Time to crash back to reality! Video games are responsible for building up our hopes and dreams (well they built mine up anyway) and inspired many people to look at careers they might not normally have envisioned for themselves! Well time to burst the bubble because these jobs aren’t all they are cracked up to be at least they’re not if you are one of the many characters who’ve undertaken these occupations in the video game world!
From blocked pipes to mucky fields, the omnipotence of a deity to the freedom of a explorer… these are career choices that video games have ruined..forever!
Plumber
This one is pretty straightforward, Mario and Luigi completely ruined the profession for generations and then they all but forgot they were plumbers in the end! Moving on to sexier careers like international soccer stars, kart racers and even the world of medicine (I’ll get to that one later though!). No! There is no magical mushroom Kingdom just down the nearest drain pipe, you won’t fight Goombas and if you find a woman lurking in the sewers claiming to be a princess…chances are she’s insane and fixing on feeding you to her rat babies! So scratch this one off your dream job list!
Scientist
Awh the world of science, biology, chemistry, physics and everything that folds neatly between those three subjects I studied in school until I was able to drop them! In the video game world scientists usually take on one of three possible roles: they are a good guy helping the main character (but they die), they are a bad guy helping the main villain (or are the main villain) so they have to die or they are just an AI drone in the background… that’s going to die! So you can be Gordon Freeman and on the run for the rest of your life, Hojo and start experimenting on yourself or one very dead guy hanging from your intestines in the lab you once called home because those experiments backfired!
Mom’s real proud of my work messing up humanity!
Animal Trainer
Ehhh this pretty self-explanatory… between electric shocks, third degree burns and being pecked to death… Pokémon took the excitement out of being animal trainer!
Professional Athlete
You open the box / You pop out the disc and insert it into your console/ You pick up the controller and activate the game/ Your career as a professional athlete whether it’s soccer, rugby, hockey, American football, golf or boxing is well under way! That’s not real life! Real life you have to get up train, diet, exercise, train, diet, exercise and study! You get hurt! You get injured! You have to deal with the tabloids (here’s looking at you Wayne, Tiger and even our own Michelle)! There’s a reason not everyone competes in the Olympics… because it’s hard, takes time, energy and there is so much good stuff on TV why would you want to? Video games make it all look so easy!
(Let me tell you what you can do with that spear Mario…)
Doctor
Just a quick word here, Mario you had to ruin this too?! Apparently medicine isn’t stacking correct combinations of pills, antibiotics/antivirals until you
wipe out all the nasties… you actually have to study! While Mario isn’t exactly the best/most accurate role model out there, those who strive to undertake ‘real’ medicine make it all seem so easy and glamorous! Imagine my surprise when I realised it’s not a matter of just sticking a scalpel in and hoping you find what’s wrong, taping up a broken bone or dabbing some ointment on a wound (in fairness I probably caused that wound with all my scalpel searching!).
Lawyer
… Phoenix Wright… that is all…
Law Enforcement/Military
All cops are crooked or incompetent!
All military personnal are crooked or incompetent!
Video games pretty much wrote these careers off and the only way you get into Special Ops is if the military bred you in a lab somewhere and chances are that had some repercussions on the personnel working in the lab (see scientist above!).
Farmer
Harvest Moon made farming cute! Farming is not cute! Farming is getting up before the crack of dawn and dealing with herds of annoying and often smelly animals! Farming is hard intensive labour, expensive machinery and the crippling effects of the economy on your land value! Farming is…not fun! You lied Harvest Moon… you lied!
Explorer/Astronaut/Adventurer
Don’t become an explorer/astronaut/adventurer because:
1/ It’s not as easy as video games look, you don’t just decide to be one in real life – you have to train, study and be super rich or have the back of super rich people
2/ People will try and kill you
3/ You’ll probably be responsible for either a) an international crisis b) the death of an indigenous tribe c) awaken an evil spirit or d) your own untimely death at the bottom of a chasm!
God
From a young age I’d always had the dream of some day ruling over the Earth from my Kingdom on High or failing that casting off the shackles off this planet and seeking out new life elsewhere, life that was dumber than me so I could rule over that! Video games killed my dream or rather they allowed me to realise that playing God is not all it’s cracked up to be! You have to listen to the constant nagging of your worshippers and if you choose to smite them all then you are left with no one to manipulate/ruin/impress your will upon. If you play the nice God then people will only want and expect more! You have to find a balance and that means you don’t do anything…ever! Being God must suck!
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
