Of Light And Darkness

18 year-old Devin Thompson (who had previously been arrested for stealing cars) shot three police officers in 2003: When caught, he uttered a phrase that I should take for my email tagline: "Life is a video game. You've got to die sometime." Now attorney Jack Thompson is using the lawsuit bought by the victims' family as a springboard for his one-man crusade against the entertainment industry. As Grand Theft Auto sparks another lawsuit, Thompson will try to prove in court that the GTA games trained Devin to murder.

Doug Whatley's company, BreakAway Games, makes "serious games" for the vertical market. In an interview with Gamasutra he reveals that his biggest client is the US military. He mentions "Fortune 500 companies that will spend five to ten million dollars on a training games" and that "if you're teaching leadership skills to business leaders, there's a whole wide range of game types and styles that you could do." He has even worked on a VR project aimed at relieving the pain that cancer patients feel in chemotherapy.

This is where it comes together. No-one in the videogame world will ever look at Jack Thompson as anything other than a lunatic, while most who read Doug Whatley's interview will admire him. But doesn't Whatley's career prove Thompson's point? If videogames can train you to lead in business then what else can they train you for?