I was listening to an audio-book, and what was narrated in this section of the novel was a character's disgust at her son's enjoyment in competing in a military computer-game. A violent computer-game. It's archaic, and barbaric, she thought. All she could see, all she could comprehend, was the violence. It reinforced my belief that some people outside the gaming community truly misunderstand competitive games. In a competitive game (where humans compete against other humans, not A.I.) the violence façade is rarely thought of. Rules, possibilities, probabilities, actions, and reactions occupy a player's mind. The ultimate challenge is seen as war, where the participants lives are at stake, and so many competitive games take on the façade of war, and thus contain violence, but it's not for violence that players of such games play. They play for the thrill of competition, of outwitting another man: for the challenge! Indeed, if a man was looking for violence he'd be better of playing a non-competitive game where the violent depictions are not won by wit, but are arbitrarily given to any and all who desire them. To play a game like Postal [I]is[/I] baffling and worrisome, and those who enjoy it should raise a psychological red-flag . . . In the past: psychologists thought chess players hated their fathers, but loved their mothers, because they always viciously attacked their opponent's king (a dominant male figure), and fervently protected their queen (a maternal figure). They seemed to have overlooked the fact that the game's objective is to capture the opponent's king; that the queens are the most powerful pieces on the board; and that a player will--above all--protect his own king, because when he losses that he losses the game. I wonder what psychologists think of chess players nowadays . . .