Slashdot Mirror
Part One: Up, Up, Down, Down
"The future of technology is about shifting to what people like to do, and that's entertainment...I'm telling you: all the money and the energy in this country will eventually be devoted to doing things with your mind and your time." --- AI pioneer Marvin Minsky.
Up, Up,
Down, Down,
Left Right, Left Right, BA Start.
Recite this combination to millions of younger Americans, especially males, and it's like a secret handshake: the cheat code for Contra and other games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Most will know that for two-player mode you insert "select." Recite the same sequence to most older people, and they'll think you're mentally ill. But the beautiful thing, e-mails James Sumner of Yale, "is that all I have to do is start "up, up, down, down ..." and any male my age will finish it."
"I would recognize it anywhere, instantly..." one gamer e-mailed me when I sent him the sequence. "Until my dying breath ...It's a cheat, that you use to get 30 lives instead of 3 ... You press that combo while the intro screen is sliding by, then start the game and you get 30 lives ..."
Another answered this way: "Sure, I know it, it's a reflex, a neuron. My parents still think gaming is a weird hobby. But for me, it's a way of thinking, a password."
In his remarkable new book Playful World, Mark Pesce reminds us of Mead's observation about the pace of change in the Western world.
In earlier times, Mead had written, elders could educate the young in their traditions and wisdoms, passing along important lessons that would serve the youngsters well.
In the past generation, though, cultural development -- centered around new forms of popular culture, mostly involving computers, has so intensified that the generational transmission of values has become even more outmoded, increasingly irrelevant. What's evolved is perhaps the widest gap --informational, cultural and factual -- between the young and the old in human history. In many ways, gaming is at the center of this chasm.
Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along. All they have to offer are boring and outmoded educational systems, political structures that no longer work, and exhausted forms of fading, sacrosanct, heavily subsidized "culture."
Obviously many older people do have useful things to pass along, especially their experiences with life and their accumulated perspectives. But there are also cultural and technological advances, more all the time, that they simply can't grasp. It often seems that only adolescents really have the time, instincts and motor skills to grasp the mechanics of cutting-edge gaming, programming and other digital technologies.
This chasm first opened on the cultural front, with the evolution of distinctly youth-centered entertainment forms like hip-hop, rock 'n' roll and then Nintendo and Sega; it's widened as gaming has expanded beyond its subculture status. Gaming isn't just a hobby any longer. In fact, it needs a new label, something like VI -- Virtual Imagination. Well on the way to being culture itself , gaming has all sorts of implications for education, work and politics.
Gaming has exploded in the past few years until, according to Steven Poole's book Trigger Happy, videogame sales now equal movie ticket receipts. Sales of game consoles and software in the United States will top $17 billion a year by 2003 (the music industry, by comparison, reported revenues of $15 billion last year).
The average American child plays videogames forty-nine minutes a day, but games are no longer the province of kids; 61 per cent of videogamers are eighteen or older, and more than a quarter are over thirty-six. Videogames are no longer bounded by gender, either: players are evenly divided between men and women.
This revolution has spawned its own vast, diverse and complicated media culture -- gamespy.com, avault.com, gamespot.com, ign.com, ugo.com. These sites teem with games and reviews, from programmers, writers, artists and designers. Media sites like Myvideogame.com and gamecritics.com report on story lines and offer essays on the creative shortcomings of game programmers.
Newer sites like Joystick101.org are gaming weblogs; they fuse gaming with individual stories. Recently, that site ran stories about a player named Sheyla who faked her death in a ploy for sympathy from the Everquest community; the stories linked to a story about the kind of gaming work ethic that prompted a Starcraft programmer to bring his laptop to the hospital birth of his daughter. Ign.com covers Quake III like MSNBC covered the presidential election. Academics all over the country are using the Sim games to teach urban planning and financial and social interaction.
And eBay now routinely auctions off characters and property from games like Ultima Online to newbies who don't want to spend years developing their own characters. The gaming industry employs thousands of writers, artists, producers, animators, filmmakers designers and programmers.
Virtual characters are now sometimes worth thousands of dollars, something inconceivable outside of Hollywood just a few years ago.
No other form of culture is ascending as rapidly. Compared to gaming, traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered.
Next: Gaming and Moral Panic.
I was busy playing soccer, baseball, and football. I guess my childhood wasn't complete. Damn you mom.
I've heard many explanations for the decline and fall of Rome. Overextension, corruption, taxation, bread and circuses.... The list goes on and you can always find an historian who will support you. Video games are rising in use in America. Spectating was correlated with the fall of Rome. Ergo, video games will be correlated with the fall of America.
Rome declined and eventually fell for a host of disparate reasons. Using one or the other selectively is poor historiography, and using it as an argument about events more than a thousand years later is just stupid.
OK Flame on...but it seems that gaming is a very dangerous cultural opiate. Of course for one, there is the whole "time-suck" issue. I'll never forget that freshmen year epiphany when I inwardly acknowledged my old JediMUD 25th level fighter that I had labored over so astudiously (while other chumps were at class) was nothing more than a text file *sigh*. Kids these days seem to have even less of chance to make this type of realization with the advent of super hi rez 3d polygonal graphics etc etc (these kids say quite perplexedly "pong what?")
However, my most serious concern with Gaming-Culture and our Media driven culture in general is the lack of need for the imaginative faculty. Who needs to use their own imagination anymore to picture the fantastic, the otherwordly, the sublime? It seems we have a generation who are growing up largely relying on the imagination of others. They allow others to paint their canvases for them, to populate it with specific imagery and tone. Why would they want to bother reading books or, *GASP* roleplaying in non-graphical old "traditional" RPGs with a human being as GM, when for a miniscule amount of $ they can take the easy road and have everything envisioned and depicted for them?
I'm not sure that it even occurs to kids that they can rely upon the power of their own imagination. Whereas with the games of my GEN (2600 rules supreme), you HAD to use your imagination to really want to defend that DAMN city of colored square blocks from missles!
I used to agree with Auberon Waugh that it was "Red or White?". But now I know different - It's Jon Katz with "First in a series"
You forgot idchoppers and idkfa. And I don't even like Doom :)
Don't forget Street fighter 2 for snes, The Code puts you into ``championship mode'', where both players can play the same character.
--
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
I still remember "XYZZY" and "PLOVER", and I've not played ADVENT in something like 20 years. :-)
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Society is turning away from spectators (TV, Cinema) and towards participators (videogames, chat).
So there you go. :-P
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
>I enjoy reading Katz's little
>phillipics even though I think he's usually full
>of it. On the other hand, he _always_ generates a
>good disucssion, and that's exactly what
>he's trying to do!
Doesn't it strike you that something is wrong when the discussion revolves around, "the author is full of crap"? Of course poor quality work generates discussion-- people are so naturally hostile to it that it gets their blood pumping.
