Skip to main content

A special roundtable discussion podcast between Aaron Franz of theageoftransitions, Adam of cerebralrevolt and myself discussing computer games, their origins, their psychological and social impacts and the role of the security state in their production and development.  In the first hour we specifically honed in on World of Warcraft – the immersive fantasy game that is being made into a film, and has been the subject of viral videos and at least some credible mainstream media analysis.

[ca_audio url_mp3=”http://theageoftransitions.com/images/stories/radio/Roundtable_Discussion_on_Video_Game_Addiction_part_1.mp3″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player” autoplay=”false” download=”false” html5=”false”]

Download: 64kbps mp3

In the second hour we talked about the intelligence and security connections with the computer games industry, the infiltration of and spying on World of Warcraft and other virtual realities, the Pentagon’s own video game America’s Army and the spin-off comic of the same name, and much more.

[ca_audio url_mp3=”http://theageoftransitions.com/images/stories/radio/Roundtable_Discussion_on_Video_Game_Addiction_part_2.mp3″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player” autoplay=”false” download=”false” html5=”false”]

Download: 64kbps mp3

Video by Aaron Franz, audio by Adam.

Sources:

WOW Addiction (mini documentary)

BBC Panorama on Computer Game addiction

Digital Nation documentary

The Daedalus Project

Greatest Freakout Ever

NSA + GCHQ spying on Computer Games and Digital Environments (Snowden documents)