Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, the man behind the popular Brain Age games for the DS, is a pretty strange dude. He refuses to accept any of the $11 million in royalties he’s entitled from his involvement in the games, and he doesn’t even really like videogames in the first place. All he wants to do in life is work. What a nutjob!

While it certainly is admirable that the good doctor is so obsessed with his work (he studies brains — big surprise), you’d think there would be some room left for fun. Well, you’d be wrong. Dr. Kawashima lists “work” as his only hobby.

He doesn’t even play his own games, and limits his kids to a mere 1 hour of videogame playtime per week. Per week!

What is scary about games is that you can kill as many hours as you want. I don’t think playing games is bad in itself but it makes children unable to do what they should do such as study and communication with the family.

Okay. But aren’t his games supposed to be beneficial? Aren’t they supposed to make you smarter? Wouldn’t that help with studying?

Having fun is not studying. Making them study is not to entertain children but to pressure them to make efforts. People fall to lower and lower places unless they are driven to go higher.

Contrary to what I’ve been led to believe, Dr. Kawashima is apparently not just a floating head.

Not only does he not have time for fun, he doesn’t have time for anything that isn’t associated with his work. Last year, he decided to lose some weight, but he didn’t work out to do it — he just ate less food.

If there is time for physical exercise, I want to use it for research.

So where did his four kids come from? Did he grow them is his lab, or did he actually take time away from his job to have sex? And why did he work with Nintendo to make these games in the first place? The man certainly defies ordinary logic and leaves us with many unanswered questions, but perhaps he’s just trying to make us think.

Wait a minute… Oh, that sneaky bastard!

Source

Tags: brain-age, brains, children, Dr.-kawashima, kids, research, royalties, work

• UK: Top 50 Best-Selling Games of 2007
• Spore Pre-Orders in UK Add Extra Incentive
• EA Brings Educational Games to DS
• Spore E-Card Creator Announced: Share Your Spore Universe With Friends
• New Game Releases: 9/22-9/28
• Schizoid: First XNA Game Out The Gate
• Xbox 360 Price Drop Almost Confirmed, Maybe?
• Game Crazy Releases App for iPhone

2 Comments » Dennis on February 1, 2008 2:35 pm admirable indeed! The good doctor has many valid points, but there should always be time for fun! Hamad on February 2, 2008 1:55 am The man has a goal, and is working towards it, if anything, I would admire him for it. If I could not waste time with games I would do it. What I don’t like to see is, looking at people who want to acheive something and dissing them or dehumanize them for it. RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.