Chasing the dream
Aug 4th 2005
From The Economist print edition
As video gaming spreads, the debate about its social impact is
intensifying
IS IT a new medium on a par with film and music, a valuable educational
tool, a form of harmless fun or a digital menace that turns children
into violent zombies? Video gaming is all these things, depending on
whom you ask.
[...]
Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with
the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a
new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among
young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had
their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of
offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up,
rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is
under attack instead. “There's always this pattern,” says Mr Williams of
the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is
junk.” Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be
studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this
retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has
its perception, it is pretty much set,” says Mr Williams. “What happens
is that they die.”
Like rock and roll in the 1950s, games have been accepted by the young
and largely rejected by the old. Once the young are old, and the old are
dead, games will be regarded as just another medium and the debate will
have moved on. Critics of gaming do not just have the facts against
them; they have history against them, too. “Thirty years from now, we'll
be arguing about holograms, or something,” says Mr Williams.
http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=4246109
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*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
