Ernest Cline Quotes

I know how addictive videogames are - I have friends who can't get up off the couch because they're so hooked. They provide these different virtual worlds that you can live in.

When I would go over to friends' houses, and they would be zoning out to Mario Brothers, I just found it the most distasteful thing.

I can't say I'm a full-on gamer, since, basically, I just don't have time for it. I know nowadays, gaming can be a lot like social media. People just stay on it all day long. Like they're logged into the Matrix. But yeah, I enjoy it. When I get the time.

[Sometimes] I sit in front of my [gaming] console with my headphones on and I play. I love that. It's a nice form of escapism.

I'm obsessed with my PlayStation. I'll come home and plug away at 'Fallout' for a couple of hours. Or, if I'm feeling the hacking and slashing, I'll play a little 'God of War.'

Personally I'm hoping to spend the last years of my life plugged into a real life MMORPG simulation that makes me think and feel like I'm 18 again while my 90 year old body lies in a tube somewhere getting fed thru an IV. Be a great way to finish up a life.

When I tell children that they are far too dependent on their gizmos, they do not deny it. But they really don't care. This is their real life - texting about trivial things; listening to numbing music on their private headphones. The machines block everything out - you create your own little trivial world.

The further you get into technology, the further you go into gaming. That's the general rule.

I'm a huge gamer! I love playing 'World of Warcraft.' It helps me wind down and escape reality for a few.

Why are online games so addictive? It's mostly the narcotic appeal of 'leveling.'

I'm a middle-aged dad, which means I have no social time or life to speak of, and so I connect with my buddies with my Xbox.

Sometimes, when you watch people play a video game, they seem lost in this wormhole, or in a trance.

I'm a huge video gamer, sometimes a little too much. I'll shut myself in my room just so I can play video games all day and I end up neglecting my friends.

I didn't have any vices before the Internet. There are a lot of cracks in the day, moments where you don't know what to do next, so you have a little hole where you look at your phone. You want something that will mean you're not alone in that moment.

The idea of the 'lone gamer' is really not true anymore. Up to 65 percent of gaming now is social, played either online or in the same room with people we know in real life.

The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

At home I mostly stick to online Scrabble, or chess or Risk - games I find far less addictive than the spectacular games created for consoles these days. But, whenever I get the chance, I head over to my friend Kyri's house to play his PS3.

When I put a quarter into an arcade machine or call up an emulated game on my computer, I do it to escape the world that is a slave to the time that makes things fall apart. I have never played these games to occupy my world.

I actually don't play any new video games except 'Call of Duty.' I'm addicted to 'Call of Duty.' It's the only game I need.

The average young person today in a country with a strong gamer culture will have spent 10,000 hours playing online games by the age of 21. Now 10,000 hours is a really interesting number for two reasons. First of all, for children in the United States, 10,080 hours is the exact amount of time you will spend in school, from fifth grade to high school graduation, if you have perfect attendance.

[W]e spend three billion hours a week playing online games.

I used to game a lot, and I used to game a little too hard.

I've been to Oculus a few times to do book signings and things there, and they tell me 'Ready Player One' is, like, required reading for new employees.

I'm really into video games.

People are texting and smash into the car in front of them - I think there is some humor in that. And the virtual games. People are playing these virtual games, but they're real - I mean, the people are really playing, but it's not a game.