Most Dubious Videogame Claims Explored

Thanks to Buzzcut.com for their article exploring the most dubious claims made in relation to videogames, in which the author takes some time to refute game-related maxims such as 'Old people play video games' ("assuming the fact that older women playing Bridge online... can be generalized into broad statements about the general appeal of games lacks a sense of perspective"), 'Games will revolutionize education' ("We are not on the cusp of a breakthrough or entering an era of educational enlightenment. People learn from anything, so they can learn from games"), and 'Games are a social activity' ("Video games can be social. But so can knitting and reading. That doesn't mean they are deeply or purposefully social.")

Comments

Video games not social?

[thanester]

>Still, it would be a gross mischaracterization to
>say that video games are a social activity. The
>fact is, most of us spend most of our time
>playing games looking at our own screen with our
>own eyes by ourselves. If we prefer to play games
>with friends, this is an artifact of our social
>natures.

This seems like a rather shallow/narrow rebuttal to the claim that video games are social. I agree that single-player games are not inherently social, but multi-player games are. MMOGs? I have a co-worker whose wife left him for someone in her clan on Dark Age of Camelot!
I think it's a lot more fun to get together with friends for a Halo frag party than it is to play a similar game online. And it's not just a group of people sitting there "by themselves with their own eyes on their own screen"... we talk trash, laugh together at funny kills/mistakes, yell at each other, get in fights, etc.
I've spent countless hours with co-workers playing Soul Caliber, having tournaments, etc.
Perhaps he should have argued that "many video games have multiplayer components, and many more are specifically designed for social interaction, but arguing that traditional single-player games are social is silly."

My problem with the article

[SandSpider]

My problem with this is that, for something that's meant to dispute myths, there's precious little actual data to back it up. Prime example is the one about the old people. He says that, aside from "older women playing bridge", old people really aren't playing video games. My problems:

1. No data backing it up. Rely's upon, basically, 'I say so.'
2. No defining of terms. What's an "older lady"? I mean, if it's older than the average gamer, then yes, that kind of implies that they aren't the majority of the gamers. But does that mean age 40 and up? 90? What's the age?

That's about it. It's a stupid thing to debunk myths with no data backing you up.

=Brian