John Morrissey's 'Video Game Timer' is made of pure evil

by Ben Gilbert { Jun 28th 2009 at 1:00PM }

Look folks, we'll admit it -- it's been kind of awhile since we had nagging overlords demanding we shut off the game system and finish our homework. We can, however, understand the plight of our younger readers, worried their elders may find out about the built-in parental controls on Xbox 360 and simply flip a switch rather than engage their kids in spirited debate. Unfortunately, you guys may be in a bit of trouble, as John Morrissey, a man in Edina, Mn. recently took it upon himself to assist in the neverending War on Fun by inventing a device specifically meant to limit time spent playing games on, well, any electricity-based device. It's called the "Video Game Timer" (distributed by Digital Innovations).

From the looks of the thing, you plug whatever electric device you'd like to limit access to into the VGT, set an amount of time, and that's that. Star Tribune says that the device emits "some warning beeps" before automatically shutting off the power, though we're wary of anything instantly cutting off the power to the games we're playing. If anything, the interaction between parent and child every time they want to play a game as a result of this will help to act as punishment for any parents out there thinking about purchasing such a game console chastity belt. For those parents out there trying to avoid such ... less than pleasant interactions with their kids, we humbly suggest the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

Tags: digital-innovations, entertainment-software-ratings-board, esrb, game-doctor, game-dr, john-morrissey, vgt, video-game-timer

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

offday @ Jun 28th 2009 1:06PM

The end is near.

nighttime__ @ Jun 28th 2009 10:11PM

Resetti is gonna be PISSED!

Kris @ Jun 28th 2009 11:06PM

see God, Kai

capt_carl @ Jun 28th 2009 1:09PM

It locks with a ziptie? lol, give me a break.

The Dark Wayne @ Jun 28th 2009 1:12PM

how would you use it more than once?

(01) @ Jun 28th 2009 1:15PM

Johnny has obviously never seen a pair of scissors or a knife.

razer922 @ Jun 28th 2009 1:23PM

Says it comes with six zipties. I'm waiting for some stupid parent to get this, use all six, and complain about how they can't lock it anymore.

And kids, this is why you have a lock on your door and a tv in your room.

Mr Khan @ Jun 28th 2009 1:54PM

And that's why savvy parents just cut off the power at the circuit breaker, like mine did that one time i was cursing up a storm over the All Cup challenge on Mirror mode of Mario Kart Double Dash

We didn't speak for a week

LaughingTarget @ Jun 28th 2009 2:13PM

My parents cut off the power, too. That and my Dad is a military man, so you just don't argue or your ass gets whipped hard.

Spartan @ Jun 28th 2009 5:33PM

Lol at target.

I just made sure I got my homework out the way first when I was at school.

And that I could get in any assignments on time when I was at college & uni.
(Or at least that's how I remember it.)

But Ocarina of Time threw that the hell out the window.
That game was like crack.

The Dark Wayne @ Jun 28th 2009 1:11PM

oh man, i can just imagine what would happen if it turns off while some kid is saving his game on the final level of Oblivion or something.

FlamingEffigy @ Jun 28th 2009 1:18PM

The game would become oblivious to his save data.

I hate me too.

offday @ Jun 28th 2009 3:06PM

It could end up making save data corrupt, which means the person would have to start the whole game over again, which just result in even more gaming. I believe I just made John Morrissey's product obsolete. Score one for me.

I remember back in the SNES days, if I was playing too much, my parents just told me to go outside. Do parents just suck these days, and need these devices to do their jobs for them?

Hydrophobicfish @ Jun 28th 2009 3:35PM

That's just the best case scenario, offday. Equally as likely is a full on corruption of the hard drive itself.

Alex @ Jun 28th 2009 4:09PM

Or one bullet away from the Mile High Club achievement...

WiredKnight @ Jun 28th 2009 4:14PM

Or, if the kid was smart, he'd have a backup!

Reader @ Jun 29th 2009 1:28AM

Same... Some days my Dad would just kick me out of the house and tell me to go find something to do if I was on the computer too much.

(01) @ Jun 28th 2009 1:14PM

Beyond the obvious ricockulousness of the whole thing, isn't it kind of bad for you electronics to repeatedly unplug them?

