Video Game Designer Forces Children to Play Mini Game for Lunch Money
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Redwood City, CA – Those immediately related to Electronic Arts Senior Programmer Pedro Neil has grown increasingly tired of the family patriarch bringing his work home, announcing that it has become extraordinarily difficult for the Neil clan to lead normal lives, Underneath Hollywood has learned.
"He's become impossible to live with," wife Janet Neil said. "He hides our important possessions and the only way for us to get them back is by searching every square inch of the house or completing a series of tasks comparable to what those in the video game world refer to as "mini-games," such as running through the house collecting all the loose change from beneath sofa and armchair cushions."
Mr. Neil insists he's simply trying to discover activities which could potentially be incorporated into actual video games, and if he weren't able to test new gaming ideas on his family he would not be able to support them. "What I do is no different than running a proposal by your wife before presenting it to the Board of Directors," he said. "How am I going to figure out if something is going to work in a game if I don't test it out on my family first?"
Mr. Neil's wife says he finally crossed the line when he made their children put the families CD's back into their proper CD cases in order to earn lunch money for the day. The task had to be accomplished before the school bus arrived at 7:30 a.m.
"Both my children had huge tests that day," Mrs. Neil said. "The last thing they needed was to be put through a ridiculous game, with the threat of not eating as punishment if they did not succeed."
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"Just like a video game, if my kids would have failed the mini-game they still would have had an opportunity to eat," Mr. Neil said. "Through borrowing money or hitting a teacher up for an apple, I'm sure my kids would have found a way to acquire food. In video games, just like life, there are always multiple options."
Luckily his children did not have to beg for food because his wife intervened, giving them each five dollars for lunch before driving them to school.
"I love my husband very much," Mrs. Neil said. "But if he's constructed an obstacle course in the front yard that I have to beat in a certain amount of time or it will activate the sprinkler, I will take the kids to my sisters and not come back until he quits his job."
Mr. Neil doesn't believe the problems with his family are very serious. "I don't foresee a long term conflict," he said. "But if for some reason we can't work things out I will have divorce papers drawn up and hidden in the garage, behind the place where we always find black widow spiders, next to the spot where everyone always slips and falls."
If Mrs. Neil can retrieve the papers in two-minutes he will grant her a divorce. If not, she must accompany him to counseling. "It might sound cruel, sending my wife into a dangerous garage, but I will litter the area with first aid kits and cell phones with '9-1' already pressed should she need medical attention," Mr. Neil said.
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