It's bad enough if Katz is naive enough to actually believe the tripe he writes. It's even worse if he just makes up poor generalities and ignorant, ahistorical statements just to generate "discussion."
-Dean
Well, if gaming is culture, it is a very immature one at that.
I consider myself to be a "serious" gamer. I don't play the average 49 minutes per day the Katz mentioned, but I do enjoy playing games (not just electronic) on a fairly regular basis.
So far I have been totally turned off by an sort of "social" gaming such as online Quake or any of the MMORPG's.
When this culture evolves beyond the "You #$!@ cheat!" and "Watch me take my level 2000 character and kill all the new guys." stage give me a call. I'll be waiting. Until then I will continue to play computer games either alone, or with some of my real friends.
Case in point; if you want to see a comic strip that's more intelligent and funnier, IMO, than Penny Arcade, check out Player Vs Player
Nah, that's only if you want two players. All the select does is move the little widget to the 2 player selection.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
no really....just curious.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
This is true in one sense: Our elders don't have much to teach us about pompous, self-congratulatory, pseudo-intellectual drivel. This remains the purview of JonKatz.
Katz must spend a lot of time dreaming up weak premises on which to base huge tracts of near-meaningless text designed to prove somehow the superiority of the young geek worldview and that this narrow segment of society represents the whole of the modern world. Fact is, he just sounds like another sullen and disaffected teenager who's certain his profound thoughts have never been thought before and that his elders are a bunch of idiots. Just like the thousands of generations that went before him.
Ignore the older generation at your peril. They might not be able to write long shell scripts in their heads or dominate NFL2K1 on seganet, but they have the experience to have seen Katz's brand of self-absorbed whining many times before. When "the young" are "the old," something that will happen very quickly, they'll look back at a new generation patting itself on the back on scorning them and then they will understand that, as some French guy said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
ChuckleBug
It's not just Contra... the code is refered to as the 'Kanomi Code'... Kanomi made Contra and used the same cheat code in quite a few of it's games... And god I remember the frustration of putting that code in sometimes.... Fired up my cousin's old NES a few weeks back and it rolled off my fingers every time... flawless... Guess that shows what kind of addict I am. ;)
Hey! What's this fruit-striped apple thingy in the corner?
Sure, I play videogames from time to time, even code my own games, but give me a break. If your ONLY pastime is playing videogames to the point where you consider it a 'culture', then you need to get out more. Rarely do you get laid or paid playing videogames, unless you are some kind of fat lazy fag-boy who gets paid for getting his ass greased while playing video games.
Videogames are great, but it's no more a dominant culture than people who play Monopoly.
If drugs are illegal because they cause harm to your body, then shouldn't videogames? I think a potsmoker does less long term body damage than a fat lazy slob that does nothing but sit on his fat ass and press buttons.
Ok, maybe I'm just off my kilter, but I could have sworn that the Contra code was:
U U D D L R L R B A Select Start
(note the select)
I'm I just plain wrong, or does anyone else share my psychosis?
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
Not PLOVER, PLUGH. And I haven't played ADVENT since the '70's either.
Obviously you've never ridden an off-road motorcycle, or been to a supercross or motorcross event. Just as a small example, where I live there is an annual supercross series, one round of which is held in the same venue as the Australian Open tennis, which nearly fills the 15,000 capacity arena at $20 USD per ticket. As for participating, I suggest you try riding a motorcross bike one day - you'll either come back with a huge smile plastered across your face or you'll fall off. Probably both :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
now we know what you use for passwords ;)
I agree whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, CmdrTaco has continued to let him post frivolously, even though the "Katz World View"[TM] definitely seems to conflict with the "Nerd World View". Time and again, the nerds and geeks (and whatever else there is in that particular hegemony) cling to new and old alike. The typical geek will take pride in his original member status of HomeBrew as much as his ability to frag with impunity. The typical nerd appreciates Bach as much as Beck. Katz had a shining moment when he recognized that those being labeled as different weren't evil. But being different inherently means not following the pop culture. Gaming is a part of pop culture. It has been since boys were learning up-up-down-down... But that sequence isn't anything we as geeks or nerds own. Ask another 20something that currently works at McDonald's, used to be the high school QB, and was voted most likely to impregnate every cheerleader at once. Chances are, he knows that code too.
I guess my formal introduction to Katz (back in the days when his words were more visionary and less sensational) led me to believe that although he wasn't a computer nerd, he had nerdlike qualities enough to deserve some respect and that those who "dissed Katz" were snobbish nerds who demanded a demonstration of nerdiness that matched their own. Now however, I see that he is simply a writer who leeches off the story of the week in order to justify his self worth.
I just wish he could accept that for the most part, our hegemony tends to be inclusive of all things simply because we understand exclusion. It seems to me exclusion only occurs to those who reciprocate the exclusiveness we so abhor. So, Katz, I hope you read all responses to your articles, and that you realize that you have excluded me one too many times.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
In a lot of ways, Katz is a troll. And here I am feeding him again.
Bite the hand.
Being a member of said generation of "up up, down down" Nintendo males hasn't made opera inaccessible for me. As a matter of fact, I am a classically trained opear singer that happens to work for a public university as a network tech/sysadmin. My degree is a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance.
It's often occurred to me that the reason opera and classical music is not because it's the music of the "elite" (which is historically untrue) but that it requires more thought than recent generations prefer.
Mozart was one of the greatest composers of all time. He's written beautiful operas, orchestral works and chamber music. How do people know him now? "He's that Amadeus dude from that movie, right?" For a man who was instrumental in bringing music to the people, he's now shunned by the descendants of those people he enlightened.
Before the 20th century, people went to theaters and operas to go out and have fun. Yes, the king and his court went to the opera house, but the theatre two blocks down was performing a different show, and the house is packed with peasents. They may not have understood every word, but the story and the emotions were what kept them coming back.
From my own personal experience, it's not opera that's lacking. It's the attention span of today's fast food, immediate download, next-day Fed Ex generation.
--
Why do people keep presenting this as "news" or "something wrong with the word" when it's probably been like this since humans advanced enough to have a culture?
Unfortunately, complaining about how the disrespectful youth are destroying society is also probably about as old as human culture.
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I got 4. I think that's a good indication that our culture is not as homogenous as some people think. :-)
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Your arguments are good, but they are not arguments against video games in general. They are arguments against the video games you have played, or at least against only the particular ones you are talking about.
The fact of games not being sufficiently similar to real life are completely bogus. Nobody complains that chess doesn't give you the full experience of the sights, sounds, and smells of the medieval european battlefield. It doesn't have to.
Maybe you should try Terminus, where there are no cheat codes, and an unintentional, living experiment in organized anarchy is taking place on the main popular server. Or you should try Bolo, which also has no cheat codes and will teach you that situations that look simple can become amazingly complicated. Oh yeah, it'll also teach you teamwork and the importance of communication. Not to mention that it's a big barrel of fun. (Please note that both of these are multiplayer; this is no coincidence!)
