One more interesting thing from Paul Barnett’s Twitter feed for today. Here, he draws attention to a video he did for AbleGamers, a gaming news & reviews blog with a focus on disabled persons and their experience of games.

When games make the news, they are almost always in the news in a bad way. Complaints about violence and sexual themes predominate; it seems we cannot go six months without someone whining about violence in games and its negative/deleterious effects on “the childrens.”

It’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the human side of gaming, and what potential games can unlock when they inspire a person. Granted, in a lot of ways, this site exists precisely because the Ultima series had that exact effect, to varying degrees, on a large number of people. But even so, it’s easy to lose sight of just how games can change our lives, and then often for the better, because of the unique experience they offer.

For the disabled and bed-ridden, this can be especially true…perhaps moreso in this age of detailed 3D environments and not-necessarily-combat-focused MMORPGs. I mean, here’s a bed-ridden young girl who died very early on in life; her ability to make friends and do all the things children normally do was practically non-existent. And yet, she had a well-attended birthday party amongst friends…online. In fact, she had several such parties, probably one for every one she didn’t have in real life.

If that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.