VIDEO GAME ADDICTS PROSPER 

No less a business authority than THE WALL STREET JOURNAL has pointed out that video game features are becoming an integral part of modern software programming. Some kids who were hassled and told they would come to no good playing with "those horrible machines that took their attention away from school" are joining the wealthy young leaders set of today.

Those very features -- color, graphics and instant feedback - that attracted adolescent and younger, players during the 1980s are now incorporated into conventional software programs. Such seductive video game features as color, graphics and instant feedback are now standard in many office business programs. With Macintosh compatible software, sound and animation are also moving into the mainstream. Tied-in with CD-ROMs (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory), vast amounts of images and sounds can be incorporated into daily, weekly and annual business reports (and on Dr. Tomorrow's upcoming, second five-volume computer disc "book" series, Editor), and even wrapped in interoffice memos.

What has captured the imagination of business software developers is what those teenagers have been trying to tell the world for the past decade: that although the games were addictive, they also helped develop the ability to process huge amounts of information quickly. Via such electronic adventure they learned a lot faster. They weren't taught, they learned. Such agile, fast-reacting, now-well trained players already know how to handle the information Niagara that is panicking traditional office managers. The video game kids thrive on the action.

The switch into "virtual reality" situations, for the young aficionados, just makes the new jobs more interesting. Wearing VR eye goggles displaying computer-generated images, they become the new fighter aces in the economic war. Moving their heads changes the pictures and allows players to face, headon, competitors or collaborators. They can "see" inside plants, check new business techniques, roam through the human blood-stream, and check out a new type golf course before the first sod has been turned. The accompanying "power glove" allows players to select, control and manipulate remote situations and robots anywhere on this planet, and beyond. This is the new world and such skills are today worth more than the conventional skills acquired by normal high school graduates.

Why didn't schools discover this? Then teachers might be complaining that students never leave the computers alone and want to stay at school until midnight. Great idea! This could result in optimum returns on equipment investments. Teachers could make up for their three month summer vacation by working a couple of extra hours a day.

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