timewaster

anyone see the showing last night on discoverHD on computer games?
nothing new in it. but it did show life of what is like for a chinese farmer and showed the ubisoft studios.

There is also a really long article on WoW chinese farmers in nytimes.com magazine section.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/ma...l?ref=magazine

Josh H

I watched both parts last night. They were pretty interesting. Especially the part on professional gaming in South Korea. 23,000 people showing up to watch a Starcraft Tournament? That's crazy!

Mok

I think it repeats today, this afternoon.

Josh H

Yeah, it repeats a few times today and later in the week.

http://dhd.discovery.com/tv-schedule...115770.30017.x

Michael Ballack

I watched it. I'll watch just about any documentary on video games. I found the segment on mmos and online worlds the most interesting. I saw myself in some of the people they featured playing mmos. I was comforted and disturbed with myself at the same time.

Mok

I hated the part with Jack Thompson, that is when I had to shut it off.

Josh H

That part was pretty brief, at least the part he was on, and about all they showed him saying was that violent games could be part of a tipping point for people with mental issues.

There was another interesting part of that segment with a German scientist who had hoped to prove that games were just games and didn't activate the brain in the same manner that performing actual aggressive behaviors. But his tests showed that playing FPS games did activate the same parts of the brain (had them play while doing brain imaging) tied to aggressive behavior.

So I had no problem with that segment, but I'm also in the middle on the issue. I don't think violent games should be banned by any means, but I do think they should be kept away for kids, that they do desensitize people to violence (as do most media depictions of violence), and that they can be tipping points for people who are already unstable.