The Power of Weakness 3: Norwegian News Flash

Image 1: Trond Giske, Norwegian minister of culture

Technically we’re off topic here (unless our topic is very broad indeed) but I just realized that the near-Danes of Norway have taken a drastic approach to the lure of gaming.

Distressed with the rise of gambling addiction, the Norwegian government last year chose to ban all privately owned gambling machines. Lest riots should appear, the government is rolling out strictly controlled tailor-made machines which uphold a strict time and money limit and which are intentionally free of all the bells and whistles which normally attract gamers/gamblers.

Now, this is not directly related to the power of weakness, but a government is arguably a group’s way of controlling itself by adjusting the attraction of certain actions. I’ll get back to that in a later post. Right now I just thought that this was interestingly drastic and game-related to boot.

More details from Associated Press and for pictures of the unattractive wonder see VG.

Dette indlæg ligner…
The Power of Weakness 4: Some preliminary definitions (12/07/2008)

The Power of Weakness 2: Lead me not into instant messaging (29/06/2008)

The Power of Weakness 1: Choose your users with care, objects! (20/06/2008)

At least they’re honest (04/02/2005)

The hills are alive with the sound of mergers (21/06/2006)