Video game addiction can occur to anyone, such as with today’s poor wastrel whom is addicted to the iconic NES blaster Duck Hunt (1984).

This pathetic SOB needs our help. Thankfully for him, we played the game back in the day and can support him through this personal crisis towards a life free from ducks and hunts.

When You’re Addicted to Duck Hunt and Need a Cure

🚨 Please note, our medical advice is terrible and based on no expertise, logic, or qualifications. Ignore every word of it. 🚨

“Dear Dr. Moron,

I’m APPEALING to you as a man aged 45 in the depths of a horrifying addictive loop… I can’t stop playing Duck Hunt on the Nintendo Entertainment System!

I appreciate that may sound odd. Silly, even. But is is true.

The game first launched in 1984 and was a sleeper hit, wowing the gaming community with its cutting-edge use of a bundled light gun with which allowed players to blast the on-screen ducks. I played it as a young lad and it was fun. Very fun. But upon rediscovering its joys one fateful day in January of 2025, I’ve become enraptured by its appeals. The ducks. The hunts. The light gun. You shoot, you get a high score, and I’m stuck in a loop and I can’t get ahead of it.

20 hours a day.

Yesterday it was 21.

Today it’ll probably be 20. I’ve taken 20 minutes out of my routine to type this out in a feverish nightmare to appeal to you, good doctor, about what the hell I need to do to stop playing this bloody game! I mean, it’s a good game in a primitive way, but why am I addicted? THERE ARE SO MANY DUCKS!

My fingers also have severe cramp from using the light gun all day, every day.

I’ve not eaten a proper meal since February 1st! I have scurvy. I foul myself where I sit, playing this game on a loop and (yes) ashamedly I have not showered since March. My girlfriend has left me. Work has almost certainly fired me as I haven’t been in since December 2024.

Help me, doctor! How do I end this terrible addiction and get my life back on quack?

Yours quacking,

Harry “Duck Hunt” Jones

Hi there, Harry! Gosh. That’s a nasty habit, eh? Ducks can be so, so scary after all—duckmares are a common issue in the medical world (they’re nightmares consisting of ducks).

However, what you’re going through is a harrowing condition called waterbird video game addiction. This is where you’re addicted to video games with waterbirds in them. As an unqualified doctor, I have had cases like yours before. Including a:

• 19-year-old addicted to Tetris whom was cured after we welded his arms to the floor.
• 35-year-oold addicted to Mario Kart who went vegan and never touched a games console again.
• 55-year-old addicted to World of Warcraft whom was cured after a lobotomy.

I raise the third case as this is your cure—the only hope; a DUCK LOBOTOMY. This is as follows, as described in the medical tome Duck Lobotomies: The Cure-All for Those Addicted to Duck Hunt & Other Waterbird-Based Video Games:

“The addicted individual stands upright, or sits down, after which a duck is brought into the room. The duck then performs a crude lobotomy with its beak, ideally entering through the ear canal but, failing that, one of the nostrils is adequate. The patient will almost certainly begin screaming at this point, which will cause the duck to quack and flap its feathers with much wild abandon. It is a most baffling and unnerving scene, to be sure, but the probability of a cure is high (unless the duck subsequently slays the patient, which will result in a failed medical experiment).”

Duck lobotomies were banned in 1950, but you can still get them on the black market. Best of luck with that one, Harry!