In class on Monday we mainly continued to watch the film that we had completed before break. The film finished up with a lot of the same points it began with, but I think it did a really nice job tying everything together. One thing that really struck me at the end was the generational gaps that were so prominent throughout the film. Yeah, there were a few older people defending Danny’s game and there were a few younger people condemning the game, but for the most part there was a pretty prominent divide: older generation found the game offensive, younger generation found the game thought provoking. In class I had mentioned that this probably had something to do with adults only growing up with simplistic games like Pong and Pac-man while my generation has grown up with much more sophisticated games that have tackled a large variety of subjects. The more I thought about it the more I realized that “pioneer” video games were much more about reflex while today’s games involve thought process. There are a few exceptions, but even early 90′s games like Doom and Duke Nukem required a certain amount of strategic thinking. You couldn’t just run into a room completed infested with monsters start shooting and expect to come out with enough health to finish the level; it’s just not practical. Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that I believe a large number of individuals in the older generation who haven’t kept up with gaming still probably think of video games as a reflexive entertainment activity instead of an activity that actually involves thinking. I suppose if I thought of video games as being strictly reflexive then I would probably find SCMRPG to be extremely offensive.
My generation grew up playing not only games like Doom and Duke Nukem, but games that taught us educational things, as well. I remember spending a couple days a week down in my school’s computer lab playing games like Number Munchers and Math Blasters that considerably helped me improve my math skills. Likewise, I wouldn’t have learned how to properly type if it weren’t for some typing game software that my parents got me when I was young. From a very early age I knew that games could be used for educational purposes; without the game aspect of many of those softwares I doubt I would have gotten much out of them. It’s too bad that a lot of people outside my generation did not have the privilege of seeing how much can be learned through games.
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