Wired Gets It Wright
So, the new April 2006 issue of Wired Magazine has made it into stores, and it's guest curated by The Sims and Sim City's maestro Will Wright, who appears on the cover with Spore-mirrored sunglasses.
One of the articles already posted online from the issue is Wright's editorial on how games help, explaining: "Just watch a kid with a new videogame. The last thing they do is read the manual. Instead, they pick up the controller and start mashing buttons to see what happens. This isn't a random process; it's the essence of the scientific method."
Also up is a piece by Steven Johnson, which intriguingly claims of the big online game worlds of MMOs and commerce: "There is reason to believe that the divided metaverse is merely a transitional phase, and that its component worlds will coalesce." Oh, and a mini-article on 'one-minute games' by the writer of this GSW post, if you'll forgive the self-reference. In any case, fun stuff!
Comments
The piece by Steve Johnson is either poorly conceived or poorly communicated. His analysis just doesn't make any sense in part because he demonstrates a very impoverished philosophy of technology. I assume that because he is given some space in Wired that he's proven himself elsewhere, but this particular proposal is all chew and no meat.
Posted by: Liminal | March 25, 2006 7:48 PM
I haven't read the article, but he's definitely proven himself elsewhere. He has a book out called "Everything Bad is Good For You" dispelling myths about video games and other pop culture. He also had an article in Discover last year about how video games are good for you, which was a very good read.
Posted by: Carlos | March 26, 2006 1:42 PM
Personally I've always been the sort who doesn't even turn the game on or put it into the system until I've finished the manual. I've been this way since I first got my NES as a child and was always rather upset when a rental game (or more recently used game) doesn't include the manual.
I've long felt that it says a lot about you whether you're the type to read the entire manual first, read the manual only as a last resot, or basically throw out the manual and refuse to ever look anything up. A strong part of me also wants to think that the people who don't RTFM first are those who demand that other people give them the answers rather than solving the problem with the available information even if it seems a bit counter-intuitive (probably based on years and years of being asked "How'd you do that!?!?" or "Ohh... that's what that does!" or most irritatingly "How do I do foo?" and responding that it's in the manual).
Posted by: Belgand | March 27, 2006 1:13 AM