ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The long-suffering younger brother of a selfish, inconsiderate control hog has expressed amazement today after learning people pay good money to sit and watch other people play video games.
It’s something that Paul Duggan, a now 34-year-old emergency physician at the Royal Betoota Base Hospital, did for free for most of his humble childhood in the French Quarter.
Dr Duggan watched his older brother, Hugh, play Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing, Golden Eye and a myriad of other classic titles for the Ninetendo 64 for hours at a time. They originally had two controllers, Paul recalls, but in a fit of rage, Hugh bashed Paul over the head with a controller after failing to make the Rainbow Road jump three times.
And then they only had one.
“I just don’t see the appeal,” said Dr Duggan.
“Sitting there, watching them have all the fun. I hated it. And in the end, I just stopped watching all together. I went and did something else with my time. But do you know about Glitch? Or Twitch or whatever it’s called? There’s kids out there on their computers, just logging in to watch other people play games. They’re already on the computer? Why don’t they just play the game themselves?”
“It’s pretty crook. Kids should be outside waiting for the Diamantina Express to chug past so they can throw rocks at it. Me and my mates would throw rocks at the train until the streetlights turn on. We’d get things for it to run over. Once, we put this kid’s bike on the tracks and the train came and ran it over. Honestly, we laughed and laughed and laughed. One kid wanted to tie up a sheep or something, like in Jurassic Park with the goat, but we didn’t in the end,”
“Why aren’t kids doing that kind of stuff anymore?”
More to come.
