besides play video games. They skateboard, hang out at Concord Mills mall and talk with girls on the telephone and the computer. When he's with his family, he's usually gaming, before school, after school, most of Saturday and Sunday, at the Mexican restaurant, in the car going to guitar lessons, waiting for the lesson to begin and in the car on the way back home.

Everyone in Max's house is into technology. His mother is a computer technical analyst for Wachovia; his stepfather is Web developer for Belmont Abbey College. They have their own Web-design company, Webspin.

His stepfather, who is 49, is a big gamer, too. Nearly half of all gamers are 18 to 50 years old, says the Entertainment Software Association. Thirty-four percent, like Max, are under 18. Thirty-nine percent are female. Max's mom is not one of them; Kiki likes one game, "Super Mario Brothers," but she would rather IM her friends.

The average gamer is 29. These 29-year-olds were toddlers when "Space Invaders" started it all in 1978. They play for hours. What surprises researchers is how many older people, who didn't grow up with video games, are playing, too.

Just as Nintendo planned

Max got hooked when he was 7. That was four years ago, and he was in second grade at Winding Springs Elementary, a little guy then, who liked his hair short and wore the clothes his mother picked out.

He saw an ad on TV for Nintendo's Game Boy and borrowed one from his sister, Sharon, who is 14 years older and is Nicolaus' mom. Max liked the Game Boy because he could carry it anywhere, in the car, in a restaurant, to the doctor's office. The only place he couldn't take it was school.

Soon, Max spent most of his free time playing. Just as Nintendo planned.

He saved his birthday money and his $5 allowance and bought the $99 Game Boy Advance after he turned eight. For his 10th birthday, he got the Game Boy SP. Last November, the Nintendo DS came out, and Max asked for one for Christmas. Now he wants the PlayStation PSP.

He's doing exactly what Nintendo and Sony hoped, upgrading each time the companies advertise a new product.

Upgrading, after all, is the American way of life. We're the richest country in the world, and we've got credit cards. Are you old enough to remember when automatic transmission was an upgrade? Then the Honda became the SUV. The Pentium became the Pentium 4. The transistor radio became the Walkman became the iPod. The 19-inch color TV became the home entertainment system with surround sound and 52-inch wide-screen plasma TV with digital cable and 500-disc CD changer.

Americans spent more than $9.9 billion on computer games last year. As a middle-class American child, Max is, after all, swept away by a tidal wave of consumerism.

Who isn't?

An alien dies

"Hey, Nic," Max says. "You want to play?

"No."

Nicolaus pouts. "I'm not playing you again," he says. "You always kill me."

"I'm too good," Max brags. Like Nicolaus, Max likes to win and gets frustrated when he loses. That's the appeal. Winning gives him a sense of power, a boost in self-confidence that his parents think has helped him in school.

He is playing a short demo video of "Metroid Prime: Hunters," which came with the Nintendo. Like most video games, it has a story behind it, divided into levels like the chapters of a book. The main character is Samus Aran, orphaned by an evil race of Space Pirates. A bird-like race called Chozo adopted her and gave her weapons and armor. Now she is a bounty hunter, fighting the Space Pirates.

Max moves his right thumb and fires.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

An alien dies.

"There's a bad guy right here I hate," Max says and holds his thumb down. Pow! Pow! Pow! The guy dies. "He's worser than these aliens. He comes up to your face and takes away life. It's nasty."

Max holds his thumb down an extra few beats, Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! shooting at the dead guy.

The battery on the Nintendo dies, too. It runs out whenever Max plays two or three hours nonstop. He shrugs. It doesn't matter. His dad has arrived to take him and Kiki to the University YMCA.

Max and Kiki are starting a workout program.

Max needs a balance

The trainer at the gym asks Max what his goals are.

"To play football."

"So you're trying to get stronger?"

"Yes."

"And lose weight," his dad interjects.

Dr. Christopher Lakin recommended an exercise program at Max's yearly check-up a few weeks earlier. Max weighed 31 pounds more than he should.

Lakin told Max he should exercise at least 30 minutes every day, eat healthier foods and limit his time on videos, computer and TV to an hour or two every day.

Sound familiar?

He tells all his patients that. He knows there are benefits to video games: They improve hand-eye coordination, reaction time and visual attention. Even doctors who play games are better at laparoscopic surgery. It's no wonder children who play games when they're toddlers become computer literate at an early age.

Lakin is concerned that children who play video games are also more likely to be aggressive and more likely to be overweight. An overweight child is at risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, orthopedic problems, liver disease and asthma.

You need, he says, a balance.

Max and Kiki are now swimming, running laps and lifting weights three times a week. They have cut back on fast food and snacks, substituted skim milk for whole and ground turkey for ground beef.

Sound familiar?

Max's parents don't plan to make Max cut back on gaming. Between trips to the Y, guitar lessons and youth group at University United Methodist Church, he already has less time for video games. He can play as often as he wants unless his grades fall again.

