Mainstream Press Still Needs Help With Games 57
Just when things seemed to be looking up, we have two prime examples of poor reporting on the gaming hobby. Chris Kohler, via a Game|Life blog post, points out an ABC report entitled Health Alert: Pulling the plug on Videogames. They list the dangers to your health that gaming can cause (excessive blinking, of course) and include a handly list of things to do besides game. Like 'Learn to change the oil or a tire on a car'. Meanwhile, the Jacksonville Daily News reports on those massively multiplayer thingies. From that article: "Anderson is one of an unknown number of individuals who split their time between the reality most inhabit and the virtual realities conjured by Internet role-playing game designers whose dreamscapes have become increasingly engrossing and even addictive."
Um, Hello? (Score:4, Insightful)
For a perfect example of this, dig up the old "Google has confirmed a web based OpenOffice!" Any idiot who had listened to the broadcast would know that Sun and Google merely annouced a bundling deal. Yet the press was convinced, so they printed it.
Non-Gamers (Score:3, Insightful)
People Die (Score:3, Insightful)
People die. Usually as they get older. They are replaced by younger people.
At some point most of the government, the media, the police, etc. will be from your generation. There will probably be a president that has played Super Mario Brothers, or World of Warcraft.
Whatever videogames are "doing to our kids", they have already done to us, and we're not exactly helpless.
If you'd like to worry about something long-term, think about this: the population of China is almost a quarter of the world's population. India and China combined is over a third of the world's population. In the grand scheme of things, our petty concerns over here have almost nothing to do with the state of the world.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's start with little subjects, like Politics, fact-checking, and real news.
Then we'll worry about video games.
Surely you read the article? (Score:1, Insightful)
It is not suprising that there was no by-line on the article; anyone with any self respect left would fear being found out and laughed at.
It is not a big leap to go from "lack of proofreading" to "lack of any critical examination at all".