Pretty cool.
Of course it is inevitable that the kids will drive innovation in this arena. At first they will be on the demand side of the equation (as consumers of the games and whatever those games evolve into). Later, as they grow into early adulthood, they will be on the supply side (as entrepreneurs or as both low tech and high tech employees of those entrepreneurs).
The real question is why is it taking so f-ing long?
Here is my theory.
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Modern first world industrial societies fit into two basic molds:
<ul><li> more or less capitalist</li><li> and more or less socialist.</li></ul>
In theory both capitalism and socialism are quite interesting. But more importantly (in theory) they are quite different.
However, in practice they produce almost exactly the same rather dreary results. How can this be?
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It turns out that there are two versions of each system. I'm going to exercise some poetic license here and name them as the market version and the crony version.
Now, we are all (more or less) familiar with the concept of market capitalism and with the concept of crony capitalism. But few of us have been exposed to the concept of market socialism or the concept of crony socialism.
Another way to think of them is that the market versions are like the theory and the crony versions are like the practice. I think I could live a happy life in a (theoretical) socialist society. I would rather live in a (theoretical) capitalist society, but if forced to chose between theoretical socialism and crony capitalism I would almost certainly go for the former.
Crony capitalism sucks.
However, if forced to chose between crony socialism and crony capitalism I would probably use my "executive decision making tool" - heads I go for crony socialism, tails I go for crony capitalism.
Because ...
There is not much difference between crony capitalism and crony socialism. Both of them suck. Only a few minor details make them different.
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I'll get off my stump now, and see if anyone else has some input.
LB
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