Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble recently gave a fascinating speech on games as art, a subject near and dear to my own heart, though Mr. Humble is in a better place to speak on the topic, as the former head of the Sims franchise at Electronic Arts, and a developer of art games himself. He makes a great point that game developers all too often have a double standard around the topic -- "[We] in the game industry have this clown nose on, clown nose off attitude." We want to be recognized as art, but when criticized, we say "but it's just a game!"-- and then makes an extremely deep point on games and free will:

[S]aid Humble, 21st century cognitive science suggests that we don't possess much, if any, free will... "I think the science as it emerges is going to become so seeped into our culture it's going to hit us, and change our world view. And I want games to help prove that it is wrong. I would like to solve this problem. Because games are all about choices."

If I understand him right, Humble is arguing that games will become a space for people to express free will, which will become more important as we culturally absorb the fact that we have little free will in our actual lives. (Though I suspect the science of free will is a bit more complex than Humble suggests.)

I asked Rod Humble if his point was related to Second Life, a virtual play space which at its ideal enables maximum choice. And Humble told me he did: