When somebody dedicates their life to a sport, or chess, or an art form, society generally praises them for their perseverance, grit, and dedication. Yet when somebody dedicates their life to a computer came, society generally views them as a loser and suggests they lack social skills or are somehow trying to hide from reality. Why the difference?
Not true. Those who truly dedicate their lives to video games bring enjoyment and fulfillment to many, many people, and while they are seldom famous, they are well-compensated for…
Oh, playing computer games? I got nothin’, except to say that those who dedicate their lives to things are seldom admired unless they are also talented and connected.
I don’t get it either, though I think anyone born after about 1975 will generally be more understanding. Playing a complex strategy game on a computer is no different than spending Sunday morning doing a crossword or sudoku. I think when you tell people you like computer games, their first thought is that you spend way too much time playing a game like WoW.
I think there are several reasons. First, computer games are relatively new. There’s still quite a few people who think they are mostly played by teens and under.
As well, there are so many. People aren’t typically good at ‘computer games’, but at a few specific ones they are fans of. This splits the fandom.
Another problem is that they don’t last. Chess has been around centuries; Halo not so much. They don’t have the same time to establish themselves.
And yet another, they tend towards the fantasy & science fiction genre, which simply doesn’t get the respect that other genres do in our culture.
I think the attitude to video games is gradually changing exactly as you would expect on generational grounds. The generation that has played videogames since they were small kids are now in their mid to late 30’s and moving towards positions of power and infuence in the media world. The New York Times has a full-time games reviewer and Slate has regular articles on gaming. The coverage on the Wii in particular has been very positive. In 20-25 years my hunch is gaming will be as mainstream as sports.
Sports, sure. Art, too. But chess is a bit unusual among boardgames. The guys who dedicate themselves to Scrabble don’t get nearly as much respect. Monopoly? Definite loser vibe there. Settlers of Catan? Geek city. In fact, even chess, which is respected largely because it has a relatively undeserved cache as being a sign of great intelligence, is viewed as a serious hobby with a mixture of admiration and scorn: high school chess club is the stereotypical loser/geek activity.
I can certainly see how *creating *computer games will one day be seen as art. But playing them? I doubt it.
Depends on the game. Certainly finishing a Legend of Zelda game or other linear story-telling game is only a minor accomplishment barely worth mentioning for itself, but when a game is more freeform, what the player can do with it can be amazing. Examples:
If this Tetris video isn’t faked, this guy is on par with martial arts masters in achieving complete control over his reactions, body and mind.
In a Street Fighter competition, we have another display of incredible reflexes from a high-level player. (This sort of thing is less ‘artistic’ and more ‘athletic’.) (Synopsis of the video if I can get this in before the edit window closes: The guy was near death against the girl with full life, and he managed an active defense requiring 17 actions timed to the split second, any one of which would have killed him, and he managed to pull out a victory in the end. This is the equivalent of an endzone-to-endzone touchdown.)
The game Dwarf Fortress, though ostensibly a game with a roughly linear progression to a definite ending, gave rise to this utterly psychotic and brilliant story.
My google-fu is weak. I hide my face in shame.
But I remember hearing about how in some Asian countries there are hardcore gamers who are actually famous for playing. They train hard, and have sponsors, and give exhibitions where teams go head-to-head against one another in a big stadium, with announcers and everything.
After further attempts at google… although it’s not quite what I was thinking about, I did find this video: http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/ivp/index?id=3192329
This is probably what you were thinking of.
Yeah, in Korea there are exhibition games that come with all the hoopla of professional sports. I have a friend who does StarCraft commentary for Korean games, and he is actually considering moving there to be a part of this gamer culture. I imagine, though, that this is still kind of a fringe thing. Here in China half of everyone is completely addicted to gaming, but it’s still considered pretty geeky.
We put all kinds of arbitrary judgments on hobbies. Being a TV addict is way uncool. Being into cooking- well that is kind of fun. Model trains are strange, but music is cool. Movies buffs get some respect, but an internet buff doesn’t. Who can tell why we rank things so.
Well, I was gonna get into a long diatribe about how the aspiration of excellence over others is something fundamental to human nature, how we’re conditioned for competition on a personal level, and how we have a hard time integrating the abstraction brought on by the computer into this somewhat primitive and basic scheme, yadda yadda, but… duude. That was insane! :eek:
I’ve always known that I suck at Tetris but I’ve never before really grasped the true depths of my suckitude.
