The Year in Game Politics

The Next Generation site has a look back at 2007 through a political lens. Manhunt 2, crackdowns on game sales, and endless stories about gaming and aggression seemed to dominate game headlines this year. The article runs down the details on each of these thorny issues: "There is no conclusive evidence that playing violent videogames leads to violent acts. That hasn't stopped researchers from looking for links between videogames and aggression. A study released ... in November tainted [the role of games as teachers] ... A University of Michigan study by psychology professor Rowell Huesmann called violent videogames a public health threat ... And Villanova University in Pennsylvania found that games caused aggression, but not much: 'It's not as if this is a light switch that either videogames do or do not cause aggression...Most people assume it has a really big effect, but what we find from research is it actually has a very tiny effect,' professor Patrick Markey told Next-Gen in April."

Don Quixote

[ChromeAeonium]

Whenever I hear about video games being a menace to society, I always think of the book Don Quixote. There's a part in the book where the priest goes through Don Quixote's romantic knight novels, and declares that they are the reason he went loopy and took off to play knight. Hundreds of years later, it's the same story, just a different medium. Just something to think about.