Welcome to Burke's Joystick!

Hi all!

Welcome to my new blog, Burke's Joystick!

Now, you are probably asking what this blog is going to be all about. Well, that's a good question. As a writer, I can tell you that these things take on a life of their own. My plans for this blog is to merge my two passions in life: conservative politics and gaming.

It's a strange mix, I know.

But not as strange as you might think. Gaming is following in the footsteps of cinema in many, many ways. Like cinema, gaming began as an obscure hobby for technophiles and has since evolved into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. Also like cinema, the art of game design has evolved from incredibly simplistic beginnings (Pong, anyone?), to massively complex programs that are herculean efforts of human genius (many candidates here; let's go with EvE Online).

As far as I can tell, there is only one area where gaming has not - yet - followed cinema in a big way: and that is the use of the medium for political purposes.

Part of the reason why this hasn't occurred yet is because gaming still has some maturing to do when it comes to the art of storytelling. As such, gaming as a means of political indoctrination hasn't taken off...but it soon will (there have been some attempts already).

And that is the reason for this blog. There aren't a lot of games explicitly designed as political exercises yet, but there are an increasing number of games that do touch upon real world issues in a somewhat abstracted way, and I intend to cover them here. I also intend to explore how gaming can be a useful tool for exploring economics and politics for both adults and kids. And last, I intend to cover politics. Period. [The times are too exciting not too!]

So, I don't know where this is quite going just yet, but it should prove interesting no matter where we arrive!

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