Editing 53: Hobby

| date      = January 23, 2006  <!-- The comic was released two days earlier on xkcd.com than on LiveJournal (25/1 2006). We use the earliest possible day-->

This was the fifty-first comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]]. The previous one was [[52: Secret Worlds]], and the next one was [[55: Useless]]. It was among the [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics]] posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic wasn't published on the same day across both sites, but most of them shared the same posting day. It was released on LiveJournal on January 25, 2006, two days after originally being posted on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. See the [[#Trivia|triva section]] below.

This is the second comic in the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series]]. It humorously compares the rules of light gun cabinet arcade video games with real life. [[Randall]] suggests that his hobby is going to drug busts with the expressed purpose of getting shot as an innocent bystander, thereby causing the police to lose 100 points.

Drug busts are events where police attempt to catch drug dealers, suppliers, and financiers in situations with enough evidence to convict them. In the style of arcade video games being examined, drug busts are usually depicted as chaotic events with villains, innocent bystanders, captives, and allies popping up like spring loaded targets at a shooting range in a setting with lots of places to hide. If you don't shoot a hostile target sufficiently quickly, you will be shot, so it is common to shoot the wrong targets. To add extra challenge, these games often deduct points — or worse, cause damage to the player character — if the player shoots the wrong target. This is often frustrating; not only does the player feel that they have failed to judge their target properly, but the wasted time can cause them to get shot by the ''real'' targets.  

Obviously, doing this in real life would be a really bad idea, as the hobbyist would quickly be killed. Whether this can even be a hobby is questionable because hobbies typically refer to actions that one does repeatedly, but if one was killed the first time, one would not be able to sneak into drug busts and startle police officers again. Also, if Randall actually did this, he would be dead and therefore unable to draw a comic about it.{{Citation needed}} The title text of [[188: Reload]] references this comic.

The title text is a reference to the game ''{{w|Area 51 (1995 video game)|Area 51}}'', which was a popular shooter arcade game from 1995 (although a console/PC game {{w|Area 51 (2005 video game)|of the same name}} was released in 2005). Area 51 was one of many cabinet arcade games that featured a light gun that allowed players to aim at the screen and shoot in a realistic control mechanic. The title text confirms that the comic is referring to these light gun cabinet games specifically.

For unknown reasons, on January 18, 2006, [[54: Science]] was posted on LiveJournal on the same day that [[51: Malaria]] was released on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. Three days later, on January 21, 2006, [[51: Malaria]] was posted on LiveJournal, thus forcing the next two comics ([[52: Secret Worlds]] and this one) to be released on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] two days before LiveJournal. Four days later, on January 25, 2006, [[54: Science]] was finally posted on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com], which fixed the date discrepancies and allowed the next comic, [[55: Useless]], to be published on the same day across both sites.

 

[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal| 51]]

[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com]]