Like many 16-year old teenagers, Blake Peebles dreams of being a professional video game player. That's not unusual. What's different here is that Blake's parents actually let him quit school (he's still homeschooled) to focus on a career as a pro gamer.
Matt Ehlers of The News & Observer has the story:
Inside his upstairs bedroom, Blake's environment is set up specifically to make him a better gamer. There is a PlayStation 2, a Nintendo Wii and an Xbox 360. He also has a stack of plastic guitars, but no real ones. Blake doesn't play an actual guitar, a skill that doesn't really transfer to playing the virtual kind, anyway.
The frame for his bed is on the back porch, with the box springs and mattress on the bedroom floor. That puts his bed at a more comfortable level for sitting to play "Guitar Hero III" for extended periods. At the moment, he plays just a few hours a day, but that number will increase as the California competition nears.
Blake seems happy with his home school arrangement, as you would expect from a teenager who is allowed to stay up into the wee hours to play video games. Sometimes, when Mike heads to the gym before 5 a.m., his son is still playing video games. Blake calls it working "the late shift."
He didn't enjoy school, he says, and especially didn't like the rules associated with attending the Christian academy. Shaggy hair is more his style.
He's good at video games. "I wasn't really good at anything else that I liked."
http://www.newsobserver.com/print/sunday/sunday_journal/story/1155589.html - via Wired's Geekdad, Thanks Marilyn!
(Photo: Corey Lowenstein)
It's especially sad that he spends that much time perfecting silly skills and probably wouldn't even know how to strike a chord on a real, beautiful guitar 0_o
Not that that's a great example of a functional family, but it's not like this is unprecedented.
If I see that kid, I'll probably knock some sense into his head.
On a more serious note though, this isn't really that different from parents who bet their kid's future on making it as a professional football or basketball player allowing school to go and hang. Don't know whether that's good or bad though.
One huge gripe I have with most schools is that they tend to force students to concentrate on not failing when they should be identifying their strengths and developing them. If Blake is good at video games, why not let him develop that skill? Even if he doesn't become a professional gamer, he can still go into the video game industry and have a "successful" career.
Anyway.. :D 5 stars for the burger flipping comment.
To each his own I guess...
Pro-gamer doesnt sound like a real job, or anything that would make you a steady income.
Im a horse-back rider so Ill use it as an example, Pro-horse riders are either at a show every weekend trying to win the cash prize, or theyre showing when they can and working during the week.
Gaming is a hobby. Not a career.
But here's a question... At what age does a pro gamer retire? 20?
Where does that attitude come from? If you like something, you work at it until you get good at it, don't you? I'd say he's "good" at video gaming because it doesn't really require much in the way of cognitive thinking.
He'd better start practicing the line, "Would you like fries with that?"
Fortunately, the whole family will realize the natural consequences of this when their son is still "training" in the basement at 30 years old.
Ever heard of game design? It's my job and my career path. While I do have a degree in graphic design, I could very well do without it. Or any other degree, in fact.
I doubt that he's going to make a career path out of pro-gaming, but he can go places from there.
How is he supposed to cross over from testing games to making them? If he couldn't stick with school, I doubt he'd have the commitment to put together a portfolio. Maybe I'm underestimating him....
That is about the most stupid and useless nonsense thing you can do with your life. Get a real guitar and practice a few hours a day - that would be something. But guitar hero? I would really love to smack some sense into his parents...
And crossing the testing->making bridge is not as hard as you seem to think.
I must say that I don't condone his decision of becoming a pro-gamer. But it's not the end of the world for him, is what I'm saying.