So, to recap, 1, 2, and 3 are wrong points. They apply only to a limited subset of games. Many good games, in particular multiplayer games, and especially multiplayer games that involve more than point-and-shoot, avoid all of these problems. 4 is totally irrelevant, since if it were important, nobody should ever read a book, listen to music off a tape or CD, or play-fight.
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As far as I can tell, by your definitions, anything done outside working for money or possibly going to school is not participatory. Now, I would agree that, for example, experimenting with robotics with my lego mindstorms is probably more enlightening, educational, and "participatory" than a game, but they're really different things and the games can be very valuable.
I'm sure, being a big programmer-type (or at least being around them, or something like that), that you are familiar with the concept of emergent behavior. The famous Boids flocking simulation is a great example. Dirt-simple rules, complex behavior, valuable insight and data. The rules don't have to be complicated for the outcome to be. Another wonderful example would be the physics class I'm taking this semester. It's basic physics with calculus treatment. Every single thing we've learned so far is the result of Newton's three laws of motion, Newtonian gravitation, and friction thrown in for fun sometimes. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. F=ma. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Objects attract each other with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance. The force of friction varies directly with the normal force.
Most people could memorize these laws in very little time. Their sum total, however, is enough to give most of the people in my class fits. And while it's not exactly a perfect picture of the world, these laws do have very good predictive powers in many situations.
And yet, I am not arguing that these games reflect reality. Some of the best ones do a good job of it. Some of the best ones do a horrible job of it. It's irrelevant.
"Every last detail" is obvious hyperbole. Regardless, the amount of customization that one can do with Terminus ships is totally amazing. Players routinely come up with combinations that the designers didn't forsee, at all extremes of maneuverability, raw combat strength, stealthiness, and others. And yet, it's still balanced.
Core Wars is still a dynamic, evolving game after nearly twenty years. Nobody has come up with a "best" strategy. I doubt if tons of effort was expended just to make sure it was balanced.
You really need to play some Bolo. Seriously. Yes, there are very weird quirks in the game engine that players routinely take advantage of. None of these quirks were even vaguely anticipated by the game designer. Did he eradicate them? Nope. They're still there. (Might have something to do with how the most recent release is five years old....) Did those quirks destroy the game? Of course not! They actually made the game deeper and more interesting. They're certainly helpful, but knowing all the little tricks possible in the game still won't save you from a better player who knows fewer.
Now, I am not claiming that Bolo teaches "communication" in the sense that it will teach you what to say to your co-workers, or how to talk to a girl, or anything like that. What it will teach you is the importance of quick, accurate communication in team situations, the importance of knowing something about a situation before going into it, the importance of coordination, and it will teach you something of how to pull these things off, too. You may dispute this claim all you like, but until you show to me that you have played this game or something similar, it's not going to carry much weight.
I would also like to point out that life is a very good example of a game where there are many weird, unintended things that can be taken advantage of, and where many situations have obvious "optimum" strategies. For example, regular exercise and healthy food will result in much less suceptability to getting sick. Imagine that! If I check over my shoulder before I change lanes, I'm less likely to run somebody off the road. If I keep good distancing while travelling like a madman down the freeway, I'm less likely to rear-end someone. Cooked meat tastes better and is less likely to make me sick than raw meat.
There are lots of real-life situations with obvious optimal strategies. There are lots of people that don't follow them anyway. Hmm. Sounds like most games.
I don't care how much marketing goes into a game. I know why I bought it and why I enjoy it. (Assuming, of course, that I did/do either one.) Is an otherwise good game destroyed because you see an ad for it? Is a wonderful movie any less wonderful because the people who made it only did it for the money? With games, there are many cases where they are made because the guy who made it thinks it would be neat to do. There are many cases where the people who make it don't care about anything besides selling it to suckers so they can retire. Does it matter? Not directly. If a game is good, it's good regardless of who made it or why. If it's bad, it's bad in the same way.
Now that I'm done with that, I'd like to ask you something. Exactly what sorts of experiences or activities do you consider to be participatory?
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Ok, I think our problem comes down to the definition of passiveness and spectating versus involvement and activity. I think that anything where a person is directly involved has transcended the spectator level. TV, radio, and books are spectator sports. So is riding in a car. Computer games and driving the car are participatory. I guess I don't understand where you draw your line, or why.
:-)
And yes, I know that physics is vastly more complicated than I described. I know vague things about quantum mechanics and relativity and other weird things, but I can't do the math and we're not covering them in my class. Regardless, what we have covered so far in this course can predict many situations, and the emergent behavior stemming from those few laws was what I was really getting at. Most people upon seeing them for the first time would not instantly realize the possibilities for gyroscopic stability that they imply, nor the dynamics therein. And no matter how complete your laws of physics, the difference between the complexity of the rules and the complexity of the universe will stagger the mind. Complicated rules are not a necessity for a complicated world.
Terminus I bought because of the developer journals they released and the features they talked about. I have not been disappointed. If both of those were the result of Marketing, who cares? Bolo is shareware and was a one-man effort. If any marketing departments were involved there I certainly was not aware of them.
I have, of course, purchased games based off of some amazing spin put out by their marketing departments. Some of these, for example Falcon 4.0, turned out to be amazingly bad purchases. I got sucked in by the neat stuff, and didn't find out that it has more bugs than Windows and requires a supercomputer to run smoothly until after I bought it. Oops. Of course my track record of buing only one or two games a year does not exactly make me a good example for this stuff either.
So yes, I'm sure the marketing guys would be quite happy.
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I find it odd that it so often is associated only with Contra for this very reason. When I was growing up and now I still remember it as the "Konami code", not a Contra one specifically.
I remember walking into a friend's room last year and a bunch of my friends were all arguing about what the proper code was to start up a game of Contra with a few getting close, but not close enough. I simply walked up and put it in without a word... they were stunned, but not as much as when I beat it without the code.
She does, however, cite certain specific facts. And when she was a young woman she made some unwise choices about which subjects to trust. So some of her facts have been proven wrong. If you see everything in black and white, this can be seen as making her WRONG!!!. It doesn't seem that way to me, but then I never invested lots of faith in her either. Truthfully, I never got around to reading her books, but that's true of lots of others, also. I did find Carlos Castenada to be amusing, entertaining, and insiteful. That's not at all the same as believing him.
If you believe in authority, then expect to be let down, because you will be. Men are not gods, but even the gods make mistakes.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is both right and wrong, and I don't really know how to separate them. Cartoon animation violence isn't real violence. Jerky photographic animation probably won't be see as real. But as the frame rate increases, the detail increases, the "multi-sensory experience" increases, it begins to feel increasingly real. I'm certain that at some point you do reach the place where it acts as a "good densitizer", and I doubt that the point is the same for everyone.
