Something about video games seems to drive writers to hyperbole.
Maybe writing seriously about a medium that most people associate with children’s toys pushes writers into overheated statements about the reach and importance of games in society. There’s a little bit of self-justification in there as well, I suspect.
In the case of Tom Chatfield’s Fun Inc., it’s right there in the subtitle: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century.
I braced myself for an overly optimistic assessment of how much people will be willing to do whatever you want them to do in the future as long as you present it in the form of a game and throw them some achievements.
But I was pleasantly surprised. Instead, Fun Inc. offers a survey of issues affecting and affected by video games. The book does not provide a detailed study of any particular topic, but it works well as an overview.
Chatfield provides a 30,000-foot view of some weighty topics. He covers the history of video games very briefly before launching into weightier topics such as the financial future of the industry (hint: more Angry Birds, less Grand Theft Auto IV), why games appeal to us, game violence, self-organizing communities in online games, and tapping game principles to drive social change.
He approaches each of these issues as an enthusiastic gamer (he compares Eve Online to “performance art” and James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, offering a clue as to where his interests lie). For example, he cuts through the sensationalism that surrounds violent games. He unpacks both sides of the issue, concluding that games are still perceived as children’s toys and violence seems especially egregious in that context. In fact, most real-world cases in which violence is inspired by a game involve mentally unstable people. And crime rates have fallen as violence in games has become more graphic. Not that the two are related, but it does contradict the standard media narrative.
Personally, I find it difficult to see why someone would play a Star Wars game and end up working in a virtual factory instead of being a head-lopping Jedi Knight. But it happened, and it implies a great deal about the potential for using games outside of gaming.
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