What do the books of Terry Pratchett, the film Iron Man 3 and the video game Grand Theft Auto V have in common? The answer is that they are all regarded as “geek” pursuits, and therefore not part of the cultural mainstream. That is bizarre: Mr Pratchett has sold more than 70m copies of his Discworld series of novels. Iron Man 3 , based on a character from Marvel Comics, has the best box-office receipts of any movie this year. And Grand Theft Auto V, released yesterday by Rockstar of Edinburgh, is expected to take more than $1bn in sales.
泰瑞?普萊契(Terry Pratchett)寫的書、電影《鋼鐵俠3》(Iron Man 3)與電子游戲《俠盜獵車手5》(Grand Theft Auto V)有什么共同點？答案是，它們都被當作“極客”的消遣，因而進入不了主流文化的范疇。這很奇怪：普萊契的《碟形世界》(Discworld)系列小說賣出了7000萬本。根據漫威漫畫(Marvel Comics)作品中人物改編的《鋼鐵俠3》，其票房收入超過了今年所有的電影。昨日由愛丁堡的Rockstar推出的《俠盜獵車手5》預計銷售額將高于10億美元。