People are reading less and less. They’re also watching less and less TV. The reason? They’re switching to interactive entertainment like the internet and video games.Here’s a piece of bricks-and-mortar support for that wild inference. Borders, one of the largest book retail chains in the UK, has started selling video games.
This may seem like a trivial point – after all, read the article and you’ll see that it’s just a couple of titles, sitting quietly next to their DVD and CD racks. Borders is hardly repainting stores nationwide Xbox green.
But it’s the thin end of the wedge.
People’s media habits are changing. They want less linear, point-broadcast media and more interactive, networkable media.
Journalism needs to move into the interactive space – fast – or it will get submerged and overtaken.
Bombastic point made. What do you think about that?
UPDATE
Gaming is bigger than music now, so no wonder Borders is getting into it . . .
TV sucks…Movies are boring…I don’t think they’ll completely go away. Well TV should. The only good shows on TV are PBS and Star Trek.
Sure thing TV and movies won’t go away. Just like books didn’t disappear when we started watching movies. Or movies didn’t disappear when we started watching TV (which is kinda strange, until you remember we’re a social species).
But you’re illustrating my point: people like us aren’t watching TV and other old-style linear media as much as we used to. You have a video gaming blog and you say you hate TV. So you’re prolly not watching much TV news, right? But you’re playing lots of Halo 3, from what I can see. Hours and hours and hours of it. You now know all about the Covenant and you have an intuitive understanding of the mechanics of small-unit tactics in the 25th century.
I bet if we put you in a paintball arena with a guy who’d never played paintball before, you’d pwn.
Same tactics could be used to convey information about the real world. Just a different game.
Actually, some TV providers seem to be altering their methods to cater to the new sensebilities generated by video games. Gaming (mostly) offers a fair bit of instant gratification. I’m not suprised that people who play a lot of GTA are find themselves pretty bored by sitcoms; the game offers at least as much crass dialog, it comes on a lot faster, and there are no comercials.
The Adult Swim arm of the Comedy Network has recently started producing shows that last 11 minutes, commerical-free, rather than the usual 22 or 40-something. When I watch Metalocalypse I get 10 minutes of concentrated fun, and can then button over to video input 3 to play Saint’s Row while I wait for the ocmmericals to run their course.
In the end, I’ll be happy if TV is pushed to evolve by the entertainment provided by video games. As D’anju used to say, “evolve or die!”