Outside In: Representations of Nature in Video Games | Not Your Mama’s Gamer

Caves and sandboxes are some kinds of game spaces I’ve explored in conversations (and an unpublished manuscript) with David Thomas, so I was very interested in these musings from Not Your Mama’s Gamer.

In a landscape polluted by smog and litter, box stores, fast food chains, more subdivisions and ever more streets–it becomes harder and harder to find parks and patches of woods preserved for our enjoyment.  Many of us spend twelve to fourteen hours a day working inside, and by the time we actually have time to enjoy the sweet chirping of birds, it is too late in the day.  But, I can turn on my Xbox and ride my horse for hours.

When I was child, I was rarely indoors.  From the moment we were allowed outside in the morning until my mother called us in for supper, we were outside getting grass stained knees, climbing trees, eating dirt , and fascinating over bugs.  These days, an afternoon outside is only an occasional treat.

via Outside In: Representations of Nature in Video Games | Not Your Mama’s Gamer.