The thing about playing games is that it’s the act of playing which completes the creation. Building the pieces and laying the rules is only half the endeavor. The actual game is the creative process of using those pieces.
Every game is a story. The player competes with the designer to determine how the story is going to be told. Even when it’s a game with two players nominally pitted against each other - the real foe is the game itself and the rules laid out for it and ultimately, the ones who made the rules. Each player is striving to impose their story - their vision of reality within the game world - on the game and the designer’s intentions.
This is true whether the pieces are wood or marble or digital. Ask any game designer and they’ll tell you stories of how their players have surprised them or changed the game by using the rules in unexpected ways. The player’s action can create a reality beyond what the designers envision.
So yes, playing a game is an artistic expression. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that and sometimes it’s harder to see than others. And it’s true even if the players aren’t deliberately aware of it. (My mom, a WoW lifer, looks at me like I’m speaking in tongues when I talk like this.) I don’t know that it’s always possible to express a game’s story in a way that conveys the creation to an onlooker. Sometimes you just have to be there. But the creation is what make gaming an interactive art.
The reality is that people who dedicate their lives to video games are (very often) different from people who dedicate their lives to sports, chess, or art.
I hear friends complain that “So and so isn’t coming out tonight because he’s at home playing WoW.”
I hear spouses complain that “So and so is always playing that stupid Everquest and ignoring me and the kids.”
I hear girlfriends complain that “So and so just sits at home all day and plays Madden/Halo/COD4.”
Note that the last example applies to people who watch sports as well… dedicating your life to watching football, while considered more “normal” and more acceptable, still isn’t viewed as a good thing.
On the other hand, nobody complains about how people who play chess all the time to the detriment of their family, or that so and so is always out on the basketball court, or is painting AGAIN. Probably because those activities, by their nature, discourage people doing them for more than a few hours at a time, while video games can easily suck people into spending 8 to 12 hours a day on them.
Standard disclaimer, I know you can play video games without being an addict, not everyone fits the stereotype, etc. But when someone says “I really like video games,” I don’t get the picture of someone who plays mario kart for 30 minutes every day or just 2 hours on the weekends with the guys. I get the picture of someone who REALLY likes video games and that’s all they do, because that’s often not far from the truth.
And this is coming from a former gamer who knows firsthand how easy it is to get sucked in.
I have never understood this. Video game addiction is an extremely rare thing and to assume it’s the “default” is just silly.
Besides that, would anyone ever tell someone they’re addicted to reading? After seeing some of the posts from some of the people in the reading threads around here, they’re much more dedicated to reading than I ever was to video games (even when I was a wee lad).
I suppose it depends on your definition of “addiction,” but if you use my overly broad definition of “annoys your friends and/or family,” it’s not at all extremely rare. Maybe by shear numbers it’s less common now because of all the casual gamers there are recently, but when I was in college 10 years ago, pretty much every girlfriend of a gamer would complain about it.
I guess my question is, how is that different from someone who watches sports too much or reads too much or watches too much TV?
My wife loves watching me play video games. But if I watch even one inning of a baseball game, it’s annoying to her.
I don’t think it is different. Watching too much TV is already seen as bad, watching too much sports is seen as bad (albeit in a silly harmless way that we can make fun of in TV commercials for some reason), and people who read too much… well, I haven’t heard anyone complaining about someone who reads too much.
Personally, I don’t understand how “My hobby/habit annoys my spouse to no end” isn’t viewed as an immediate sign to knock it off. If nobody’s complaining about the amount of time you spend playing video games, you’re probably OK.
I have yet to run into anyone who “reads too much.”
(Well, if you narrow “reading” to comic books, tabloids, Playboy, etc, I guess that’s possible.)
While I was entering this post, I see that steronz also noted, “I haven’t heard anyone complaining about someone who reads too much.”
Well, gosh, that’s just totally, utterly false. You’ve never heard of a “Golf widow” or heard of people complaining their husbands spend too much time watching football? My parents had a lot of marital strife over my mother playing bingo constantly.
Where did you get the idea people don’t complain about those things?