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[Mr Nash]

The folks at Quarter to Three pointed out this awesome article over at The Economist that takes a long, hard look at violence in games, the generational divide between gamers and game critics, as well as the educational potential of games. It's an awesome read, and shows that some members of the mainstream press can write some excellent articles on games. The article is quite lengthy so here's the link and some nuggets from it:

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4246109

But as Steven Johnson, a cultural critic, points out in a recent book, “Everything Bad Is Good for You”, gaming is now so widespread that if it did make people more violent, it ought to be obvious. Instead, he notes, in America violent crime actually fell sharply in the 1990s, just as the use of video and computer games was taking off (see chart 2). Of course, it's possible that crime would have fallen by even more over the period had America not taken up video games; still, video gaming has clearly not turned America into a more violent place than it was.

Even games with no educational intent require players to learn a great deal. Games are complex, adaptive and force players to make a huge number of decisions. Gamers must construct hypotheses about the in-game world, learn its rules through trial and error, solve problems and puzzles, develop strategies and get help from other players via the internet when they get stuck. The problem-solving mechanic that underlies most games is like the 90% of an iceberg below the waterline—invisible to non-gamers. But look beneath the violent veneer of “Grand Theft Auto”, and it is really no different from a swords-and-sorcery game. Instead of stealing a crystal and delivering it to a wizard so that he can cure the princess, say, you may have to intercept a consignment of drugs and deliver it to a gang boss so he can ransom a hostage. It is the pleasure of this problem-solving, not the superficial violence which sometimes accompanies it, that can make gaming such a satisfying experience.

Games can be used in many other ways. Tim Rylands, a British teacher in a primary school near Bristol, recently won an award from Becta, a government education agency, for using computer games in the classroom. By projecting the fantasy world of “Myst”, a role-playing game, on to a large screen and prompting his 11-year-old pupils to write descriptions and reactions as he navigates through it, he has achieved striking improvements in their English test scores.

Another area where games are becoming more popular is in corporate training. In “Got Game”, a book published last year by Harvard Business School Press, John Beck and Mitchell Wade, two management consultants, argue that gaming provides excellent training for a career in business. Gamers, they write, are skilled at multi-tasking, good at making decisions and evaluating risks, flexible in the face of change and inclined to treat setbacks as chances to try again. Firms that understand and exploit this, they argue, can gain a competitive advantage.

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.

There's a ton more good stuff too. It's definitely worth the time to read the article from start to finish.

 

[Open Source]

I also judge articles by how much they agree with me.

 

[Stinkles]

I also judge articles by how much they agree with me.

Damnit you beat me to it.

 

[jgkspsx]

The Economist

Well, DUH.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

My wife is reading the Stephen Johnson book, and it rocks. I've read a little of it, too.

 

[Lo-Volt]

Well, DUH.

The period. The Economist, more than most other sources, is among the best in whatever subject they write on.

 

[Acrylamid]

“Three years from now, we'll be arguing about holograms, or something,”

Believe

 

[temp]

My dentist is named Carl Johnson. Cool, huh?

 

[SKOPE]

The period. The Economist, more than most other sources, is among the best in whatever subject they write on.

Only if you believe big words and a blatant, slight liberal bias make for a better news magazine.

Errr, I mean newspaper. I keep forgetting The Economist's editors are so pretentious they insist their magazine is a newspaper.