Protecting the Legacy of the Alma Mater

Academia makes another small and belated attempt to align itself with the ever-changing realities of our world:

"A leader in the game industry for more than 20 years, Bing [Gordon, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Electronic Arts (EA)] once again is making history as the inaugural holder of the first-ever endowed chair at a university for the study of electronic gaming and interactive entertainment," USC Dean Elizabeth Daley said.

Most people who are even vaguely familiar with the fact that sales of video game software topped $7.3 Billion in 2004 are in a pretty good position to comprehend the sluggishness of Universities in responding to this phenomenon. At least there are some institutions that have finally seen fit to bestow a patina of intellectual seriousness on the world of gaming. But, as always, there's a subtler message that's being sent by USC in announcing this new endowment. Those of us that favor first-person shooters know that the best titles have come from companies other than Electronic Arts; Doom 3 (id Software), Halo 2 (Bungie), or Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar Games). Hell, even Eidos has its Tomb Raider franchise. So why the EA endowment and the appointment of Bing? Well, in a word: sports. Okay, maybe this is a stretch – but it's an amusing one. EA is the powerhouse of the sports games industry. They generate the nauseatingly successful Madden NFL series (among a number of others). While they have a few semi-decent titles in the shooter/adventure categories, a good many of their non-sports games simply blow. But of course, who better to spearhead a relatively new academic discipline than someone from the world of sports? After all, making it into the Final Four has always been the central goal of any self-respecting board of trustees. This new appointment isn't newsworthy. It's tradition.