News That Stays News

Video Games October 27, 2010

1. Foreign Policy has an article on America’s Army, a free, online first-person shooter produced by the Department of Defense to train future soldiers.

2. Games often grow to resemble work. A scholar breaks down Farmville, and argues that its popularity is a product of the social norms surrounding gifts. A case study of gaming as social obligation.

3. A novelist writes about his addiction to cocaine and Grand Theft Auto in the Guardian.  He lost three years of his life to these addictions, but he still thinks GTA is one of the most preeminent works of art of the last 25 years.

All courtesy of a special report in The Browser.