Bordering on an obsession

I'm wondering what it says about a lot of writers that they can't seem to venture near a social or non-game virtual environment without spending paragraphs talking about genitalia and sex, and trying to figure out how avatars have sex, even in virtual environments that are, essentially, G-rated and technically have none.

Oh, sure. A lot of folks are interested in that sort of thing, but the propensity with which I've seen it crop up in newspaper columns and in particular in some games-writers columns, it seems to be bordering on the obsessive.

A whole host of games-writers, particularly, don't seem to be able to look at a non-human (alien, robot or anthropomorphic) avatar without immediately focusing on sex. A few writers seem to suffer some severe cognitive disconnect, where non-human avatars and a non-sexual environment are somehow completely inconceivable and nonsensical -- a combination that they can neither grasp nor comprehend.

Some newspaper columns outline the writer's visit to strip clubs in Second Life, within minutes of registration, and give no sign that the writer went anywhere other than locations focusing on sex.

Sadly, at the end, they generally conclude about the virtual environment, "I don't get it."

Maybe what they really meant was "I didn't get any",  because based on their descriptions and reported conversations, that outcome seems a whole lot more likely.

The migratory habits of the PR flack

I believe there is some genetic instinct at work. Some deep and unreasoning drive, the exact purpose of which remains unfathomable, inscrutable, and involuted.

Observe the career PR flack. As a press-release approaches actual... well, release the PR flack is overcome with a restless sort of urge. Once the material is released unto the wild lands of journalists and writers, there seems to be some irresistable, and ineluctable prepossession that takes hold.

It is a migratory instinct that cannot be deferred or denied, driving our hapless flack to a seminar, a a conference, a cruise, a flight to Nepal, or a hiking trip to Guam. Pretty much anywhere where you can't actually contact them by any means more swift or certain than a carrier-snail.

What bizarre and recondite twists of genetic predisposition underpin this unstoppable, and indeed almost axiomatic force? Perhaps the world will never know.

Lessons in Future Publishing

So, Edge Online's staff appear to have all quit? Why? Because editorially, it appears that Future Publishing basically wanted the online arm to work editorially just like the print arm.

"Edge-Online's editorial control has been brought in line with the magazine in an effort to create a "strong, consistent voice" for the brand, according to Future Publishing."

Now, Future Publishing... I like you folks. We've got history. You and I go way back, and I'm fond of you. So I'll be gentle.

Dumbass move.

I think that's about as gentle and diplomatic as it gets in this particular case.

What you've basically suggested is the equivalent of saying that there's no effective difference between TV and the cinema screen. Your print arm and your online arm have as much in common as television and cinema -- which is to say a whole lot. The things that they have in common make them strong. The things that they don't have in common make them useful and appropriate and relevant. Each to their own.

Gloss over those differences and you lose usefulness, appropriateness and relevance -- and you'd be economically better off shutting one of those arms down. In fact, that's pretty much what you just did, effectively. Staff gone, and most of the readers will go with them.

Future, you should know better. I always thought you did, in fact. You can have a strength and consistency, but you need different voices for different media. That's an old, old lesson now, from before many of us were born. I believe it's written down somewhere.