Video games may teach players many useful things, including better hand-eye coordination and how to save the world with just one clip, but they also teach plenty of useless things. Sure, how to manage your own NFL franchise is pretty useless, but there’s even more useless trivia being inflicted upon gamers ever day. For this reason, gamers owe it to themselves to be aware of this misinformation.

Barrels contain valuables
There are only two kinds of barrels in this world that contain valuables. One is a whiskey or wine barrel, and the other is the candy barrel by the cash register at some old-time candy shop. Otherwise, barrels are where people store things they can’t possibly imagine touching themselves. Yes, oil is quite valuable, but no one wants to burst open a barrel of the black goo to get at it. Plus, there’s always the risk that toxic waste might be stored inside. Such realities should be portrayed in games more often.

Random guns are conveniently lying about
Some might like to argue that the US contains so many guns you could practically trip over one walking down the street, but that only really happens in video games. In reality, you would never break into a drug dealer’s warehouse by the pier and find hundreds of guns lying about on the floor, and conspicuously around a dead-end corner. No, in reality you would run out of ammunition and get shot. That’s why you should have filled out the paperwork three days before so there was enough time to run the background check.

Single plates of turkey can heal all wounds
If the farmers of this country would switch over from raising so many chickens and focus entirely on turkeys there would be no need for hospitals. That’s the logic presented in video games, and it’s hard to argue with. Everyone loves Thanksgiving with a large bird nicely cooked adorning the center of the dining room table. But what if grandma happens to cut herself a bit while preparing the bird? Don’t call the doctor, but instead rush her into the dining room to dine alone on that full turkey. Games have told you that’s all she’ll need.

Black people exist as random information givers
In the very progressive world of video games, black people are the ones who randomly show up time to time in order to give the hero a key piece of information. Then, they mysteriously disappear again. Why? Well, they’re obviously not the hero in 99% of games, and it would be politically incorrect to make them the enemies. Instead, they get ignored almost entirely. Don’t get too comfortable Asians, as even Japanese developers are starting to design for the West.

Ninjas are not samurai, and have no problems with using ray guns and jet packs
Granted, the idea of the sneaky ninja is sort of the antithesis of the noble samurai. Still, were any real ninjas ever caught using weapons from the future? That seems like cheating, even for a ninja. The occasional gunpowder gun might work, but anything two centuries newer than when any real ninjas lived is probably going to be hard to swallow. In reality, ninjas of today would not seem cool and would simply seem like homicidal thieves to be tracked and caught on CSI.

Related posts:

1. Five more useless lessons taught by video games