I remember when I was a boy.   My little brother and I were taunting each other.  You know,  like "Is that your face or did your neck throw up?"   Well, little brother went a step too far, and I judged that it would be best if I pushed him through a nearby plate glass storm door.  Unfortunately, my plan didn't work, as it turns out that plate glass is surprisingly strong.  Even more unfortunately, my mother heard the racket my brother made as he riccocheted off the glass, and every kid in the neighborhood soon received an object lesson on why it's not a good idea to attempt to push your little brother through a window.

Ever since then, I've been a pacifist.  Growing up in the seventies, I was subjected to mind controling influences from organizations like The Brady Bunch, Sesame Street, and Dan Fogelburg (in the late eighties, rumors circulated in the underground that Mr. Fogelburg was connected with a certain Aisian-subcontinental government, and that it was he who emasculated US men with the introduction of the minivan).  Millions of people were under their spell, and by the eightees their sadistic urges had transmuted into such pseudo-aggressive activities as the hostile corporate takeover, Van Halen,  and lasertag.  

Thank god, then, for the nineties when those urges broke free, giving us Gangsta Rap and Mortal Kombat.  Suddenly, it was acceptable to bust a cap in someone's ass.  Children were encouraged to carry nine mils to school, and adults were urged to solve their problems with the high-speed liberal application of lead.  From there, it was only natural that Quake I and Quake II would capture the imagination of a generation that had had their hunter instincts clobbered into dust.  

Why do we play?  Because we were inadvertently programmed by our role models.  They thought they were discouraging our basest instincts.  Well...we showed them.