Martini Chat: These Companies Are Playing Games

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the Martini Chat, a hour-long online radio show and chat featuring TheStreet.com columnist Chris Edmonds and staff reporter Eric Gillin. If you would like to participate, please sign on at TheStreet.com every Thursday just before 5 p.m. For the full transcript, click here.

Eric Gillin: With the vast improvement in video game technology in the last several years, you can do virtually anything in the privacy of your own home -- from playing golf to flying a plane.

And the technology is getting even better. What exactly does the video game generation mean for our society and culture?

Here to talk about the video game generation and the cultural implications is Mr. Steven Poole, the author of Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. In addition to the book, which looks at not only why we play the things we play but also where that's leading us, Poole has written for the Guardian, the Independent, and the Times Literary Supplement . ...