The Performance Crowd

Performance enhancing drugs, such as (but not limited to) Ritalin and Adderall, increase ones concentration and makes for more skilled gaming. The abuse of these prescription drugs is not a new thing, and students have been using them to aid with study for quite some time now.

Students also being gamers it is of very little surprise perhaps that these drugs should then make their way onto the gaming scene. The effects of increased, razor sharp concentration on ones performance in a video game are obvious, and so these drugs are the ones that e-sports professionals will be on the look out for in cheaters. Among more casual gamers there is not quite so much at stake to warrant taking the drugs, but competition is still fierce; and at LAN parties the battle to keep awake and alert over the course of a weekend has been a battle which gamers have been fighting for a long, long time.

The guys and gals taking the likes of Ritalin are normal Joe Soaps; most of them don't have any condition warranting the taking of these drugs, but use them regularly in study and work. Different people get their supplies from different places, but there is a profitable under-the-counter business straight from source in these drugs, as well as false prescriptions and students who do need these drugs selling them at a profit.

Given the prevalence of these substances in study and as a prescribed medication there is a very low taboo threshold to taking these drugs. Doctors prescribe them, they aid in study and so the general perception is not negative, making these a common drug among those who are not heavy users or abusers and those who are.

The Cid Heads

Mind altering drugs are a lot less popular today than they were at the height of the cultural drug revolution. LSD is certainly not as widely used, and while there was quite a big Ecstasy scene a few years back much of this has also died down in recent times.

These sorts of drugs are rare at a LAN party, unless it is a particularly drug-fuelled one (more, though still not substantially, commonly you'll see "magic" mushrooms in this category at a LAN), though they are more common in private use. Any drug which alters your perception of the world around you is a powerful way to experience a video game - the line between reality and the game blurs, and I've had some interesting discussions with acid heads about their experiences playing - if that's the right word - games whilst tripping.

If this were a more idealistic, artistic, age then perhaps there would be some otherworldly semi-spiritual acid head to tell me that the melding of truly mind-altering drugs and the fantastical realms of video games is a beautiful thing. Well, maybe we will have some semi-cultural revolution in the future where everyone goes tripping into their favourite video games, but for now it's simply considered a weird and interesting thing to do.

Some of those I've spoken to about doing acid whilst playing a video game have told me that they'd never do it again - on acid much of reality can become a fantasy, and so when you start off dealing with fantasy via a video game things can get really weird. Somehow I've always had the comical image of somebody taking acid, sitting down to play a game and then living out what they think to be a perfectly normal life as the acid turns their head around the fantasy and swings it back to a kind of reality.

This is not the case, however. Those who say they'll never try acid and video gaming again do so because they had very bad trips - thinking they were being attacked by monsters, going to die and so on. Others I've spoken to have had very interesting and thought provoking trips. Perhaps in our great investigation into the drug culture and video gaming somebody might think to compile a library of different experiences people have had whilst playing different games.