/ Cory Doctorow / 6:23 am Wed Jan 20, 2010

Taking Games Seriously: UK debate on the place of video games

Progressive UK Labour MP Tom Watson (with whom I serve on the Open Rights Group advisory council) is putting on a panel on how government can support and nurture the video-games industry, calling games "the world's fastest-growing and most lucrative entertainment medium." It's in Westminster on Jan 25 at 6:30 PM, and open to the public.
I am chairing a discussion on the place of video games and virtual worlds in modern society - the lessons we might learn from them, their dangers, and why the public debate needs to move beyond breathless accusations about violent, screen-addicted young people.
Taking Video Games Seriously (via Wonderland)

(Image: Gaming Day, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from nickstone333's photostream)

Previously:

22

  1. I hope it hits the brain development angle. Video games provide an environment that forces children to problem solve on a level and speed that simply doesn’t exist in other forms of children’s entertainment.

    Hop-skotch teaches counting, Mario makes you figure out how to survive.

    1. Hop-skotch teaches counting, Mario makes you figure out how to survive.

      Bad example. In the unlikely event that children were put into a situation where they had to rely on jumping skills to evade deadly mushroom men and spiked turtles, I’d put my money on the kid who spent their time playing hopscotch over the one who played Super Mario Bros.

  2. If a child can’t go outdoors and play with others, I’d much rather see him or her playing a videogame instead of watching a television show or a movie.

    Active participation beats passive absorption in my book.

  3. I opted out of the gaming culture after 6 months of playing Galaga with friends in 1981. I didn’t see the point. I still don’t. I’m still open to what the future may hold.

    I just don’t get a sense of quality experience from it. Watching television can be marginally enriching, Star Trek and UFO fired my imagination in a life-giving way. I also wasted a lot of time watching garbage on TV. Seeing a worthwhile film is like studying a master painting in a museum.

    Playing a video game seems like a half-assed replacement for going outside to explore and play games with others. There’s an essential sensual / visceral element that real-world interaction has and video games just don’t. It’s lacking something essential in that way.

    1. I agree that video games will never trump real life, but if you agree with the value of great films or TV series that fire the imagination, then you really should try some of the newest crop of games. I don’t know how much you’ve looked into it since the 80s, but many recent games are basically playable movies at this point. The visceral thrill I get playing games like “Bioshock”, “Dead Space”, “Assassin’s Creed 2”, “Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare”, and “Fallout 3” is vastly superior to 95% of the films I saw last year.

      There is still a lot of crap out there, but the great leaps in gaming since 2004 should not be ignored.

      1. Uncle_Max:

        I visit this struggle in another area, which is visual art. I’m so accomplished both physically making things and visualizing on the computer. I can easily get addicted to the purity and accuracy of the computer to the detriment of my work. It’s a great tool and it can suck life away in a very real capacity.

        I’ll get back to trying a game at some point. I do see the potential in regards to creative expression. Even the trailers to the best new games feel palpably primitive to me. We’ll see where it goes.

      2. Seconded. But even older games can really get the ol’ gears turnin’ when the story is compelling, and the gameplay demands creativity and quick-thinking to succeed, producing an experience very much like being in a lively conversation. The graphics may demand a greater effort on the part of your imagination, but that can be far more engaging then playing something closely approximating reality.

        It’s important to understand that video games also provide an avenue for mental stimulation when you don’t desire a particular brand, or any brand, of human-human interaction (i.e. escapism?). I’m not talking about permanently cutting yourself off from society, just taking a break in order to make life more liveable.

    2. Dismissing gaming based on the Galaga scene in 1981 would be roughly like writing off current movies after watching a few of the first kinetoscope parlour offerings.

      If you find the game experience lacking you are likely playing the wrong game (for you) with the wrong people.

      1. To be clear, I’m not dismissing games. I’m just not holding them up as superior for any reason.

        1. Understood (now) and I am in agreement with much of what you have said – your later posts were far more clear to me than your first.

    3. I don’t understand why you see a compelling comparison between video games and “real life” yet not between TV and movies and real life. It sounds to me you’re judging video games unfairly just because there’s an interactive component; TV and movies often serve just as much as surrogates for live interactions for people. It just depends on who you’re looking at. Don’t tell me that when you were a kid (happened when I was, and I’m 24 now) somebody didn’t tell you to get your ass away from the TV and do “something real.”