An interesting question is "What happens as you approach feeling it as real?" I'll never find out directly, because I won't even play the action games that are out now. CivCTP is my favorite, and SimCity next. Neither of those "convince me of their reality", but guess what? I won't allow myself to loose at CivCTP. And one of the things that I least like about SimCity is that I can't be sure of "winning". In fact, because I want the sims to like me so much, I tend to go broke more than I should. I have choosen not to desensitize myself here. Even though I know full well that these are pretty fake simulations. And I do wonder about why someone would choose otherwise.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Bingo!
Other things may have (did) helped, but lead pipes are the lead candidate for why so many emperors, and others of the upper classes, went crazy. And when your "leaders" are crazy, you're in trouble.
OTOH, have you looked at the presidential candidates?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Gradius III is sneaky because the code does work... if instead of "Left Right Left Right" you use "L R L R".
Or something like that.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
D,U,L,L,A,R,D
Who remembers what this is from?
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I can't say I understand the appeal. I mean, easter eggs for stuff that wouldn't otherwise be in the game (secret areas, new characters, etc...) that's cool. But cheats to simply make the game easier to beat? I guess I just don't get it. "I was playing the game for 3 hours every day and it rocked! Then somebody showed me this cool cheat and I beat it in an hour! Now I....well...now I don't have anything to play anymore, and I'm bored."
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
for us oldtimey gamers?
no. but you may be one of many people who didn't read the article but felt they had to respond anyway.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
...original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Most will know that for two-player mode you insert "select." Recite the same sequence to most...
Read the whole article...
Do you Gentoo!?
In gradius on the snes the code changed to up up down down LRLR BA start. that gave you a fully powered ship, as if you had picked up a million of the red glowing orbs. I think it also slowly broke the game though, as my game now starts with a grid of white lines on it for almost 10 seconds; it could also be the circuits disintegrating.
--Lilior
Super C (contra part 2) uses a modified version of the code... Right Left Down Up A B Start. I also remember Mortal Kombat 1 for the Sega had a blood code (I believe it was A B A C A B B) and Aladin for the sega had a code that let you go to the next level (pause, then A B B A A B B A). Fun.
- tred
idspispopd:
ID - ignore it, it'd their name
SPIS - sprite is? makes sense since Doom's moving objects & static objects (like power-ups, exploding barrels, trees, etc) were all just 2D sprites
POPD - pop current directory (or object) off the stack in any number of OS's or languages
So the code means to pop the sprite off the collision-detection stack? Makes sense, that's what the code does -- walk through walls. I haven't looked at the Doom code, but this could just be Carmack being geeky and then other people putting an acronym on top of it.
------------------
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
Oh, that right. Some of you (probably the FSF communists) go to Burger King instead.
Stop contradicting yourself. First you say "The rest of you was determined ... between birth and about age five." and "[After age 5] It's so far beyond your control that it's almost impossible to enact any significant change. You is what you is."
Ok, fine, I'll accept that as a reasonable hypothesis.
But then you change your tune "And just as you, as an adult, can learn to love habenaro peppers, you can become desensitized to violence." This implies just the opposite of your earlier statements.
So which is it? Are you formed in the first five years or can I change as an adult? If the former, parents should just prevent children from seeing violent behaviour until the child is six. Then the rest of their life will be fine.(P.S. I think this is garbage)
You need to make up your mind, find a theory that fits reality and stick to it.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
you need to play the Final Fantasy series. As far as moving ever closer to "art" I think this is one of the best.
It is also an art of interpreting experience, if a game succeeds at convincing you that you are a part of its reality, it is successful as a piece of interpretive art. Art makes you feel, not necessarily feel proud.
--
+&x
I frequently catch myself reading Katz like this when he gets a head of steam up. If it's an interesting enough piece I have to go back and re-read. But usually it's a sign that it's time to move on.
Cris E
St Paul, MN
This article is an utter piece of shit! It is too premature and far too much of an exagerration to say that our culture is doomed to failure just because a miniscule section of kids spend a few hours a day playin some silly game, after which they, just like other kids, go out and play ball or go do homework or watch movies or whatever it is that kids their age do.
Super Contra of course.... R-Type... etc etc etc...
For once Katz doesn't sound like he is going out on a limb for an article. I am sure we all could comment on the great "good ol' days" of the NES and Genesis.
Games are one of the things that truly pushes the consumer PC market. Why do we need cards like the GeForce 2 Ultra? Because id made Q3...
Games have been a way of life for many people, and have also been many people's introduction to computers. Want some more hardcore oldschool goodness? Check out this review of the Pentium 200 at Glide Underground.
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
TNL - The Next Level
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I'm 22, and when I was a kid marbles were still a huge playground thing. Odd, isn't it.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
First thing that came to my mind was the cheat code for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 for NES. Guess I was wrong :(
I never did cheat, much.
This is an amazingly narrow vision of life in a technology culture. To think that the worlds' view of technology is even remotely affected by some pimply kids twitching and flicking themselves into early carpal tunnel syndrome in front of a TV is absurd.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
Yeah, I never really got that "training" bit. I mean it's software. You use it. If you have a problem you read the manual. It's like a toaster.
But I suppose by the time I'm an old fart I'll have to take some whizbang pychotronic message broadcasting training session or something.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9706/07/japan.beheading/i ndex.html
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yes, games are becoming a huge market, but they're not one of the most profitable industries, thought thery are one of the coolest(Yes, I like John Carmack's awesome work).
But nobody really mentioned the people who play too long. My mother always said to get some fresh air, after playing Starcraft until I literallly couldn't see straight. I still playe 3d games like quake and elite force, but this article doesn't mention the people I know who play N64 Zelda frrom start to finish, instead of working on the research paper.
Don't forget Ikari Warriors for the NES... infinite continues.
And it takes a weaker mind to be influenced by entertainment.
You describe responses you had to films - These are great examples. If these films were to influence you or effect you for any longer than an emotional moment, perhaps you would find yourself having totalitarian, Nazi-like tendencies after watching Schindler's list. Perhaps you would feel very threatened and live with a more paranoid deameanor. Such a "response" would then merit the word "influence". Films rarely influence people on any grand scale. Almost everyone can mention a film that really did influence them, but these are individual events having to do with that individual's experiences.
Jumping around all out of order, I'd like to add a perspective to the quote "This child is rehearsing for life." It is true that they are rehearsing for life while they are playing games. Is it not true that they are experiencing and learning first-hand the unreality of their games? Are you saying that they are growing to understand these games as real? Rather, the contrary! They increasingly come to understand the fact that games are an escape from reality. They are entirely and wholly separate from reality. People feared that as games became more realistic these logical lines would fade. What was ignored there was that the human mind is adaptive, and adapts to the higher level of understanding that even these new, fancy, T&L-rendered games are still as unreal as Pong.
Back to the middle somewhere...
