I was reading an article the other day about a gaming school that was going to open in Singapore. It's aim was to help people, primarily parents, wives, girlfriends, bridge the gap with their children, husbands, boyfriends, who tend to game a lot. I reckon that the school will receive a mixture of responses, since negative connotations such as "addiction" and "violence" are just one of the few things associated with gaming. I should also mention that another aim of the school is to change these opinions of gamers.
Now I would imagine that parents, more specifically mothers, would think this absurd, and do away with the idea of a gaming school altogether, which would then defeat the purpose, no matter how noble the intentions. Others might find it a chore to have to attend a school to learn about something they are not interested in, then again, since when does anybody attend a school and claim that they like everything they learn?
When I read that article the first thing that came to my mind was that this man was a genius. An entrepreneur investing in a high risk venture, with potentially high returns. The benefit to society would be tremendous considering that gaming is becoming more and more involved with our future. Even if its not the games, consider then the technology involved in the games. If successful, this man will earn fortunes, his shares will sore, and people will never look at gaming the same way again.
But of course, like all great public goods, the knowledge of gaming is not restricted to him alone, and if parents are determined to attend such a school, what's stopping them from learning it from their own kids? If girlfriends attend such a school to bridge with their boyfriends, one must wonder what kind of relationship the two must have to drive their partner to such extremes. That's right, an extreme. As much as the idea of a gaming school tickles my interest, and I would love to see how this venture works out, society will forever fail to see the benefits of gaming, and hence having to learn it, unless the benefits are made explicitly clear to them.
The Singapore government promotes family days, promotes young couples getting together, perhaps its time to stop emphasising on the desired result, and start emphasising on the process necessary to attain that result.
