E3, retail, dinosaurs, and mammals

 Posted by (Visited 7940 times)  Game talk
Aug 102006
 

Over a Monte Cristo sandwich the other day (deadly, deadly), I had occasion to discuss the E3 changes with a Silicon Valley guy who was curious. Of course, we recently saw what the E3 organizers told the smaller guys, the ones who lurk in Kentia Hall. (Not always so little — this year, that’s where Guitar Hero was, for example).

The underlying subtext here is that E3 is about publishers, big ones mostly, showing their wares to print media, television, distributors, and retailers. The people who are getting frozen out are the indies, the smaller publishers, the bloggers under a certain mass market threshold, and the consumers.

This seems like an odd step into the future, if you look at current trends.

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I am on the cover of Harper’s

 Posted by (Visited 13069 times)  Game talk, Writing
Aug 092006
 

Which is slightly shocking. 🙂

That is alongside Steven Johnson, Jane Avrich, and Thomas de Zengotita, of course, not all by myself. And the redoubtable Bill Wasik moderating. It’s the September issue.

It’s a Forum piece entitled “Grand Theft Education,” and the question is literacy in the age of video games, seen through the lens of whether video games could be made to teach writing. I’ll say that this was one of the most stimulating conversations I have had in years…

A few very very brief samples to whet the appetite:

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