My good friend Doug Hackney emailed me this story. It seems that in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he was born, the town hopes to rebuild its economic prosperity off its new self-proclaimed identity as home to the “International Video Game Hall of Fame.” What is the linkage between Ottumwa, Iowa and video games? Nothing. There is none. Where will the funding come from to build what board vice-chair Dan Canny calls “the most complete archive of video-game history” in this city of 25,000 people? No one knows.

This is a cautionary tale, a parable for our immediacy if we don’t reclaim the aspirational future America has always pursued. Where middle America once produced things, now we produce a lust for the past:  reliving the heyday of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man and Defender.

Something else Mr. Canny misses is this:  When he quotes the “$58 billion global gaming industry,” that is apportioned toward two streams:  platform games like “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” and “Gears of War” that are played at home on console units; and freemium games on social network sites, most especially Facebook, but also on mobile devices.  His hall of fame — to games from the early Reagan era — has no relevance to that industry. And the people who actually work in that industry have no interest in these “Back to the Future” games — they weren’t born yet.

You can’t build the future by focusing on the past.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.