Yay! Real journalism! Was this printed in a newspaper, though, or only published on Tilley's blog? I'd imagine that the readership of his apparently game/tech-themed blog is mostly the game-literate minority.

"And why do we give kids so little credit for being able to distinguish between fiction from reality?"

to people like that, the only reality that exists for us is the fantasy. they feel that to us, their is no distinction. the fantasy IS the reality. which is downright stupid and defys any sort of logic because thats basically saying we are a bunch of mimes with no individual though whatsoever and we imitate everything presented to us even if we dont understand it.

@ Xen

This guy is a games journalist. Of course he is going to be a critical thinker.

I would like to say that I think that these adults who claim that kids and teenagers can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality are themselves forgetting what it was like to be a kid.

My son who is just two months shy of four years old knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He has a great imagination, but I don't think he really believes he is a dog. After all, he turns back into a boy when it is time to eat dinner.

Wierd...Steve Tilley's writings usually get circulated among other papers, this morning all I got in my local paper was a round-up of future console games. I would've much rather read this article over my breakfast.

That's a relief. I thought my disc drive was about to croak. I had several lockups and read errors playing.

The QA guys are your friends.

No bugs in the Wii version, right?

Anyway, keep in mind that the vocal component of a group isn't always the majority. I don't think all teachers would trash the game without playing it. Just ones like english teachers and most history teachers. Science teachers will play it first, as well as most math teachers. Art teachs won't care one way or another, and physed teachers don't play games.

I grew up in the school system, and teachers are all pretty different, but gravitate to certain fields. I've known pretty cool english teachers that might play it (but he was married to a science teacher, so he is liek a english teacher v2.0, Hi Mr and Mrs Bell!)

So just because some stupid teachers got the mic, don't hate on all teachers.

bravo

*Applause*

Good show man! Good show!

@Overcast

That'd mean actual work. Oh noes we can't have that.

@ Overcast
They are too afraid of the real thing duh

@ SeanB

Well, this IS a little worse, since the Golden Compass (the book; haven't seen the movie, but it's based on, so assuming here) actually DOES poke at religion quite disdainfully and evidently, so much that some would say it "preaches" against religion in general. That being religion, the institution, primarily. Nice real-world irony there, though, with the pastor telling his flock what to think about a subject matter ostracizing religions for telling people what to think (or not to think at all).

But this is categorically worse. This is people who are supposed to teach us critical thinking and enable us to examine reality in a manner that lets us come up with our own conclusions telling us not to play a game because they've assumed, based on the title and hearsay, that it must glorify bullying. This is teachers crying "she's a witch! Burn her!" and book-burning and chest-thumping instead of doing the minimal amount of research constituted by following the links in a Google search.

I have to admit, though, I like the irony of this more. The people who are supposed to teach us critical thinking are giving in to reasonless instincts of bleating and burning ideoclastic principles that the very "classic literature" one would assume they've at least glossed over (or read the Sparks Notes) decries and warns against. Such blatant and ignorant (not to mention, very public) hypocrisy just enhances the amusement factor.

This is ironic, because my copy of Bully works perfectly and I was one of those mysterious players whose Halo 3 didn't work on their system. Quite nice to be on the other side for a change.

P.S. - Teachers were educated to TEACH, not to give out opinions on video games and popular culture. So, GET BACK IN THE CLASSROOM!