The Baron @ Jun 28th 2009 1:42PM

Yep.

It's even worse for hard drives.

BigD145 @ Jun 28th 2009 2:01PM

This thing will shorten the lifespan of every console made within the last 10 years.

The Dark Wayne @ Jun 28th 2009 2:33PM

i never did understand how that did hurt your electronics. You'd think they'd find a way to fix that by now

sam @ Jun 28th 2009 3:18PM

Repeatedly like every few minutes, yes that's bad. (Also, it might be best to wait until everything fully spins down before turning it on again.) Repeatedly like once or twice a day, not so much.

As far as I can tell, the only vulnerable part is the drives. As part of a normal shutdown process, hard drives probably are told to move heads to a safe position. Optical drives are the same but there's no contact to a disc so I don't think they really mind if, when powered on, the head is in an unusual place. Everything else, well turning off the power is pretty much exactly what normally happens when you turn it off, at the plug or not.

These days I think even hard drives are designed to handle power loss safely, otherwise we'd all be getting our drives damaged every time there's a power cut or something, so I think the chances that this would do much damage are low. I'd say the only likely risk is from data corruption caused by partially-complete file writes - saving a game when the power goes off isn't such a great plan.

Kill a mans jiro @ Jun 28th 2009 1:17PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b20/TheSpaniard/Joke%20Images%20etc/noooooooo.jpg

Kill a mans jiro @ Jun 28th 2009 1:19PM

Good thing im 18 now, infact even when i was 15/16 i just wouldnt allow this on my console or n e device for that matter.

Azbulldog @ Jun 28th 2009 3:01PM

Yet it is people like you who type with their "n e" and others. Why? With that space in their you've typed the same amount of characters, three.

Hydrophobicfish @ Jun 28th 2009 3:38PM

Azn, as much as I'm for teaching people to use the correct words, and not acronyms... It's there, not their

Azbulldog @ Jun 28th 2009 3:47PM

No, it's 'their' to show possession. There is also no 'n' in my name, thanks.

Markez @ Jun 28th 2009 3:51PM

Azn, you're correct in that 'their' is used to show possession. O_o Your 2nd use it of it was incorrect, and you should've used 'THURR!!!' instead. There is one 'm' in my name thanks, would you like to try and solve the puzzle?

Azbulldog @ Jun 28th 2009 3:59PM

Oh I'm retarded too, I missed my typo, thanks.

gfan102 @ Jun 28th 2009 1:24PM

Lol Just make it white and call it a Wii accessories.

Chris @ Jun 28th 2009 1:27PM

Don't these kind of devices risk damaging the newer consoles? Ones that autosave for example, they always warn not to power down when saving, but if this device was to power down the console when it was saving it could potentially damage it... although the risk might be small...

Things parent's should know... consoles come with replaceable power plugs........... if the kid was crafty enough they could just get another plug, pretend to go through their alotted time and switch over to the other plug when the parents aren't watching..

Fernando Rocker @ Jun 28th 2009 1:39PM

Since the NES days, it's been not safe to turn off the console while the game is saving, not only in newer consoles... that's to prevent data corruption.

Lekko @ Jun 28th 2009 2:18PM

Smart parents put the plugs on the TVs, not the consoles.

MystileArmor @ Jun 28th 2009 2:28PM

Smart parents "parent" their child, instead of resorting to a piece of harware to tell your kid what it can and cannot do.

protofunc @ Jun 29th 2009 12:17PM

Smart parents.... NO!

COMBO BREAKER!!

Bandit5317 @ Jun 29th 2009 3:57PM

Sometimes my parents would cut off the circuit breaker to my room for a couple hours to prevent me from using electronics as punishment. I just broke out the GameBoy :)

Rhamsey @ Jun 28th 2009 1:27PM

since i was 14, i have bought pretty much every video game i own (except maybe 3), and every console. because of this, i have never had to deal with parents limiting things that i own, and had the papers to prove it. infact, the first thing i ever bought with my money was a ds light.

ChronicTC7 @ Jun 28th 2009 1:37PM

yeah Ive been buying just about all of my games, consoles and clothes since 12 and its was great because I could play whatever I wanted when I wanted and wear anything.

I also bought my own computer at 13 so I had no internet restrictions

had to work a lot but it was worth it