I will probably need to add a new category for games and violence/politics at some point here on buttonmashing.com. I don’t cover them as thoroughly as Game Politics and others but I still follow it closely. (I’m little bit of a poltical junkie but I try to avoid anything too political on these pages). Anyway, this is old in blog-time, but there’s a good response to Hillary Clinton’s propsed legislation I briefly mentioned here at Tech Central Station.
I like that other people are getting into the discourse. John Luik isn’t a gamer but says something that I just love.
For some, these complaints about video games are nothing more than a reflection of the cultural and generational divide between those below and above age 40. For instance, the Economist recently noted that “The opposition to gaming springs largely from the neophobia that has pitted the old against the entertainments of the young for centuries. Most gamers are under 40, and most critics are non-games-playing over 40s.” That may well be true, though studies suggest that about half of Americans play some sort of video game. As for age and bias, I am both not a game player and rather regrettably well past 40, but the evidence leads me to side with the kids who want to play.
I also find it interesting how many people (bloggers) out there are into gaming in one form or another that aren’t “gaming bloggers”. I read a lot of gaming blogs (too many!) but I also read my fair share of blogs on other topics. I recently read this little gaming blurb on VodkaPundit about Bushnell’s comment about the number of gamers being smaller than 20 years ago. The VodkaPundit, as long as I’ve read him, doesn’t often comment on such things, so it’s cool to see others talking about it. What really amazed me where the number of comments remininscing about gaming. I think that’s a great thing and I hope it continues.