America's Official J*ke gets another interview

[Rookierookie]

No, I'm not talking about Bush.

I'm talking about an interview of Jack Thompson.

Those of us who have heard of him would of course have some idea of what this is about, but I'm going to just extract a couple of absolutely priceless lines...

Originally Posted by Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson: Yes, there are plenty of wholesome, educational games out there. And there are good manufacturers out there. Video games are like any other technology – it’s neutral, capable of either good or evil. I don’t want to do away with video games. I just want to protect children from adult games.

And on the very next line....

Originally Posted by Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson: Yes, put down the controller and get a life. Video gaming is an escapist activity and you’re being exploited by these companies. It’s not healthy; I worry about someone who would play Grand Theft Auto for ten hours a day. It’s a masturbatory activity, and it would be better if people put down the controller and went outside.

Well, so much for logic

[Magrus]

I may enjoy video games, but not that much. Besides, if that were the case, everyone would be sore and chaffing after a couple of hours and would have to stop.
Fas has been demoted to lurker. Nah nah nah nah.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Rookierookie

Well, so much for logic

But he's not contradicting himself. He's arguing against the demonization of video games, but at the same time suggesting people who play them have a responsibility to take control of their own lives, and not spend (for example) four hours a night doing nothing but playing.

I disagree with him (well, on many things, but...) that game-playing is automatically a masturbatory activity. He might as well say book-reading is movie-watching, or even thinking are masturbatory activities. None of these are other-engaging, social activities: so what? But he's right, I think, in suggesting that it's possible for kids to get drawn into video gaming to the extent that they do little else. Consider the people who believe in Jedi codes and such blatherskite. That's not healthy for the individual, and that's not simply an opinion, either.

[Luis Antonio]

Plenty educational games? Name ten that are actually educational.

I like gaming without "I wanna teach you" wannabe titles.

Gaming is for fun, for time killing, and to remember epic adventures or to flame gamemakers. Not for learning, at least not for learning when you are over 12. My opinion.

[RandomThug]

Ten Educational Video games.

1. Any Total War Game. Specifically Rome.
2. Dynasty Warriors (Chinese History)
3. Civilization (Again history stuff)
4. Leisure Suit Larry (Tought me everything I ever needed to know)
5. Any Simulation game.. flight sims, sim city etc.
6. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
7. Those systems for little kids out now adays where the whole purpose of the "video game" is to learn.
8. ICO , any game that gives you that many puzzles etc is testing the brain and making you think and work.
9. Alright so including those sequels above more than ten already.

[Denethorn]

You're right actually , some of the more strategy or sim based games are quite educational. I remember being enlightened as a young 'un by Simcity or Age of Empires

[Luis Antonio]

Aw, c'mon, dont tell me you play it cause your're curious and that you keep reading all the civilopedia works that the guys ship the games with. It'll be a lie. You get to know some people developed this and looked like that, but aside from that, its all superficial.

[Magrus]

Sim City didn't teach me anything. It was my "computer research" in school. Idiot teachers.

@ Random Thug, Leisure Suit Larry....you used that for an educational guide? Oh, the trial and error method.

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by RandomThug

8. ICO , any game that gives you that many puzzles etc is testing the brain and making you think and work.

The whole Myst series too.

@Luis, you don't need to go through things like Civipedia to learn some stuff about the civilisation, you can just play it, discover what kind of units there are, purposes of buildings, discover which things could be classed as 'Wonders of the World' etc.

[dj_venom]

Monkey Island, that was a great game, loved all 4, just wish they'd hurry up and make number 5... my most favourite game series ever. If you haven't played it, then play it, not only is it challenging, it's got a heap of funny bits in it.

And I believe everything is educational. For a long time I have argued that the Simpsons are educational, as they say some much stuff. Then once, on Who wants to be a Millionaire (Aussie version), there was a 125k question, and it was "Which of these words mean attractive" (or something along those lines). The guy immediately ruled out two words, and was left with the right answer, and Machiavellian. Then he remember on Simpsons, were Homer called Bart that, and said I'll lock in the other one... and of course he was right.

And I use that against every anti-Simpons parent out there .

[Luis Antonio]

@Rav, that's not educational, that's barely a provocation, a nudge to see if you're going to just believe it or go to a local library for personal enlightment. They teach nothing, exactly because you keep evolving and evolving quickly to destroy/win/reach the map goals.

