Pure entertainment IS a purpose

I'm Erik Stuart, a 30-something married guy living in San Mateo, CA. I'm in eBay's corporate strategy group, and I lead eBay's efforts to look at & develop relationships with internet startups. (Posts about Web 2.0, the internet, and anything else are my fault and don't reflect on my employer, except to the extent that they hired me and continue to keep me around.) I'll also blog about sports, games, musical theater, economics/physics/other science stuff, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

Pure entertainment IS a purpose

Though I’m all for games of all sorts - chess, poker, puzzle hunts, etc. - the articles in the last day or two about GWAP (“Games With a Purpose”) struck me as odd. (GWAP includes things like the ESP game, which is supposed to use human input to advance automated image search, and various CAPTCHA-improving exercises.)

… but I find odd the implication that games that aren’t tied to some sort of CS research project are “purposeless”. Is entertainment, in and of itself, not a legitimate raison d’etre?

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Positive Energy

Pure entertainment IS a purpose