I DVR'd this but have not yet watched it. Sounds like it was pretty good.

As far as GTA: SA, there are options in the fast food places from light meal to extra fatty. A great addition is that what you eat does affect your weight and appearance. If anything the fast food restaurants were satires of the corporate chains and American fast food lifestyle, much like everything else that appeared in visual form or on the radio channels. The fact that the game has exercise equipment to help work off the weight besides the ever-present running and swimming abilities allows for solutions to food intake. How often in games do players actually gain weight based on food intake or lose the ability to run when they've become winded/are out of shape?

Obesity is the biggest threat videogames bring if the kids' parents do not have a clue to get them into some form of physical recreation and better nutritional intake. That claim can be backed up with hard research contrary to FOX News guests and other peanut-gallery members, as you can turn around poor grades easily enough. I really cannot believe the guest or anything else had the GALL to claim research backed up a causal relationship. They obviously do not understand what causal means and how studies performed can at best support a positive correlation NOT a proof of causation. Last I checked we were not doing laboratory experiments with newly born infants in a videogame bubble, which wouldn't prove any conditions for real world consumers let alone causation. Such babbling individuals surely need to take a freshman level investigative methods course and actually read the criticism given many studies, let alone the shortcomings windbag investigators freely admit to.

Speaking of fast food and art, below is a shameless plug for my only oil painting on the subject of food. I cannot paint as well as Bot7, but I think the message conveyed in it speaks for itself well enough. The photo is far too dark sadly.

http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v15/215/95/78700910/n7870...

Rob, yeah, I know that Colbert is a parody show, but the conventional wisdom of games is that they are still for kids, regardless of political affiliation.

But I hope you're right about his audience.

@Jabrwock

sure... i guess what i was ranting about is that its really hard to balance obvious meaning and enjoyable content :)

I very much enjoyed playing (and experiencing the details of) GTA:SA, but some social commentary missed me as a viewer.

I very much do not enjoy and do not look to play games that go out of their way to make social commentary, and so by definition, I miss their points entirely.

I'm a classicly trained artist, and I feel the same way about painting, comics, video -- anything that tries to bash me over the head with a message :) I think, for me, Bogot's interview just pointed that reality out to me... that no matter what, nothing can 'get me talking about an issue' more than talking about it. Video game, painting, radio show, CD, board game... nothing.

Just seemed to contradict his whole point (that video games could present ideas for discussion) during the interview.

Cheers to Ian in that interview! I'm looking at Oil God right now actually!

FngKestrel, it's not that type of show. Most likely a lot of his audience is already on Ian side about video games. Stephen Colbert parodies people like O' Riley and other extreme right wing people. He's actually mocking them, not one of them.

Wow, just got a chance to watch the streaming version. Have to say, I'm very impressed that Bogost (whose name I now pronounce correctly *sheepish grin*) managed to avoid the Colbert derailment.

"I wouldn't know anything about playing a role ..." Good thing it's lunch at the office, otherwise I would've turned heads when I LOLed at that one.

I very much can't wait to read Bogost's book, it's about 3 down on my reading list.

I have to slightly disagree with the idea that video games add complexity - I think they take complexity and package it into discrete bits, which actually takes complexity and humanizes it (read: simplify). But I guess I understand what he was getting at: Video games are not all just simple entertainment or just time wasters.

I wonder what WoW class Colbert plays?

@MachShot

"Well, the Colbert Report is a spin of the O’reily factor. He interupts interviews as much as O’reily does. The interview was interesting though."

True, but when O'Reilly interrupts ppl, you groan at his stupidity. When Colbert interrupts ppl with a comment, you laugh because it's either funny, or so outrageously dumb that it's still funny. :)

It thought the interview was good. Colbert let him talk a lot more than some other guests.

Hmm, Okay I'm going to need to try the game a bit later but my initial reactions are as follows:

1. The mac version would not recognize my uber cool usb snes controller [made it my self from retrousb dot com]

2. If the game is designed to put YOU in the shoes of a Kinko's employee... which I was for 10 years, ran the computer department at Penn, and the object is for you to think about the things that happen to them from their side of the counter, why do the game characters immediatly start to say things like "I don't feel like working today" on the FIRST customer? It seems kind of heavy handed and unfair to make the employee so annoying, they even say "Yeah what" when greeting a customer. This was funny when Dave Chappell did it on his show but its not funny here, its, well, unfair. It does not put me in the employee shoes at all since it already has a very biased artificial intelligence built in. Maybe I'm missing the point... hmmm

I'll give it another shot later and e-mail Ian myself.

anyway, great interview last night, glad to see the positive side of gaming profiled.

[...] YouTube Contact the Webmaster Link to Article video games Ian Bogost’s Appearance on The Colbert Report » Posted at GamePolitics.com on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Ian Bogost’s Appearance on The Colbert Report August 8th, 2007 Bravo, Ian! ...  talked about his new book, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Ian also discussed some of his  serious game designs as well as the power of video games to teach and stimulate View Original Article » [...]

Well, the Colbert Report is a spin of the O'reily factor. He interupts interviews as much as O'reily does. The interview was interesting though.

I do wonder though how it would go on the O Factor. Since all blogers are apparently radical-left Nazi Klansmen I wonder what Ian would be judged as.

Kind of interesting. Colbert didn't play around with Bogost as much as he does with other guests. Kind of interesting to see him take on the subject with interest and give a rather common perspective to the argument.

I love watching the Colbert Report, but you have to admit, he does enjoy toying around with some of these guests.

Good job Dr. Bogost.
One of the things I love about The Daily Show and Colbert are that these two ARE gamers. You can tell by the rare times they speak about it. There are a lot of wonderful books about video games from professors like this - Dr. James Gee springs immediately to mind, look him up people! - and I'm glad to see them get the mainstream attention they deserve.

Liked it but I think there would have been more hilarity if it had been Bill O'Riley. :O

I'm just evil that way.

BTW, I can't remember which article it was where there was a mention of "expressive media", but Persuasive Games is a very good example of "expressive media" vs "educational media" or "entertainment media"
because they don't merely teach, but make you think and form your own opinions.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

My Appearance on The Colbert Report...

A clip of my segment and some responses to common questions from friends and colleagues...