I am a dork. This is not just conjecture. I even took a test to prove it. Like a total dork, I grew up watching TV and partaking in weird hobbies like karaoke.
And like many dorks who failed to bloom into nerds or geeks, I was never coordinated enough to play video games. Well it looks like video games have finally caught up with the dork world. The Nintendo Wii is a runaway success based on its ability to simulate... bowling?
I should disclose that the game Brain Age on my handheld Nintendo DS sadly gives me the permission to do useless, simple algebra (e.g., 2+5 = ?) for fun, daily.
Yes, thanks to Nintendo, video games no longer require us dorks to try the sequence "left, left, x, o, trigger, square" to beat our superior geek, nerd, or jock friends. We've finally won the right to play simulated doubles tennis!
This is all a way of rejoicing the dying gasps of the old order, as represented by the first-person-shooter (FPS) game. (Most of you know this genre by the game names: Doom, Unreal, Halo, Castle Wolfenstein, Duke Nuke'em, etc., ad nauseam.) They all look something like this, with just your gun showing on screen.
Perhaps this is where Sony went wrong with PS3 (which isn't doing nearly as well as Nintendo's Wii and is being sold for a massive loss per unit. The Sony PR machine is in deep denial, calling the Wii a "novelty.") They didn't take the dork segment into account. They thought that they could keep making macho shoot 'em ups for their geek audience by upping the graphics, when they forgot that really the play's the thing. And dorks have been waiting a long time for their turn to play.
Games, for whatever reason, ceased to be games and became simulations instead. And then the metaphors in these simulations dominated the interface to a point where things like playability, and fun, and challenge all but disappeared. I'm so glad they're back.
If you need any further evidence that FPS games have had their day and are on their way out, take a look at an FPS that purports to teach you algebra with the slogan, "Learn math or die trying." That's too dorky, even for me.