      Me, I just see video games as a movie where you get to move the character through the story. The narrator still gets to tell their story intact, but with minute adjustments you introduce.

      The quality of the story, of course, is variable. But unlike you, I don’t attribute quality or lack of it to the medium.

      Let’s bring in a food analogy: Just because I don’t like gouda doesn’t necessarily mean all cheese is terrible. I need to look for the right cheese.

      Sorry, I’m hungry.

    4. I can’t speak for all games, but ones like Portal – or even some very old ones like Rocky’s Boots – have fired my imagination at least as much as most episodes of Star Trek.

  4. I used to teach young people with learning difficulties of varying degrees and found that things like Spelunx (remember that?) and the Sims were excellent tools for getting people to solve problems and manage multiple problems in a coordinated fashion. Myst and Riven really stretched the more capable students (and me) and several puzzle games helped to sharpen cognition and problem solving. I guess you could even use GTA to discuss moral problems if you went about it the right way!?

    Kids are smarter than we think and they are learning some pretty nifty skills whilst gaming.

    Just don’t get me started on on-line porn…

  5. The limit of video games as a medium of quality expression and learning is not about technology, it’s about human creative innovation. Technology may me leaping forward at a mind-blowing rate, however, I predict it’s not going to “save” us. It’s a tool. We have fancier tools than Leonardo da Vinci. part of me is reserved and says “so what?” It’s still up to us to develop and use the tools to serve us in a life-giving way. i don’t think that dynamic is going to change.

  6. I’m all for discussion and innovation, but why in the world would we want to the government (whichever government) to actively “support and nurture” the industry? Or allow the government any role at all in determining the relative merits of various games and gaming genres?

  7. And while you’re visiting the MP’s site, click on the “TEENS” tab at the top of the page… you’ll, as he puts it, “ROFFLE”!:

    “We know that you’re too busy fighting off your biological urges and being l33t hax0rs to Get Involved, but politics is cool, m’kay? Nobody ever seems to do anything for The Kids! All the decisions are made by suits, man. That’s so lame!!! We know you think of yourselves as responsible citizens, but what you wanna do is turn that thought into an action, dudes.

    “The BBC politics for kids/teens site is, like, totally wacked! Ditto for the Parliament education site, which even has a section for younger yoof. Fanta-stick!

    “(Hey, chill with the anti-Europe vibes already! You totally won’t be able to wear the word ‘fcuk’ on your shirt anymore if we break our connection with France, y’dig? ROFFLE!)”

  8. If the question here is to address the validity of video games as a medium of creative expression and learning, then I have no quarrel. It’s valid expression. It’s a young, primitive expression given power by older, more developed expressions, like painting, cinema, dance, strategy games, whatever.

    My issue is with inferring that it’s more than a tool. It’s just a tool delivering an expression to be experienced. The essential core is what’s being expressed and experienced, not the delivery system. In that light, I don’t think there’s anything new or special about video games. Don’t say it’s a very special precious tool. Like any other tool, it’s limited by human imagination and ingenuity.

    The debate that matters is about the quality of imagination, what ideologies are being served, etc. For me it’s about the quality of expression and interaction, which is either life-giving or not. That it’s a video game is superfluous. If the government wants to invest, let it invest in the general practice of creativity, which is life-giving to the culture.

  9. The best thing the government could do to nurture the video games industry is to scrap the Digital Economy Bill, which includes provisions to kill off all small games production by making it mandatory for games developers to pay huge certification fees to get an age rating.

  10. I had a chance to spend some time with Mr. Watson at an OECD meeting I spoke at in Paris last year, and even more time with two of his aides. He and his people strike me as people who ‘get it’ about games, virtual worlds and the Internet in general.

    He especially gets that the both videogames and online games development and publishing generate jobs and innovation; I’m betting he would like to see the UK get more involved with support in this area. With Canada providing some pretty incredible tax benefits to game studios and game publishers and developers taking advantage of them to lay off developers in Europe in favor of Montreal, the UK and Europe in general needs to find a way to respond, :-).

    So a seminar on the place of such in society is a good place to start. Wish I could that a day off and fly over for it!

  11. Oh it just doesn’t have to be so serious. Games are fun, life is fun, what else is their to it.

    We all need to take care of ourselves, we need to take care of all the important things. But games are also a part. And for some it is not, and that is fine.

    I like to play games. I like Adventure games because it is something to do, when I am feeling lazy.

Comments are closed.