Computer games are fun; antisocial; creative; promote violence, educational .......

We asked for your opinions on this volatile topic in the Infinity 11 issue. Here's a response from Geoff Colwell. Thanks Geoff.

It seems to me that although technology has improved the visual attraction and realism of many games, they offer few advantages over the games of the late seventies and early eighties. 16K of RAM offered almost limitless opportunities for the programmer of the early eighties, and is there really any major intellectual difference between the games provided by Atari's, PET's and ZX81's and the machines we have on our desks today?

Text based adventure games probably provided greater mental imagery (cf reading "Chocolat" or "The Horse Whisperer" to seeing the respective movies), and there seems little difference in entertainment value between 'Pacman' and 'Space Invaders' and their modern counterparts.

There appears to be little real educational value in 'Sim City' or 'Starcraft' as played by many children. One has to contrast the immediacy of such software with the effort required to structure activities and support educational software such as 'Robolab'. Many games are solitary in nature and it could be argued that they are antisocial and time wasting (but the same criticism could be levelled at many computing activities!), but it must be said that network versions do promote social opportunities for the players. Doubt still remains, however, as to educational content. I have always been ambivalent about the benefits and value of computer games and remain unconvinced.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide input, I must just play a few games of 'Pinball' before dinner...

Geoff Colwell
Townsville Grammar School