There was a brief discussion piece on the Today programme today, about the popularity of online gaming and... well, I can't really tell what it was about. I think it was about whether or not it's a good idea for people to spend so much time in virtual worlds, or whether it was the decline of society... but it was all very poorly worded.
It started off well, because they had Susan Greenfield and Richard Bartle on to discuss it - big names, really significant. But referring to Bartle as "professor of games design at Essex University" essentially omits what he's done, why he's so important to the field, and why he got that title in the first place. There was a lot of confusion - we clearly weren't talking about computer games, we were talking about massively multiplayer online stuff, but that wasn't clearly defined. Greenfield made an interesting point - that one should consider being on the mobile phone or listening to music as pretty much the same to being online, because we are being distracted from the real input being fed to our senses. Despite John Humphreys' protestations.
The piece was four minutes long, almost went somewhere interesting, but could have done with being half an hour. Two great people to discuss a very interesting topic they both have great perspective on - and it was thrown away as a novelty piece, pretty much; the tone of the programme towards the two doctors appeared to be one of sneering disbelief; "we don't care what you're saying but we have to run this article anyway because the editor said so, so here we go...". Which was a shame. Close, then, but no great discussion, and not much I hadn't heard before.
Posted by tajmahal at January 23, 2004 09:59 AM