Biff! Pow! Computer Games Grow Up!
No, wait, that’s every news article about comic books ever. Computer games don’t usually fare much better, despite a higher profile in real life – compare the number GAME bags around town with those from Forbidden Planet/generic comics store. Though this has been skewed in Ireland by the Plastic Bag Tax, which has the result that comics fans are receiving their wares in brown paper bags. Nice.
Anyway, computer games coverage in the news is generally “Videogames cause crazed teen to kill entire town” or a paragraph on page 7 about “Korean man dies after playing games for 50 hours”. So it’s nice to see something like this piece about DDR. The notional focus of the story – bright kid starts scamming the arcade to improve his skills – is second to establishing a feel for how teenagers can form a community around anything substantial: It’s closer to Slackers than Hackers.
See also: Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play, which got some, but not enough, coverage.