The pavlovian response you mention appears to be common. You can go to any teenage LAN party where Doom/Quake/etc is being played and see how much fun they have. It is easy to see this as a Pavlovian response to the blood. Have you considered that the reason such violence and such extreme action is so appealing is because of how UNREAL it is? If you play a game of Quake II, and the Q2 server sets the numgibs variable to 50 (instead of the default of like 8), You will literally see exploding meat when someone is killed. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind or the mind of ANY person I have met that the game is LESS real with all that additional gore and blood than it was before. It is the unreality, the need for escape, that drives this response you perceive as a "Pavlovian response."
Enough scattered ranting. You should be able to see the message I'm trying to get across: MANY people use games for an escape from reality. Actions in games are unreal and KNOWN to be unreal, and do not influence us or our children in the despicably elementary manners that video game opponents encourage us all to believe.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
P.S.: Nice quote from The Refreshments. :)
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
What does it say about human nature, or at least about our current civilization, when cheating at video games (especially single player video games) becomes the single point of commonality for a generation of people? Even if it isn't completely true and JonKatz is exaggerating, the fact that he chose that concept out of all the possible hooks means that it exists.
Or, I guess, it could mean that Katz really sucks at video games
neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Your comment is insightful as hell- but I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from it. Television turned us into spectators, while video games (and the internet, eventually) are going to reverse that trend and make us the most participatory culture in history. Instead of watching fat football players knock each other around or watching Clint Eastwood charge up a hill, we have the ability to actually become these people, experiencing the excitement of a virtual life that far exceeds the tedium of our daily lives. Slashdot and sites like it are going to become ubiquitous- because eventually people are going to become dissatisfied with having the news read at them. We'll want to respond, interact, participate with it.
I'm reminded of stephenson's Diamond Age-style participatory entertainment here- soon we'll have gaming technology that rivals it and probably surpasses his vision in many ways. It will change the way we live and think, play and interact, regardless of what our "moral leaders" do to prevent it. And like every major shift in lifestyles that has ever occurred, whether this is a good trend or a bad trend is unforeseeable to us, although it will seem obvious to our grandchildren; playing video games, taking them as seriously as, say, I took high school football and wrestling, requires a willful suspension of reality. And that could be as dangerous to a person or a society as any tribe of barbarians- but it could also allow us to accomplish things that no one today can even dream of.
Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
I disagree. The corporations want to make money- and they'll do that by selling us Wagner or by selling us Spice Girls (a better example than Winger, although i agree that Winger sucked pretty badly).
Rock is more popular than classical for several reasons:
a) it's easier to make, therefore more people will make it. Less skill level involved ->less barriers to entry -> more profit potential -> more human participation. We are capitalist beasts, creatures of economics, whether we like it or not
b) attention spans no longer support 45 minute songs. even within a single genre-lets pick rock- look at the success of 3-minute-song-bands like green day vs. the success of musically superior 12 minute-song-bands like Dream Theater or Fates Warning. Attention span is a function of culture
c) many more people identify with dave mustaine than with luciano pavarotti. Mustaine wears blue jeans and a leather jacket- pavarotti wears a $3000 suit. Mustaine smokes cigarettes- LP smokes havana cigars. It costs $100 for good seats at a symphony, and you have to dress up- how many women even own opera dresses these days?
d) rock is advertised better than classical. This is the one sphere of influence the corporations do have- just go to Best Buy and check out the classical cd selection vs. the R&B selection. The classical cd's will be sheathed in boring, pastel cases with pictures of Vienna imposed over a wooden violin (or vice-versa, for the more risque pieces). The R&B cd's will have muscular young men and lithe females dressed to fuck.
which brings me to (e): sex. Like it or not, modern popular music is much sexier than the classical stuff (does anyone actually buy ricky martin for his singing voice? How about jennifer lopez?) Yo-yo ma just can't compete.
neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Personally, I remember Contra, but never heard of that cheat code. Oh well.
On an unrelated note -
I'm 31. I play computer games. I know lots of people who play computer and video games, young and old (like me.) And the vast majority are guys. There's no way in hell that the `players are evenly divided between men and women' unless you consider everybody who has started Solitaire at least once in the last decade as a `video game player'. The vast majority of the serious gamers I know are guys, at least 80%.take over and conquer mode, eh?
:)
Hrmm. What games have I purchased within the past few years:
Space Empires 4. Shogun: Total War. Heroes of Might and Magic/Millenium ed.. Jagged Alliance 2. Master of Orion II:BAA. Close Combat II: ABTF.
And the sole exception to the conquest motif, the Forgotten Realms archives, mostly for nostalgia (the Pools series. Never liked the real-time Beholder series). No sims, no other RPG/adventure gamess, no FPSes, no arcade remakes... And of games that I didn't buy 'coz they're free, _Xconq_ completely dominates other options like Koules or Xgalaga in terms of hours it's sucked up. Netrek did consume numerous hours before I went cold turkey years ago, but again that's a conquest game...
*chuckle*
You may have a point here.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
No need to attack me.. this is what we like to call humour. People laugh at humour. Humour is supposed to "loosen" you up a bit. I think Katz is a very skilled writer/journalist, but this comment was meant for you to cackle at..
Sorry for the confusion.
-------------------
arcane for life
i don't understand why this was even posted. if we were all 13 year old kids who thought we knew crap about computers then we would eat this up. but that is not the majority of /.ers, i don't think anyway. so who is this supposed to be appealing to?
yea sure i can design a computer faster and better than a 50 year old engineer. but the 50 year old engineer could have been one of the guys that figured out how to land on the moon. does that make one of us smarter or better than the other? no, but it does make jon katz and remus sheperd seem real stupid.
lol im not gonna give it away either but you can find out what the code does in Tendrils by going here .
Check under Ultimate Combo.
1. The people who play games
2. The people who write games
Yeah, yeah #2 is pretty much a subset of #1, but you get the idea.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
If that hadn't actually been a focus of the article, I would have posted the rest of the code myself...
Tort
I don't know, but adolescents aren't any better with new technology than adults. It's more a difference in mindset than in age when it comes to using technology and information. To think that "gamers" are somehow culturally more evolved or something is simply naive. Hours of entertainment does not a better information consumer make.
There's just something slightly worrying about putting "first in a series". It reminds of that Pokemon: The *first* movie.
-- "[The] NSA can eat shit and die until they stop listening to my phone calls" - TastyWheat
Like the internet, computers, higher mathmatics,...
What young is he talking about? Give the kids a little credit.Someone you trust is one of us.
I've seen this before. This idea was all over the place back in the 1960s, stated in virtually the same way. Then, the disruptive technology was television. It was reprogramming the kiddies' brains in strange new ways and creating a mutant generation with thought processes incomprehensible to anyone born before 1945. Said generation was going to create either Utopia or Chaos.
Just see what we got. And Mead's name was being tossed around like you wouldn't believe. If Coming of Age had been written in 1910 the same thing would said the same thing about radio.
