Stanford Panel Tackles Shifting Games To Mainstream

Thanks to GameSpot for its coverage of a panel discussion at Stanford University named '2010 Game Odyssey - Visions of Electronic Gaming', and discussing "the industry's need to further establish itself as a form of mainstream entertainment." Different participants had starkly separate views, as Doug Lowenstein of the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) opened "...by criticizing the 'narrow-mindedness' of many digital entertainment companies, arguing that 'they still don't understand how the demographic has shifted... we're a victim of our terminology - people tend to pigeonhole us as toys...people don't appreciate [games] as an art.'" However, Jeff Brown of Electronic Arts "...pointed out that 'when you are playing games, you are not watching Viacom [television],' Brown concluded, 'I think we're feared.' Brown argued against the stigma that adults are 'outgrowing' games and instead suggested that the steep decline in gamers over the age of 37 simply demarcates the first generation that grew up with the medium."

Comments

Video Game

[Neo-Rio-101]

In comparison to other sports and games, video games are disparaged because:

* Anti-social (With sports, you are pretty much forced to play with someone else)
* Waste of money (Kicking a football once you have bought it costs nothing, but arcade machines eat coins)
* Lack of exercise (Sitting around the house all day)
* No chance of professional achievement (as, say, with popular sports)
* Addiction (I've never heard of someone who played/survived an 8 hour match of soccer, and still wanted more)
* Viewed as being "mindless" (Chess, and other boardgames aren't - but even then they have a social element, professional rankings, etc.)
* Violence (Contact sports are violent too... but not in the deliberate blood-splatting way some video games are)
* The loser sub-culture stigma (Anyone here old enough to remember the 1981 film "Joysticks" ?)
* Fanatical Christians think role playing games are evil (I'm not kidding on that one: they reckon that creating character as a personification as oneself is idolatory, and then giving them magic powers makes it all look worse.)

So yeah..... anyone for tennis?