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The Social Significance of Games: Killing our Monsters
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SKU	GDC-03-058
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The Social Significance of Games: Killing our Monsters,
507

IGDA, Lecture

Gerard Jones
Writer,
Though still created largely by an esoteric community, video games have reached a level of popularity and power that forces the world to react to them. Politicians act against them, teachers fret about them, psychologists and sociologists study them - with findings that often alarm the public. It’s tempting to draw into defensiveness and geeky arrogance, but that isn’t productive anymore. Old boundaries between cultural cliques have to be knocked down. As movies, TV, and pop music have had to do before them, video games now have to step up into the cultural mainstream. How games affect people matters, and how games are perceived by the world matters. But when we look at the interactivity of game, gamer, and society without our defensive blinders on, we see that the picture is far richer, more interesting, and more encouraging than we usually think.

We need to understand why gamers love what they love and why so many people fear both the games and the gamers - and then begin the first real conversation about how games can become productive and respected components of society. Drawing upon scientific research, cultural studies, the history of other media, and anecdotal evidence drawn from the experiences of both gamers and the game critics, we can begin to understand why these creations are simultaneously so compelling and terrifying, and how they can figure even more significantly in the cultural landscape of the future.

The current tense dialogue about video games in society can be made productive to all sides through mutual empathy and a willingness to look at what we know in new ways.

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