Children average 49 minutes of gaming every day, compared to four hours watching television, but many, like Max, play much more.

Innocence and worldliness

Max wakes up around 7 one Saturday morning in March, plays on his Nintendo for four hours, breaking to eat, to go to the bathroom, to see what Kiki is doing, and always returning to the game.

The battery dies around 11, and instead of skateboarding or strumming his guitar, he retreats to his bedroom to play on the Xbox console connected to his TV. A third of all children have video game players in their bedrooms; Max has two.

His bedroom is like him, a mix of innocence and worldliness. The walls are sky blue with glow-in-the-dark stars, the ceiling decorated with white clouds and stars. A 42-inch TV commands one corner; next to it is a computer and printer. Above his desk is a poster of guitar chords; above the bed, a dark, gritty poster of the rock band "Velvet Revolver."

Max says he likes to read, and on his bedside table are copies of "The Giver," "A Walk in the Woods," "Alias" and a few other books, but he doesn't read much.

He is wearing his punk clothes again; he won them back with two weeks of good behavior. Max feels better dressed this way. He thought he looked weird wearing corduroy and khaki. He felt polite. None of the girls, he says, liked him.

As he talks, Max plays "Driver 3," about an undercover cop trying to bring down an international car theft syndicate. The object? Kill the gangsters.

The game is rated "M," or mature, for ages 17 and older.

Max's mom worries about the violent games. She worries they could be bad for Max, though she doesn't believe they're as bad as some N.C. senators say. They think some videos are disgusting, so they're going after the stores; they approved a bill last month to make selling or renting adult videos to a child punishable by up to four months in jail.

Max's stepdad games a lot and thinks the videos are OK, and Max's mother trusts his judgment.

Max doesn't see what all the fuss is about.

"They just have blood and violence."

These are the rules for gaming in Max's house: "There can be no sexual themes. There can be shooting, there can be blood, but there can't be heavy cursing." He can play on the Internet with strangers from around the world, but if they curse, he has to let them know he's 11. If they keep cursing, he's supposed to quit.

He cannot play the "Grand Theft Auto" games. Absolutely not. They're best-sellers, rated for adults, but children play them. Not Max. The back of the boxes warn: "Strong sexual content." The videos glorify and reward violence, especially against women. A player wins by stealing cars, and killing police, and shooting pedestrians, and beating up prostitutes, and for all sorts of other violence.

Two families in Alabama sued the game maker Take-Two Interactive and the sellers in February, claiming a teenager murdered a police dispatcher and two officers by acting out the game, step by violent step. Police in California and Tennessee blame the game for killings in their cities. In 1999, when two teenagers killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado, people blamed the game "Doom."

Peter Vorderer, a media expert at the University of Southern California, believes video games alone do not cause violence. You have to look at a child's personality, his environment, the amount of time he plays and his understanding of the game, and the availability of guns. Games help children learn, Vorderer says, and also help them learn the wrong things.

Superhero as 11-year-old

In the "Driver" video, the hero looks like a real man, dressed in a black T-shirt and wielding a gun. His name is Tanner. He races his car through the streets of Miami, plowing through roadblocks, screeching around corners, dodging pedestrians. Max controls his moves.

"Oh, no," Max says. "A roadblock."

Tanner slams to a stop and crashes into a police car. Two men jump out of the car, and he shoots. The men fall. Dead.

Max just killed two cops.

"These are actually bad guys," he says. "They're not cops. These are the people I have to kill. The bad guys came to Miami, and they stole the cops' uniforms and their cars. They killed everybody but me."

He gets back into his car, backs up and drives away. He is going so fast, he crashes into the wall of a building.

"You died," the screen says. Game over.

Max goes into the living room.

"I do not like you killing people," his mother reminds him.

"Ma-ahm," Max says, drawing the word out. "They're just bad people."

"I would much rather you kill aliens or animated figures."

Max shrugs. He is tired. He has been gaming for five hours, his brain and thumbs working together, the amygdala in his brain sensing a threat, his thumbs punching buttons.

"I have a headache," Max says, and rubs his temple. "When I start looking at a game, it goes right to my head."

The superhero has transformed back into an 11-year-old boy, and Max tugs at his bangs for a moment as if he's trying to make them grow faster. He sits on the sofa, next to his mom. She looks up from her TV show and gives him a smile that says you're the greatest kid in the world, and Max scoots over, lays his head in her lap, wraps his arms around her waist and whispers, "I love you."

Play Pong

You can play classic video games from the '80s at www.80smusiclyrics.com/games.shtml.
(Hyperlink disabled Aug. 28, 2007)

Aug. 31, 2006: Writer at Charlotte Observer Wins Second Sifford Prize Elizabeth Leland, a reporter for the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, is the 2006 Darrell Sifford Memorial Prize in Journalism winner. The Missouri School of Journalism administers the prestigious award. Leland also won the Sifford Prize in 2001. [More]