The Skulls And Academic Gaming

What started out as a bleak, cloudy Tuesday morning (one wonders if there is any other kind these days) later developed into a not-so-bad afternoon, as yours truly found out that in an online survey on student satisfaction conducted several months ago he scored a consistent 8.7 and 9.2 out of a possible 10 (this based on the two subjects he taught previously) . Admittedly nothing too grandiose, and nothing that will win him any awards, but the sense of a job well done is in the air. Seems like the intimidation and browbeating did work after all, heheh (if only they knew).

So as he langourously lounged (or rather, tried to be as languorous as physically possible, which is easier said than done considering the Ox has the consistency of lumpy plasticine) on the rickety old computer chair he decided to do some reading, since bloglines has now made it possible for him to get his daily dose of internet-trivia without expending any energy. Two articles got his attention. The first, courtesy of rense.com was an unsurprising expose on the clique mentality in the US, or more accurately how exclusive, all-men clubs with waiting periods stretching into decades are enjoying their "apartness", even, it seems, from common sense. To quote:

"Mostly, the members are old white guys. They want younger faces at all these clubs, but by the time people work their way up the waiting lists, the dew is off the bloom. The lawyer who went through the lengthy process to join the PU is also on a waiting list for the Bohemian Club. He's been on it for 20 years.."

It's an extremely long article, but goes a long way into describing these clubs that are so exclusive, not even women can come in. Prospective members have go through a grueling initiation and invitation phase and assuming they eventually get in, have to abide by rules of the ultimate secrecy. However not everyone who's supposedly a celebrity can get in:

"The club recently said no to one tycoon -- Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun Microsystems. He was named the best CEO golfer in the country by Golf Digest magazine. Whatever this club is holding out for, it's not members with a great swing."

I could go on and on about this, but I'll let you all decide. The other little snippet that caught my eye came from Gamespot, in their weekly GameSpotting column. Features Associate Editor Steve Palley writes on the possible academic merits of video gaming. Not in the multimedia-in-education sense of the term (like we're so fond of using here) but in the notion that one day, perhaps studies in the psychology and art of the video game may prove to be as valid a research topic as Dickens' novels in the past. I think this sentence carries the point quite well:

"We've bought video gaming's economic line completely, and it would be difficult to argue against the burgeoning social impact of the phenomena. But, however much the new media permeates our culture at present time, its ascendancy will be incomplete until the White Towers of academia coronate it."

Palley posits (quite well) that as time goes by, video games will take the path that television and film took before it, and merit serious work into their genesis, evolution and impact. Although he is aware that by being targeted to such a narrow audience (males 18-34) the scope is hardly universal, the essence of a game which is the amalgamation of so many varied art forms demands that it be taken as a discipline worthy in its own right. My favourite paragraph in the whole article continues a description of some of gaming's great designers, like Miyamoto Shigeru (Mario) or Peter Molyneux:

"Designers like these may not have carte blanche from their studios and underwriters, but they certainly command a lot of influence over the shape of the project. Their creative imprimatur is apparent to experienced gamers and cognoscenti. I would say that the work of some of these designers isn't just canonical: it's thematically unified artwork... They are the media in which all of the previously mentioned art forms can be combined into a single multidisciplinary edifice."

He closes by listing several academic programs in the US that provides a starting point for studies like these. I think I may want to change the focus of my PhD (if I ever get around to doing it). It's just so intriguing living in the times we do, that I'm just tempted to be unoriginal and quote Dickens when he wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.."

Cheers.