With the success of such "games" as Dr. Hiroshima's Big Brain Suduko How Old Is Your Japanese Coach, it is little surprise that publishers are desperately scrabbling for a piece of the action in their ambition to saturate everything that passes through this industry. One man, however, has his head screwed on and ironically, he hails from Microsoft country.
"We're in the business of producing fun, not education," warns Microsoft's Neil Thompson. "It so happens that certain products we produce have educational value. We're in the business of creating fun entertainment and the moment we try to pretend we're in the business of education we've crossed the line and it's dangerous for us as a company and as an industry.
"We've got to concentrate on producing great quality commercial products that will sell, because it costs too much money to get that wrong."
I never thought I'd say that a man called Thompson was right about videogames, but here we go -- I'm with Thompson on this. While he concedes that games can be used as educational tools, he also stresses that if the industry as a whole decided to push educational games to capitalize on the few big successes, a lot of money will be lost.
But of course, I'd say that's true of everything, not just educational games. Isn't that right, New Xbox Experience?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
1:22 PM on 10.27.2008
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It's been shown in research that physical activity can help your brain cells better than sudoku's and these Brain Age training gains
I kinda read his statement as "Fuck education, we want MONEY!". Business yes, moral not so much.
He seems to give little regard for how much education a videogame can provide, and yet remain fun (ie profitable).
Maybe they should talk to each other before they start contradicting each other.
Sounds like M$ is butthurt over missing out on brain-age profits.
Don't judge me.
...but they aren't in the business of making education games?
Civ.
Microsoft just partnered with my school to be part of the "1st scientific-based game research alliance"
For Microsoft's "Games for Learning" initiative...
http://research.microsoft.com/ur/us/gamesinstitute.aspx
Irony or miscommunication much?
Reminds me of the day Sony's Harrison said something like "The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need Personal Computers"
Sony Vaio workers all cringed, and psychopathic Mac fanatics all cheered, not realizing that their Mac is really a PC in disguise......
Brillant, Microsoft.
i.e. "We weren't able to buy developers off to make educational games exclusively for 360 and cash in on the craze. So i'm just going to bitch about them instead"
Seriously, people over and under the 18-25 span? Waste of skin.
Yes, I know that's not what's being said in the original piece.
WINNER
WINNER