Japanese dad makes son hate video games
Most kids are big fans of video games, especially with the myriad of games available in this day and age. However, a Japanese elementary school teacher known by his Twitter handle @zikatu1 shared an anecdote of how one of his students was made to hate games, thanks to his dad. Here’s what went down.
Crime of the son
The father-son duo are avid video gamers who share the family Nintendo Switch and play games such as Animal Crossing. In order to skip ahead in the game, the son used a popular hack – changing the time and date in the game to speed up progress.
This move was clearly a success. When his father tried to log on to Animal Crossing, he found that several days had passed in-game without him knowing and all his carefully cultivated turnips had rotted away. Gasp.
Image credit: @h.hdesigned
To those unfamiliar with Animal Crossing, turnip farming and selling is a popular trick players do in order to earn in-game currency, also known as bells. In Japanese, turnip (蕪; kabu) is a homophone for stock (株; kabu). Hence, like the stock market, the turnip market is extremely volatile and the price of turnips fluctuates drastically.
Image credit: @deelizabethwilson
If not harvested within a certain period of time, the turnips will rot. Time-travelling in-game will also render your turnips useless. So, of course, the dad’s turnips rotted away after his son sped time up by several days, causing him to lose approximately one million bells – a substantial amount of in-game money.
Punishment from the father
In order for his son to make amends for his misstep, the father decided that a fitting punishment would be for him to work his debt off in-game – he would have to earn the money he caused his father to lose, through the gathering and selling of shells and fruits.
Image adapted from: @zikatu1
Translation (by Google): “I hate games,” said the boy. “When I changed the date on the Nintendo Switch, all the turnips of my father’s Animal Crossing rotted and my father was furious.” It was said, “Until you return a total loss of 1 million, stop playing the game.” From that day on, he had to collect shells and nuts. “I have to work when I go home today.”
According to what the son’s teacher reports, the poor boy has been slogging away at his task every day after school, and he is not allowed to stop before he repays his father.
We assume that while this punishment is going on, he is not allowed to play any other video games. But based on how video games are being used to punish him right now, we doubt that he’ll want to touch the Nintendo Switch for a while after this ordeal is over.
Netizens’ response to the saga
Netizens have expressed mixed feelings about the story. Some believe that it was a fitting punishment, whereas others argue that in using video games to punish his son, the father is turning something the son loves into a chore.
Netizens have commented that it was the father’s fault in the first place for not being aware of the risks of sharing a gaming console. As the more experienced video game player, he should have known that sharing saved data is bound to get complicated .
Although the son may have messed up, many have expressed that the father could have handled the situation better.
Japanese dad makes son hate video games
With such a tedious and draining punishment, the boy sure will have learnt his lesson, but we’re not so sure if he will ever touch video games again. Whether or not this was intentional on the father’s part, it definitely is an effective tactic to consider to solve video game addiction.
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Cover image adapted from: @acnh.oniceland