How Video Games Help Us Navigate Real-World Problems
The sci-fi writers Tom Chatfield and Julian Gough discuss how games are becoming an important route to understanding a uniquely challenging moment in history
I’m often struck, when talking to transhumanists and thinkers focused on the far technological future, by how often video games come up — specifically through the idea of adjusting the difficulty level of reality. If you can just accrue enough computational power and data and insight, they argue, you’ll reach a point at which you can fix things. Reality becomes a game. And the plot of Julian Gough’s latest novel, Connect, ends up doing something like that — alongside plenty of other unexpected things.
As well as both writing techno-thrillers, Julian and I have each written for and about video games and are deeply interested in science fiction and geekery as mirrors of the real world’s excesses. When it comes to technology, however, Julian is among the most dazzlingly optimistic thinkers I know, while I seem to spend more and more time being drawn toward its dark side.
The following conversation has been condensed for length and clarity.
Tom Chatfield: Where is it we want to take our readers when we dive into genre…