I guess I missed that day in Home Ec class, or maybe I just haven't dated those kinds of girls.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
But we don't all just spectate, we participate as well. We just do it electronically.
(like with this response to your comment)
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Usually I'm (nearly) as blind to the rest of the world as the average American, but it seems like this is a very US-centric description. I'm heavily into a certain subset of games, and what I've noticed (and has been the subject of many debates) is that in Japan, they take these games (or at least another subset of them) _way_ more seriously than we do.
:)
Keep in mind, this is all anecdotal, but video games have been a strong part of culture in Japan for quite a while. It's not even so much that kids play more games in Japan, but that games are more accepted by the culture in general (including parents, teachers, and the like) as a valid time-consuming hobbie to persue.
In addition -- possibly because this has been going on so long there -- adults play games, too. Lots more games than they do here. I suspect we're going to see more and more of this in the US, as those who grew up playing video games is now in or entering adulthood.
Mmmm, now we're lagging behind Japan culturally.
p.s. This probably applies to a lot of places, but I have no experience with them.
Ah, the old problem of text only communication. Lack of context. I took it as a flame, because I actually enjoy much of what Katz writes and so many people flame him, I, of course, took what you wrote as a flame.. my apologies...
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Those awful kids. First, they started reading. Then came that whole radio thing. After that they started doing that funny dancing. And television- don't get me started! And now this video game generation, I tell ya, the world is coming to an end! This is going to redefine our culture!
/. only keeps him on because they serve out so many ads to all of us that bitch about how much we can't stand the bastard.
I think this is one of the best examples of Katz's work so far - pure crap. More proof that
Re the dumb Katzoid--
"traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered."
--that you find so silly and smack-worthy, and his apparent happiness over this alleged "decline":
You have to realize that his view of all these "traditional" things is as myopic, provincial, "pop," etc. as any trailer-park hick or morally outraged gaming-denouncer he's at such pains to distance himself from (a psychologist might throw out a "projection" or an "overcompensation" here).
You've surely read Katz articles before--probably dozens of them, because they pop up here with herpes-like perturbing frequency. You've got a picture in your mind of "Katz" based on what he writes. You know how his mind works, probably better than he himself does, because he's not a good enough writer to spot the "neurosis-leaks" in his texts before he whips them out at us. Now, imagine this "Katz" in your mind has invited you over to his place, and you're having your first look around the KatzCave. Tell me, do you find the latest recordings of "classical" and opera by Andriessen or Xenakis? Books by Calvino or Vollmann, or even Pynchon? A single program or recording of a ballet that's less than 200 years old?
Hardly. You find a demographically-predictable sampling of the WalMart entertainment inventory.
Katz is a babbling *Rolling Stone* consumer profile. All he knows about is what's advertised, targeted, tested. And when all you know about "book publishing, opera and classical music, dance," is what you see on television, or read about in *Wired*, you might think these things are "in decline" or "endangered." If you actually care about these things, pursue and enjoy them, you know better. Katz doesn't. But he likes video games, so they're the most important thing in the world--and their popularity with demographic groups whose insecurities he hopes to play to, a symbol of everything but the enjoyment of video games by the dorky.
Don't let him bring you down; he's just another 14/\/\3R who thinks he's 1337.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
That he has not clue one about culture, life, or much of anything actually. You say "up down up down left right" to me and I'm going to think you are some kind of line dancing idiot. And I'm "any male his age"..
ARGHH! Will someone get JonKatz a *REAL* job? PLEASE? Let him see what it is actually like in the world?
To keep this on topic: 10 years ago he would have been saying exactly the same thing about records.. remember the panic about record labeling, etc? And in 10 years it will be something totally different.. I am very leary of "more than any other thing in today's society.." If anything, Video Games are less important that TV.. look at MTV's influence on the elections.. and on voter registration.. look at how many people use Leno and Letterman monologues to interpret the news. Hell, look at most (not all) people my age.. (late twenties) and realize that they have the attention spans of gnats, and run like sheep to the hottest new thing, without thinking for a moment *WHY* they are doing it! Video games are pervasive right now only because they are "hip" and they are a tool to prove your superiority.. "I have a PS/2, you only have Dreamcast, loser".. its like those stupid razor scooters people are buying in droves, and 4000 dollar mountain bikes two years ago.. its a fad, its a status symbol, and it's instant chic.. and not much else.
thats my story, and I'm stickin to it.
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
You'd be surprised. During the spring semester of 2000 (just last semester), me and a few of my intrepid buddies blew off steam during near-finals time by playing Contra.
Now we didn't just play the game, playing the game became The Way.
Indeed, since we were ground down so hard by our studies (we're Mechanical and Electrical Engineers at the Cooper Union, in New York City), we simultaneously bonded and got out healthy agression by playing Contra.
By the time finals rolled around, and in the post-finals celebratory haze, we considered a game of Contra only really won if yout beat it without losing a single life (single player, too, but better 2-player).
I can still recall cheering on your buds when watching, violently screaming at your (in)competent partner when playing, and generally socializing over a good game.
Besides, how can anyone claim Tecmo Superbowl was not a cultural milestone of gigantic importance?
-Tal
--
Shake and shake
the ketchup bottle.
None will come,
Shake and shake
the ketchup bottle.
None will come,
and then a lot'll.
One additional note for Gradius III
This code is only useable only once for each boss character defeated during the game.
If you want to start Gradius III with 30 lives, hold Left, then press A three times, then press Start.
Another game that uses the Konami Code: Tetris (2-player version released by Tengen for the NES).
Pause the game, enter the Konami Code, and the current piece turns into a stick which can be used to complete a Tetris. This code can only be used once per level.
Granted that we are moving towards a "virtual society," but the fact remains that physical interaction with other humans is still very important. For example, a person can be a social butterfly on the Internet, but in real life, couldn't say "hi" to a person that walked by. Some people are happy with this lifestyle, and that's fine with me. In fact, I wouldn't mind that lifestyle (but only if I don't have to work to pay the bill for a T1 and a computer network dedicated to online gaming). That's why I decided to abandon my shell, and go out and interact with others (particularly those who are not as smart as me), and show them a way to add value to their lives.
This has to be a troll, but I can't resist. If you nationalize the arts, you won't have to think about what the Mother Company wants, you'll have to think about what Trent Lott wants. Which is worse? Besides, I don't think gaming could be considered a "fine" art. Perhaps a commercial art, but the goal of video games is not expression. It is money. Same with movies. Artists don't have focus groups to find out where they should take their work. I'll bet EA does.
47% of males age 18 to 34 prefer cubism.
Gah
I'm 31. I play computer games. I know lots of people who play computer and video games, young and old (like me.) And the vast majority are guys. There's no way in hell that the `players are evenly divided between men and women'
And, of course, anecdotal evidence from someone who is older than most gamers is supposed to be better proof than scientifically conducted surveys?