Its like Baldur's Gate: Is it educational? No, its completely twisted, and yet, its funny, you play, evolve, bring peace to the land, stuff like that. You cant use it as data for further learning.

Civilization games have a storyline behind them. Ok. But is it complete? Is it really something you learn while playing?

I dont think so. Its about evolving as fast as you can (therefore without really paying attention or really feeling what each evolution feels like in the day after day life and the increment in production, culture) and killing every enemy or making every possible commerce alliance you can.

Puzzle games are not educative, they're mind challenging, so you can learn better cause your brain have more neural conections ready when you need them.

[fable]

The whole "games are educational" issue has been pretty well discussed here, before. CE (GB's svelte biologist, who should be back, soon) pretty well exploded the pop culture assumption that games are educational beyond early childhood (or language teaching tools). They can be mind-challenging, and that's good.

But so what? Thompson may usually be yet-another public court jester trying to appear like a wise man, but his point remains accurate: it's demonstrably all too easy to get obsessed with games, given their focus and interactivity. You can get obssessed, too, with reading, or tv, or movie-watching, but its that interactivity in computer gaming that can make a difference. This doesn't make games evil, just as he said, but it does mean that gamers need to be careful in how they budget their time. And just how badly many do this can be seen by checking vairous threads here in SYM, where we've had some members state blandly that they put in 40 hours or more a week in gaming; while others discuss games in some of the forums as if they were reallife. That isn't personally healthy.

[Hill-Shatar]

I'm not so sure that that is entirely restricted to video games in particular. PnP games can get pretty obsessive... loosing a character can be incredibly disheartening for whoever was playing them.

I've seen men and woman gamble much more, spend more time in front of the TV and play cards then play video games. People consider me a gamer and I play less than 5 hours a week now.

They recently tried bringing in a series of educational video games for a variety of platforms. They received little attention. If I remember correctly, all four were in the most boring games section of a recent magazine.

I've heard men and woman consider tycoon games educational, but really, its just like buying a chocolate bar, choosing how to use it and then protecting it/stopping it from melting. Little mental requirements for those games, IMO. Many strategy games today are more common sense, from what I have seen.

Though not educational, it is fun. It's a past time that I enjoy when I can high jack the time, as my posting on GB is pretty much while waiting for something to finish loading, in between experiments and while I'm running gels.

I've seen many people more violent than some FPS players, and they complete there days at the shooting range firing at silhouettes of people. Aggressiveness and violent tendencies need to be there, in my opinion, for incidents usually described by Jack Thompson.

Ooh, much more level headed than my last one. Must be the sleep.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by RandomThug

Ten Educational Video games.

1. Any Total War Game. Specifically Rome.
2. Dynasty Warriors (Chinese History)
3. Civilization (Again history stuff)
4. Leisure Suit Larry (Tought me everything I ever needed to know)
5. Any Simulation game.. flight sims, sim city etc.
6. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
7. Those systems for little kids out now adays where the whole purpose of the "video game" is to learn.
8. ICO , any game that gives you that many puzzles etc is testing the brain and making you think and work.
9. Alright so including those sequels above more than ten already.

Do not take this the wrong way, but that list is a load.

Educational games, in the context in which Thompson is using, are games with the sole intent to teach and the gamer to learn, not a game that takes a dozen interesting facts, throws them into a game, and then attempts to pass it off as 'educational'. Just because a game challenges thought, it does not make it educational, as it does not actually teach something. Rather it encourages a form of thinking in order to further yourself in the progress of the game, to continue on with the supposed enjoyment you earn from completing such tasks.

The bottom line, games are marketted primarily as entertainment.

As for my feelings against 'Wacko Jacko' (as some notable sources refer to him as), it would seem he is using his powers of Legalese to change the original challenge (to which, much of what he used in defence of not honouring his challenge). In the initial challenge, he did not state that it had to be a profit-earning game developer, nor do I see how what year the game is released in should matter (unless, of course, he could not benefit any further from charitable write-offs when issuing the challenge in 2005).

From my understanding, a host of games and modifications for games came out after the challenge that met the criteria of the time, and they were played (another aspect of his defense was that none could be played, which is completely fallicious).

Frankly, Thompson is simply the next wave in Conservative zealots who, because of a generation gap, feel the need to attack the latest bit of media entertainment. While I agree on his points that GTA is grotesquely violent (I personally dislike the games greatly), I do not think the way he is going about his crusade is the way to enact change.