Dans un très bon article écrit pour “the Escapist”, Brenda Brathwaite (Game Designer de profession) s’interroge sur les causes du profond rejet des jeux vidéo observé chez nos aînés.
En interrogeant 40 de ses amis, elle s’est aperçue que la quasi totalité d’entre eux ont qqch de négatif à dire au sujet des jeux vidéos :
I send off an email to 40 people over 30 who aren’t gamers. “Just off the top of your head, what would you say if someone stuck a microphone in your face and said, ‘How do you feel about videogames?’”.
The emails are written (in my head) before I even receive the first reply. Some will note their dislike of videogames and back their opinions up with references to Jack Thompson and Dr. Phil or the plethora of news stories that tout videogames as vile things. The rest will like them, slaver about the Wii or state indifference.Clearly, I am an idiot – 38 out of 40 people had something negative to say.
Son article embrasse les attentes des parents, le rôle des médias dans la crucifixion de quelques titres “marginaux” non représentatifs de l’industrie du jeu vidéo mais aussi le fait que la plupart des acteurs du marchés contribuent à scier la branche sur laquelle ils sont assis :
“I also feel that the game industry in its greed and desperation for sales has been negligent of this growing issue of the fallout of kids playing games. We’re all about how addictive the game is, how much replayability there is and making sure it’s a popular genre like FPS. That’s fine and all, but the result is that you’re creating a program that turns kids into game-playing automatons that spend a lot of time on it because of how addictive and replayable the games are, and that makes them very good at twitch reactions for hiding, jumping, crouching, shooting, lobbing grenades, etc. I agree that a great multiplayer FPS can teach valuable skills when it comes to teamwork and tactics … but it doesn’t improve the basics, like literacy, math skills, physical fitness and diet. These are a lot more important to responsible parents, and if your kid is either playing games all day or pining and whining to play games all day because his friends can, then you’re not going to have a lovely view of the medium.”
Je vous conseille donc la lecture de l’article en entier, c’est très intéressant et ça vaut le coup de s’y pencher, tout comme sur l’article de Harry Jenkins du MIT (déjà cité ici même le 20 Mars) d’ailleurs.
Edit: Même Warren Spector en parle sur son blog… quand je vous dit que cet article est bon!
