The Corner of Screen and Street…
Turns out I’m not the only one dressed appropriately for Call Of Duty. I heard the Call… My only mistake was not taking a picture with the zombies on the way out. What a gas! The future on 25-ft screens and all of the action was backstage. That looked like something from a science fiction movie– all of the gamers were sitting at long tables with headsets. “The meek shall inherit the Earth,” just like it says in the Bible… or is it Spiderman?
A lot of what’s happening on the screens is like boxing. It is perfectly age appropriate if you realize that the age of the traditional gamer at the moment is probably 20, exactly 4 months before Mike Tyson became heavyweight champion. There is a great degree of reflexive jabbing, stick and move, shoot and go, run to action in both events. These are military, boxing and jiu-jitsu terms and it’s perfect for the gender and age grouping that I saw in action at The Forum and there was a lot of action at the forum. The Forum holds 17,000 of your closest friends. I know. That was just the bathroom… (Stick with me. We talk about time travel in an upcoming blog and I’ll take you back to that bathroom in 1982 until then, it’s all allegations.) There’s a reflex in gaming similar to what you might have in a street fight. You learn to anticipate and almost levitate like a hovercraft. It’s different than grandparent games like chess, go or backgammon that pre-date what’s happening now digitally. I love what’s happening digitally particularly now that we’re at the corner of Screen and Street. That sounds like an actual place… and it actually is.
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