I Want My PS3 - Part 2

Video games outsell DVD and movie box office sales combined. Think movies were a pain in the butt to monitor? The curve indicates strongly that video games are being consumed at a far greater rate by this generation than movies. And this isn't our 16 bit Nintendo games we're talking about. Video games now look more like elaborate, interactive movies, complete with multiple plot lines, complex characters, and of course, dream-like graphics.

The Economist has a quick opinion piece on video games, provocatively titled:

"Breeding Evil"

A few lines from the article:

"Scepticism of new media is a tradition with deep roots, going back at least as far as Socrates' objections to written texts, outlined in Plato's Phaedrus. Socrates worried that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would “create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” (He also objected that a written version of a speech was no substitute for the ability to interrogate the speaker, since, when questioned, the text “always gives one unvarying answer”. His objection, in short, was that books were not interactive. Perhaps Socrates would have thought more highly of video games.)"

This is a difficult argument to refute. Those of us who believe movies and video games are inherently inferior to say, books, need to come to grips with the fact that at every point in history when a new medium or form is introduced, it is attacked. Somehow, the medium later migrates into an academic setting as is lauded as high art.

and...

"Novels were once considered too low-brow for university literature courses, but eventually the disapproving professors retired. Waltz music and dancing were condemned in the 19th century; all that twirling was thought to be “intoxicating” and “depraved”, and the music was outlawed in some places. Today it is hard to imagine what the fuss was about. And rock and roll was thought to encourage violence, promiscuity and satanism; but today even grannies buy Coldplay albums."

True. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, today considered far too high-brow for anyone outside of a university setting, was lampooned as pop smut in its day.

and finally...

So are games good, rather than bad, for people? Good ones probably are. Games are widely used as educational tools, not just for pilots, soldiers and surgeons, but also in schools and businesses (see article). Every game has its own interface and controls, so that anyone who has learned to play a handful of games can generally figure out how to operate almost any high-tech device. Games require players to construct hypotheses, solve problems, develop strategies, learn the rules of the in-game world through trial and error. Gamers must also be able to juggle several different tasks, evaluate risks and make quick decisions. One game, set in 1930s Europe, requires the player to prevent the outbreak of the second world war; other games teach everything from algebra to derivatives trading. Playing games is, thus, an ideal form of preparation for the workplace of the 21st century, as some forward-thinking firms are already starting to realise.