Boys will be boys....

.... or do their toys make them so?

This one about the game designer Sid Meier is interesting. On the idea of getting the players hooked early, there is a lesson for all of us teachers. Somehow the students eyebrows need to be raised pretty close to the start of a course. On the idea that all gamers are egomaniacs and good game design plays to the crowd --- that is very frightening, especially as we think of all the time kids put in playing games.

For me this is a throwing stones in a glass house sort of thing. I don't play games anymore (I did play Railroad Tycoon in the 199os) but last night I was screaming at the TV as Stony Brook was picking our pocket (they were much shorter than we were and we were throwing bounce passes, not smart) and raining threes on us in the first half. (When I was in college they were SUNY at Stony Brook and had no basketball team I can recall.) We played a little better after the first 10 minutes or so and I screamed less in the second half, though the game was close till right near the end. I do try to keep my childish behavior cordoned off to a fairly limited space of fandom and I note that our consummate politician, President Obama, understands this is the social norm, so shrewdly records a clip with Andy Katz to show his own picks for the NCAA Tournament brackets.

I wonder if there is a quiet conspiracy between game designers and the Republicans.