Online games: freaky or fun?
February 20, 2008
So, a big craze in online gaming right now seems to focus on the growth or learning one could potentially gain from playing a video game. With all the talk about how games ruin kids and keep them from being responsible citizens (Thank you Barrack Obama!) online game developers are out to prove that they can help people with their products too.
Take this one game: it’s supposed to give the player “inner peace.” I swear, the game scared the hell out of me. Looked like some sort of stereotypical drug trip. Random transparent doves fly in every once in a while, the environment bobs and is hazy, everything is gray and white: I couldn’t take more than 2 minutes before I was freaked out, afraid someone was trying to manipulate me subliminally. This is probably gonna be one of those directions for web2.0 that fails.
On the other hand, this article seemed to present an idea that was a bit more plausible. Using an old game engine, a developer is working on creating an online game to teach journalism students how to be good reporters. By using the interactivity of web2.0, games will be used to prepare students for the professional world. In order for such an idea to work, the game must be well done. A half-baked attempt could likely kill such a possibility. No one wants to play a crappy, disjointed game that is only educational–lacking any entertainment.
