Technolandy

Day 84 (of 2024/25) an arcade mindset… hear me out…

A text chat with a friend had us talking a bit about the ‘good old days’ of the coin operated arcades (even though likely cost a lot more in various quarter drops than what our Nintendo switch and games have ended up costing to play games at home!)

But it got me thinking a bit about a la carte games and schooling. Especially thinking about portable devices like the switch and home units like PlayStation and X-box wrecking/acknowledging the experiment of forced group socialization. Was it better when you had to leave home and gather at an arcade? Had to learn some key skills such as taking turns and rigor and competition mindsets. Just like school…

A difference with arcades was the choice – you could pick a favourite or explore a wide variety. And everyone has favourites. Pinball machines harkened back to a more analog age… pac man reflected life – there’s always another lever and it just gets faster… asteroids where you were in control … until you weren’t. 

Then there were games that were gory – mortal kombat got a lot of time on news programs…and by gamers…

Was the social club better than the home isolation led by the Atari 2600 and nes? Then the sega PlayStation and Xbox?

Or is it good to focus just on the games you want to play rather than what doesn’t have a line and stack of quarters? (You would put your quarter down to challenge the person already on the machine… sounds weird, but cheating was also common – as can be seem by a dive into donkey kong and Billy Mitchell   

Hoping you see parallels in learning… focus on passions for learning? Sometimes exploring new realms? Cheating happens etc.  

I know people want to dismiss games – colleagues haven’t liked me sharing chicken run/frogger seeing it as a waste of time – but I still see it as a good introduction to a coding mindset gotta look ahead while being aware of time constraints and things just keep moving faster.

Hmmm maybe we need to recreate a physical arcade to help remind and create a metaphor for learning… the first computer lab my dad set up in the early 80s had the wood shop create a sign: Jim’s Arcade. Maybe it was (could be) more than a joke…!

I may dig into this more!