In a victory for the young and the young at heart, a city in Westchester County, New York, is moving to strike down its harebrained ban on arcades.
White Plains a popular suburb outside of Manhattan inched closer to sanctioning fun this week, with the city council signaling they will scrap a law that has barred business owners from opening "amusement arcades." The ban's repeal will also pave the way for laser tag and Esports establishments, both of which were barred under the prohibition as well.
via reason.com
My late colleague Fred Zacharias, MHRIP, knew another child-prodigy kid who went off to college, presumably with much hope by his parents, and became addicted to these old-school video games. He ended up dropping out, moving into his parents basement and rocking the loser lifestyle. Of course, you can see bus loads of oldsters playing the similar one-armed bandits at your local Native American Casino, similarly entranced. It's something about the bells and lights. The big casino companies hire psychologists (no, really, I saw it in the NY Times) to help in the design of the games. It does nothing for me, but some people will sit in front of the machines for hours, days, until they collapse from dehydration and exhaustion. It's more addicting than weed or even alcohol for a small class of people. I'm not saying they should be banned. It's just curious.