Games and values

If you read Norwegian, check out Rune Klevjer's article Spill og Verdier in Dagladet.no. It is part of a debate about how the Norwegian public culture politics ignore games (video and computer).

Rune Klevjer's article has several good points, even if I do feel the pain when he attacks researchers who don't do enough to change Norwegian game politics. I guess I should be writing articles continuously. Most of all I agree in his point that Computer Games are not defined as culture, the same way as film or literature.

No, they are not. This is why games are seen to be so disruptive to the process of human development, unlike reading books. To have something accepted as culture does however take time. But how long before film was culture? Television? We still talk about high and low culture, classic culture and popular culture - we accept that some entertainment is approaching classic status, while other types are too tacky for words - particularly printed words in propositions for support through the channels supporting the high culture.

Perhaps some of this is the fault of researchers. But even a doctorate doesn't nullify the slowness of cultural change. Still, things have happened, the proposal to support Norwegian, non-violent computer games did go through, even if it has the qualifiers Rune Klevjer argues against in his article: non-violent norwegian language games for children. Norway is changing, even if somewhat slower than we might wish.