In Wii Sports you find no aliens, no blood and guts, no bald-headed space marines, no cutscenes with androgynous heroes casting magic spells. Simple games, with tutorials that would walk you through the even simpler controls.
The result? In 2008, we found rooms full of elderly types playing video games. As we watched them flail around with their Wiimotes, we realized this was gaming doing what gaming does best: taking our minds off of the encroaching black maw of death.
On gaming message boards, the hardcore gamers screamed about how the Wii had ruined their hobby, as if the oldsters and soccer moms had crashed the video game party, clearing out the bongs to put down a shuffleboard court. But it was the opposite. Gaming had finally broken out of the niche, its sprawling roots finally invading every last demographic.
Yes, the Wii is a toy, but don't underestimate gaming's role in the future of the culture. Playing is the brain's way of training itself, and what you are seeing up there are the last non-geek holdouts learning to function in a digital, virtual world, in a way that will define how humans interact with computers in the future. First the Wii, then World of Warcraft, then the neural implants. Right on schedule.
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