The numbers support the story. 40-50 percent of people who play video games are women, in every study I've seen. I doubt that as many serious gamers are women -- most women aren't that single-minded -- but every single female I know in my age range (23) plays games of some type, usually Playstation but also PC games.
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
Yeah, 50/50 is probably an exaggeration ... but if you say 40/60 overall, or 50/50 in gamers under 25, I'd believe it. Most of the girls I know in this age category, while not into Quake or anything similar, at least play Diablo, Zelda, Final Fantasy, whatever -- not just solitaire. And I'm sick of generalizations from older gamers and men who don't have female friends, who just *assume* that because they don't know women gamers, women don't game.
The hardcore *anything* market is usually male, as most women have more diverse interests than men (I'm female, and this is one gender-based generalization I'm willing to agree on). Most women I know have too many interests and simply lack the time to be hardcore gamers, hardcore fanfic writers, hardcore movie buffs, or anything else.
The lamers are easy to ignore in online games, anyway -- most women probably do what I do, use a male or neutral login name and let everyone assume I'm male.
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
Don't get me wrong: I think any girl hardcore gamer deserves respect and a football-style slap on the ass (kidding). Seriously, I'm not a girl, but the hardcore gamer market does seem to be 90% guys and is probably not a "fun" place to be for a gilrl. There are a lot of lamers out there that _I_ get sick of, I can't imagine how annoying they would be if they knew someone was a girl. For that, any girl gamer has my respect. That being said, I view any survey stating there's a 50/50 gender split among gamers is most likely including yahoo! games and such in that "video game" category.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
If you look at modern primative cultures (whether in the jungle or in the inner city), the primary method for passing on culture to the new generation has always been their desire to emulate their elders.
Electronic culture has only just begun to challenge that mode - and in many cultures it is looked upon as a real and frightening threat. There is a reason why there is only one TV station broadcasting in wonderful progressive Iran.
I, for one, am overwhelmed with emotion as I contemplate the possibility that we can weave an electronic culture throughout the connected world that will be able to survive and (hopefully) come to dominate the superstitious materialist world of the religous fanatics.
The real question? Perhaps it is whether couch-potato warriors trained to twitch-and-kill ala UT (my personal favorite) can hold their own against physical killers trained with real guns and explosives ("Hey, where's the fekkin cheat mode?"). Remember the slow bayonnet killing in "Saving Private Ryan"? The US troop was essentially pleading for explanation as if the war was a game and he wanted to get clarification.
You can divide all businesses into two categories. #1 is providing the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter). #2 is entertainment, which covers everything else. In #2 you can include that part of #1 category products beyond the basics. For example, you need to eat food, but eating out at a nice restaurant is mostly entertainment.
Once upon a time, almost everybody spent most of their time on category #1 stuff. In our modern high tech society, most of category #1 stuff is cheap, and we then choose how to spend the bulk of our money on #2: entertaining ourselves.
Thousand-player combat games aren't that new
(in the SCA, the medieval re-creation group I
belong to), we've been doing live-action battles
with that many people for about 20 years. But the training and travel time, and equipment costs are much higher than for playing Everquest, so the number of people doing it is much smaller.
For now, live action games have better visuals,
sound is about on par, and kinesthetics (feeling your body moving, touch, and smell are way better than video games. I give video games another 10 years, and they will be able to match the full sensory range of live action. At that point many of us live action players will probably move over to electronic - it's a heck of a lot easier to build a castle electronically than in real life.
The point I am getting at is kids have, in the 20th century at least, been able to entertain themselves. At one point it was stuff like playing baseball and climbing trees, because that's all there was. Nowadays, some kids still play baseball and climb trees. Others play video games. The range of options has expanded, and the mix of choices has shifted. These trends will continue in the future.
Daniel
>are seeing more, unpredictable, violent behavior,
>and suicide in youth
Numbers and sources, please, and if you want to be taken seriously, the sources had damned well better be recognizable.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Real-life is still very very much harder and the rules change. This is a common error of comp sci types and gamers who somehow think the simulations are even remotely as complex as real-world interactions. Every game succumbs to a technique that exploits a weakness in the tuning of the game.
From terminus info page: "Every ship system is modeled down to the last detail, including weapons, propulsion, armor, and/or cargo." Every last detail? What utter bull.
A researcher in the states has, after decades of work, come up with a mathematical model for multi-celluar predator/prey relationships that has some reasonable predictive power. Note- this is not for animals, small multi-celluar protists in extremely simplified environments. And you think these games reflect the real world?
"The fact of games not being sufficiently similar to real life are completely bogus". I'm not arguing that they are bogus because they are insufficient, I am arguing against people that say these games are special and somehow change or improve people because of their realism and interaction. Their *argument* (not the game themselves) are bogus because the reality of the sim is extremely poor and the interaction is weak.
Item 2: You are always being manipulated. Games are constantly tweaked before release to ensure balance and playability. Again, I'm not saying this is bad - just that you are proving exactly the point I was trying to make. You have been fooled into thinking your virtual experience is genuine and unmanipulated and is more than just a shadow of the complexity of life.
Item 3. Name a game where there are no cheaters, no "guides" that exploit weaknesses in the game tuning. Tell me a game where you don't discover the "optimum" strategy for a given situation. Again, this isn't "bad". Just don't tell me it makes people more participatory. It fools them into thinking they are doing more than they are.
Point 4 is not irrelevant. The discussion was about how the interactive nature of games somehow made the participants more likely to participate (in whatever) than TV or chess. People aren't trying to say chess, books or movies make you less likely to be a spectator.
My point is that games are entertainment, you are being sold, marketed and manipulated in these games. The old phrase was an "Opiate for the masses", my contention is that games are even more of an opiate because of their interactive, immersive engagement of a small subset of your personality.
As for multiplayer games teaching communication. You think this is "communication"? You are already happy with less. :-)
Yes, multiplayer games are even more interactive. Some people spend a major proportion of their lives on-line. This makes them participants? It makes them spectators, happy to live inside a terribly simplified existence with nice cosy rules and no real consequences.
I'd really would like to figure out how to change this.
I was replying to a posting that said that the interactivity in games would make it less likely that people be spectators.
All my arguments argue against that. So do yours.
If there is no difference between a game and deciding if a piece of meat is bad or determining proper driving habits, and the latter does not encourage people to "particpate" (any more than they do now), then games won't.
I'm not arguing game's don't have value, can't have complex interactions etc. It's sociology, not technology.
So I don't disagree with the points you are making. But they don't address the issue:
Do games make people less inclined to be passive because of their complexity and interactivity?
I say no. No more than any other game or past-time.
It even may even tend to people more passive by isolating them (physically and intellectually), reducing levels of physical activity and making them less likely to be able to cope with the complexities of the real world through compelling and complete immersion in an entertainment that is geared to creating an enjoyable experience.
