Video game craze grip children
Video games, ranging from the cheap and simple to the expensive and sophisticated, have been mushrooming worldwide as children's most popular choice for entertainment. Children of a wealthy family can buy home video games, while those who are not so wealthy go to video game centers. As video game producers count their whopping profits, parents play the tough role of the "film censor board" for their children. The Jakarta Post's reporters Arif Suhardiman, Dwi Atmanta, I. Christianto, Johanes Simbolon, Meidyatama Suryodiningrat and Stevie Emilia have prepared the following article and related stories on Page 3 and 9 on the video game craze.
JAKARTA (JP): Pramono, a six-year-old school student, laughs and cheers while his fingers waltz on a keyboard. He cannot stop mumbling as his eyes stare at a screen featuring two fighting gladiators. He even fails to hear his mother shouting at him, calling him to lunch.
A few minutes later Pram's yell of victory erupts when his gladiator, Kano, slaughters its opponent and ends the duel.
Kano, a muscular future fighter, delights Pram with a ruthless finishing touch. He chops off his opponent's head and shows it off. Blood spurts out of the pitiful gladiator and Kano prepares for another bout.
After a series of violence-packed games, little Pram switches to the soccer pitch. He opts to play for Spain's Atletico Madrid and picks the Brazilian national team as the opposing side -- an unusual match in the real soccer world but it fascinates the little boy enough.
The games Pram plays, Sega's Mortal Kombat and FIFA Soccer, are just two of thousands of entertainment packages offered in the current video game craze.
The computer-programmed games, which have invaded households worldwide in the past decade, give Pram and other players more enjoyment than is offered by conventional machines, such as a laser disc player, video cassette recorder or television.
"He can sit in front of the screen for hours," Pram's mother complains. But she has a lot of reasons to remain calm despite his son's new habit. "He always stays at home, except during school hours."
The generous mother always includes a game cartridge worth Rp 35,000 (US$15.80) in her monthly shopping list, not to mention the extra expenditure proposed by her beloved son for other toys.
The world's video-game market has only seen two Japanese rivaling giants, Sega and Nintendo, which always "keep up with the Joneses" in terms of technology.
Sega claimed to gain the lion's share of the video-game market in Europe with an incredible 66 percent last year, while Nintendo enjoyed a slender edge, 45 percent against 44 percent, in the American market.
Nintendo has released its fastest program, the chip-fueled 64- bit generation. Using silicon graphics, Nintendo 64 eclipses the conventional two-dimensional horizontal-scrolling video games.
Bigger machines
Outside of households, bigger screens, more sophisticated sound effects and more stocks of games are available in shopping malls, where the ages of players are not taken into account.
Getting into the Sega Megaworld at Plaza Senayan, Central Jakarta, is like entering an alien planet. A horde of screens sparkle with bright colors amid noisy beeps coming out of the machines.
Bara Marharani, advertising and promotions manager of PT Citra Pramudita International (CPI), the license holder of Sega in Indonesia, said that most of the estimated 2,000 people who flock to CPI's outlets throughout the country are between 20 years old and 25 years old.
CPI, a subsidiary of Mugi Reksa Abadi owned by Adiguna Sutowo, has 11 outlets, called SS Sega Megaworld. Six of them are in Jakarta, while the others are in Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Balikpapan. All of them are open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.
The biggest outlet is at Plaza Senayan. Occupying a 1,000- square-meter area, it offers some 130 video-game machines.
Adiguna, who is also a renowned auto racing driver, invested Rp 800 million in his Sega centers. The video-game business is expected to break even in two years.
"This business has very bright prospects," Adiguna said.
Worldwide, the video-game market splashed out almost $10 billion last year, with half of that amount coming from the United States.
The most popular games at CPI are touring car races and car races, Adiguna's sport.
"We offer not only fun but education. A game like Redemption tests players' quick reactions," Marharani said.
CPI has taken a major step forward in its bid to rule the Indonesian video-game market. It will hold a Victor Fighter 3 competition, Sega's new release, next January. The champion will qualify for the Asian finals in Japan.
Responsibility
Annah Suhaenah Suparno, rector of the Jakarta Teachers Training Institute, says that video games are not always a waste of time for children.
"A game which stimulates brain capability is okay, although I have never found one which gives adequate exposure to the human brain," Suhaenah says. "All games run in line with the programs set up for them," she argues.
She says that video games usually matter because they never let a player turn off the machine after only one trial. "Players tend to lose control and become so occupied that they will forget all but the game," she says.
Parents are, of course, responsible for choosing programs which suit their children and from stopping them from abusing the time spent on them. But Suhaenah suggests that owners of video- game centers share the burden with parents.
"Organizers of a video-game rental center may show they care for the children by preventing them from playing for too long," she says.
But business tends to play down such public responsibility as obviously seen in small-investment video-game rentals. An article in the 1987 Gubernatorial Decree which states that game organizers must bar children in school uniforms from playing is inapplicable.
"I can't prevent those students from coming in. Sometimes they insist," says Anen, an employee of a coin-game rental center on Jl. Palmerah Utara, West Jakarta. The 34-year-old man earns at least Rp 5,000 a day from his boss.
People keep playing video games, although they may be risking their health by wasting an extensive amount of time on the machines.
An apparently first victim of video games was reported in Japan in 1987, when a senior pediatrician at Kyushu University, Yasufumi Maeda, found a 12-year-old boy suffering from epilepsy three years after starting his new video-game habit. On Maeda's advice, the boy stopped playing and has never had epilepsy again.
But video games have been serving players well so far, so well that nobody can resist the excitement of a new game.