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Some games make us so mad that we fling our controllers across the room in rage, forgetting for a split second that it’s rarely, if ever, the hardware’s fault that we lost.

But sometimes we get so angry with a game, at being pwned online, at losing for the nth time to that end-of-level boss, that we decide to hang up our controllers for good. Which is exactly what a number of gamers in Japan seem to have done if a collection of photos doing the rounds on Twitter today is anything to go by.

“Hey now, which joker got a Gamecube controller tangled up in the power lines!? LOL” Tweeted @E_R_Hakuri yesterday afternoon along with the below photo of the aforementioned controller swinging up high.

Well out of reach and doomed to remain so for a very long time (or at least until a disgruntled city employee is sent up to remove it), this act of controller tossing is every bit as mischievous as the old shoe-fling prank, yet — through what is perhaps a stroke of unintentional artistry — could be interpreted as a subtle commentary on the now defunct role of such technology in our increasingly wireless society.

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User @kkuro613 also spotted a controller, this time a PlayStation 2 pad, swinging in the breeze near their home town on the exact same day.

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And quite how long this poor Nintendo 64 controller has been up there we’re not sure, but @CHANDA_NOW noticed it back in May.

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So what on earth is going on here? Are Japan’s gamers simply sick of tripping over their old hardware? Have the more recent generations of consoles turned us all into lily-livered weaklings unable to handle the challenges that older games present, resulting in a sudden influx of angry controller flinging?

In fact, it’s much more likely that these gamers have simply been watching the 2012 documentary film Indie Game: The Movie, which features a hanging controller as its signature image on posters and ads.

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Never given an official release in Japan but now available to download and purchase on DVD, perhaps gamers in japan have finally had a chance to see the documentary for themselves and, falling in love with the popular image, decided to imitate it. But remember, kids, only a bad workman blames his tools! Give your controllers the send-off they deserve: sell them on eBay or keep them in a box somewhere in the hope that no one else had the same idea, and in 50 years you can use the cash to get a firmware update for your PlayStation 12 brain implant.

Source: Gotech (Japanese)
Indie Game The Movie image via Rock, Paper, Shotgun