Date: Sat, 10 Sep 88 00:25:26 EDT
From: attcan!utzoo!henry@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Social content of video games

>How many computer professionals have noticed the continual technical
>improvement of video games in the past couple of years, and the
>concomitant decline of their social and moral content? ...

As has been pointed out in the past, this is silly.  The social and moral
content of chess or Monopoly is also deplorable, looked at from the same
viewpoint.  (Chess is a wargame; the objective of Monopoly is to drive
your friends and relatives into bankruptcy.)  Video games only make it a
bit more obvious.  Wargames, in particular, long predate video games.
Is it less moral to strafe the bad guys in a video game than to condemn
thousands of hypothetical troops to death by moving a counter on a board?
Which is more depersonalizing?
                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology