While watching the superb Gameswipe from Charlie Brooker it occurred to me that all those nay saying reports of gaming ruining children and turning them into psychopaths is just bollocks. It's a bollocks now as it was then.
I've done rather well out of my affection for computers and technology and gaming has to be included as a part of that. And continues to do so. Reading a book or watching television is a consuming activity and does not nearly hold my attention as much as creating. In the games I enjoy, I am creating. Perhaps not openly or to share but I certainly create a narrative in my head. I take choices, both good and bad, I make choices and I follow a path only I have created, not one a book has set out. I'm not bashing books, obviously, I am noting that games can hold my attention better than books so I'm not ruining myself by playing games rather than reading.
We turned out alright and we all still play games together. In many cases, it's what keeps up together.
Comments
look back and you see basically the same arguments about all new media forms
back in the victorian times as cheap literature in the form of dime novels or penny dreadfuls allowed cheap books in the hands of the general public there was a huge debate on how it was degrading the morality of its readers and how they should be banned and kept out of the reach of kids.
At various points Films and Tv various flavours of music even dungeons and dragons have been targeted as immoral or dangerous. Occasionally they do again for some minority view like the whole bullshit JK Rowling is promoting witchcraft or Philip Pullman stuff is anti religion.
Games are merely the latest target. Give it a couple of decades when direct brain VR comes out and we'll get to moan about the immorality of that while wishing for the clean virtuous innocent days of GTA4.
Lastest news, Gamers are more aggressive to strangers
"Victorious gamers enjoy a surge of testosterone – but only if their vanquished foe is a stranger. When male gamers beat friends in a shoot-em-up video game, levels of the potent sex hormone plummeted.
" - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17868-gamers-are-more-aggressive-t...
When male gamers beat friends in a shoot-em-up video game, levels of the potent sex hormone plummeted.
That's a relief, the reverse would mean Fishcon was cancelled.
I've. Got. Coke. Coming. Out. Of. My. Nose.
I believe after that process it's called "Pepsi" instead...
HAHAHAHAHA! Nice!