The Escapist Issue #38 Now Available

Category: News Archive

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Written by BuckGB on March 29th, 2006

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There's a whole generation of baby boomers out there who, for the most part, grew up without computers and don't get games. They got their parent-bugging, rebellious kicks in other ways (notably by growing their hair long, listening to rock 'n' roll and protesting an unjust war - OK, so maybe things aren't so very different). A lot of boomers don't understand why their son barricades himself in his room every afternoon killing demons... why their daughter, instead of playing with Barbies, spends every waking moment raising a family of little electronic people. People fear and blame what they don't understand. It's always been that way.

And thanks to hardware advances, what gamers experience these days is clearly more compelling, at least on the surface, than what we used to offer, which further increases the gate-keepers' fear level - escaping to a 16-color virtual world populated by stick figure villains was one thing; escaping to a world where the cop you kill or the car you steal looks, sounds and behaves like the real thing is an entirely different matter. Is it any
wonder non-gaming adults in positions of power fear us and our influence?

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