If you played games on consoles on 80's and 90's and didn't hear this one, you're lucky, very lucky. Here's the myth: video game spoils the TV. Demand an explanation of how “spoils” is asking too much; like all myths, it has its perspectives which, in order not to lose their magic, must remain free from any questioning. Check out the full article and understand the origin and explanation!
Initially, the myth was used to prevent you from playing as much video games as you would like. However, if you were lucky, as many were, the myth justified the use of a TV just for the video game. Perfect for playing without anyone complaining that it's soap opera time. Here's a hypothesis: that some very smart child invented the myth to have an exclusive TV for video games.
The second hypothesis is that the myth was invented by some technical assistance to not provide the warranty service. The third hypothesis is that the myth arose from fathers and mothers who were worried about their children's future, who spent too much time with electronic games. What a thing, no?
However, we want to know: how many people are going to go down, even today, looking on Google if the video game really spoils the TV? So I leave some points to be analyzed: does PlayStation spoil television? Does Xbox spoil the TV? Does the Wii U spoil the TV? Does Nintendo partner with manufacturers to screw up TVs?
No, my dear reader. The video game (aka “console”) is just an image source being processed for TV. And what spoils something – including the TV – is the use and care of the user. However, there is a known issue with televisions with video games, which is the “burn-in“, when the image is “frozen” on the screen as a “ghost”, literally.
This mentioned problem only existed in tube televisions very old (monocratic). On more modern screens, those that actually saw the explosion of video games in the 80s and 90s - this problem was practically non-existent.
Burn-in only came back with the Plasma TVs, but video games were by far the only culprits: the station identifier logos, which are always in the corner of the screen, were also “burnt” on some TVs, as shown in the image above, with the logo of the “CNN” broadcaster.
And you, what do you think of this long-standing myth? Share with us! 🙂
