Games were promoted as a way to keep parents from interacting with their children and to keep children stuck not learning any trade skills.
It backfired on them when more games came out with puzzle, strategy, and character-building elements that actually did teach important skills.
Then, the internet came about and the transfer of ideas about the games promoted a community of 'cheat code" and "exploit" seekers.
The looking for exploits in an information system is another way to describe hackers. They really didn't realize how much promoting games would come back to bite them -- now with a highly trained generation of adults who grew up trying to figure out how to break meticulously crafted systems and bend them to their will. It also taught team-work, community organization skills, and the value of competition for those who broke into the MMO market.
Games like EVE also encouraged entrepreneurship and economic literacy.
I think the reason most games these days are geared toward monetization and short-term rewards is because they realized how badly the messed up their distraction tactic and now have to coerce game developers to dumb games down in order to make up for lost time.
Also online multiplayer was where I first got to interact with people outside of my country on a regular basis and talk to them about what was really going on in their homelands.
Games were promoted as a way to keep parents from interacting with their children and to keep children stuck not learning any trade skills.
It backfired on them when more games came out with puzzle, strategy, and character-building elements that actually did teach important skills.
Then, the internet came about and the transfer of ideas about the games promoted a community of 'cheat code" and "exploit" seekers.
The looking for exploits in an information system is another way to describe hackers. They really didn't realize how much promoting games would come back to bite them -- now with a highly trained generation of adults who grew up trying to figure out how to break meticulously crafted systems and bend them to their will. It also taught team-work, community organization skills, and the value of competition for those who broke into the MMO market.
Games like EVE also encouraged entrepreneurship and economic literacy.
I think the reason most games these days are geared toward monetization and short-term rewards is because they realized how badly the messed up their distraction tactic and now have to coerce game developers to dumb games down in order to make up for lost time.
Also online multiplayer was where I first got to interact with people outside of my country on a regular basis and talk to them about what was really going on in their homelands.