One of the most interesting findings from my PhD research had to do with the point in time when an individual started to take responsibility for their own personal growth. They began to look for the kind of meaningful experiences that would challenge them and help them evolve a more sophisticated worldview. This was often the part of the conversation when I would ask them about the future role of video games in their life. Their answer was usually “none”, they had outgrown games and most of them were around 20 years old. That’s why it is so interesting that a new book by Anna Anthropy called “Rise of the Video Game Zinesters” comes out at an interesting time. There is a good article about the book and Jade Raymond of UbiSoft here:
Maybe video games are stupid. Maybe they’re junk or trash or action movies, at best. Perhaps they are not at all making the world a better place.
And maybe it’s not an old person—some out of touch politician who once bumped into a Pong machine—who will declare this.
Maybe it will be someone young, someone who Occupied Wall Street or someone who is in the exact target market for big-budget video games—they’ll be over 17 and under 35 years of age; male; with money. Maybe that person will declare that video games are not worth their time. And maybe there will be people who agree with them.
Outgrown Games 