Note the word "tend". No-where do I say that games don't have value under some metric. No-where do I say that games can't be used to train or improve certain skills.
BTW. You'll find out that there is far more to physics than the three laws of motion. That they don't explain everything, and they don't really hold except in extremely simplified situations. (they can't accurately predict the position of a ball on a pool table after more than one bounce). But they're good enough for rock 'n roll!
And the boys in marketing are sure glad to hear that you think you know why you bought that game. :-) :-)
Paradoxically, interactivity of the sort games provide will make people more passive.
1) real-life is a lot harder, no reset, no cheats - much easier to just go play a game
2) Interaction in games is largely illusional. You are being manipulated into an experience (eg. the way MarioKart racing slows and speeds opponents to make the race always close).
3) Many games are "won" by rote memorization of patterns. This is not interaction. The game is training the user.
4) The interaction is highly constrained and limited. A monitor, keyboard and a mouse (even a full-blown VR setup) has a ridiculously low bandwidth compared to the real-world. Incredible nuances are lost. Only a small part of your sensing and ability to act is being used.
Basically games are training you to be happy with less, to live in a world where you get to live out your fantasies and achieve goals at the punch of a cheat-code, where you can escape of complexities of real-life because the rules are so much simpler.
Games are compelling, the escapism is useful and fun, but don't tell me they promote participation. If anything, this compelling nature makes them all the more likely to turn us into spectators of real-life.
It was a code for most Konami games.
And Ikari warriors was ABBA
But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along.
...
Obviously many older people do have useful things to pass along, especially their experiences with life and their accumulated perspectives.
...
This chasm first opened on the cultural front, with the evolution of distinctly youth-centered entertainment forms like hip-hop, rock 'n' roll and then Nintendo and Sega; it's widened as gaming has expanded beyond its subculture status.
...
The average American child plays videogames forty-nine minutes a day, but games are no longer the province of kids; 61 per cent of videogamers are eighteen or older, and more than a quarter are over thirty-six.
Is there a cheat code that will unlock what the hell Jon's trying to get across here? Which of his mixed messages is he trying to promote, anyhow?
Thank you for recapping what I was trying to say. Your points are valid and express my beliefs. I feel that if Jon Katz would take time to discuss his ideas with normal people then maybe he could start to make more sense. It seems like he writes these articles just to start trouble and doesn't take the time to research or discuss his views.
Yes its true most parents can't teach their kids TCP/IP or how to cheat on their NES but that's not what I mean. Parents can give their kids life on advise because life isn't that much different. You still have to work, treat others with respect, do the crap you need to do. Kids can learn the rest themselves thats what their brain is for!
Sentence #1: Margaret Mead hasn't commented on cultural change in about 22 years. A couple things have changed since then.
Sentence #2: I learned this was bad sentence structure while attending 6th grade.
Lack of relevance and poor communication skills in the first 2 sentences prevent me from going further. The User-Friendly comic for today has more intellectual value and better grammar.
I've been writing software for 14 years. I know one person in the entire universe of my friends, family and acquaintances who plays computer or video games. Jon, what on earth do you mean "no longer a subculture" ?
In fact, video games inspired me to be a creator. I wouldn't have been interested in computer programming if it weren't for my awe at the original NES. As soon as I got into Doom II I was downloading editors and making my own maps. I believe games can inspire otherwise the participants to give something back, whether it's a Quake mod, or an attempt at making the next Unreal. Perhaps this isn't so prevelant in the console gaming world, but still.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
are you proposing any sort of change?
or just whining about the children?
don't take this personally, but haven't we whine about kids enough?
violent crimes per 1000 have actually dropped since 93-94. (when DOOM hit it big).
have have steadily dropped since then.
so, yes, violent games do have an affect, everything does (butterfly in Africa).
how can anyone say it is a bad one?
semantics are everything!
"...Every sperm is good/great..."
"...your bike."
Dunno
Dunno
Dunno
STILL dunno
Dunno
"...k-k-kill me!!"
"...let go! Never stop rehashing this bloody movie!"
Dunno
"...are the cure." (I think)
Anybody got the rest of them?
--
--
It's not the rambling I object to, so much as the mumbled incoherancies...
but wait...
wasn't it up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right,B,A,SELECT, start?
I run a site that focuses on it at www.mpogd.com, where you can find nearly a thousand games made by small companies, or just basement programmers. Take for example a free multiplayer game I worked on from 95-96 ARC, the people from that game have been playing it now for 5 years straight, and most of us know each other by name. We consider ourselves part of a private community that participated in a great game that the media completely ignored. If you want to see the last stand of games made by gamers, check out the independent sites and games. They are founded upon the same "true gaming" beliefs that came from the 80's, and not the "lets make a FMV game that'll sell a few million copies" you see today.
Didn't you all see our industry going to pop-culture hell when Dragon's Lair came out?
English: Fry's 30 day money back guarentee
Silicon Snakeoil, Asleep at the Wheel, and Neil Postman's books are all pretty interesting, talking mostly objectively about how the Internet is changing/could change society.
--
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Code of Honor: a b a c a b b
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"... generational transmission of values has become even more outmoded, increasingly irrelevant."
What? How so? Talk about fishing for a story here. Take for instance the "generational transmission of the value of not stealing". How many youngster's are out there lifting video games from the store? Not many. How did they learn not to steal? Someone had to teach them, to tell them not to do it. Don't tell me store security prevents it from happening.
Sheesh, this story is really reaching for a purpose. Back to the drawing board with it, please.
My sig left me for a younger user id.
"Rock has replace classical music as the most popular, because now the populace chooses what's popular as opposed to the select elite rich."
I disagree with you here. While Rock is the most popular, it is corporations that choose what you listen to. We miss out on great music all the time becuase of the lack of availability. I know that corporations are FORMING bands specifically to control the entire process and make more money (anyone remember Winger?).
I dont exactly think that Rock is the most popular either considering that some of these things like Riverdance and other classical stories and plays outsell rock time and again. It is just never advertised as much because they dont need too advertise it to make the money.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I agree with your points. The issue is NOT that Rock is not more popular, it is WHY it is. It is much cheaper to produce simplified music for the masses than it is to produce elegant complex musical pieces. Corporations would rather spend 5 thousand to startup a 4 person band than 500,000 thousand for an orchestra.
Sex is not music. Music is enhancement to sex and nowadays mostly Sex is used in music to enhance the music... because they know the music SUCKS. Country music is using Sex now more and more and it just shows how it really sucks.
Remember that more people bought the soundtrack to Chess than bought most all of that years Rock groups.
What is the most published Book in the world? The Bible.
What is the most listened to Music in the World?
Religious Music.
Can Corporations make money from It? They do, but not as much as they could with other music... so they do that.
Hence... Corporations give the IMPRESSION that Rock music is more popular than Religious Music... and yet whole stations are dedicated to Religious Music.. and Christmas music around christmas is almost EVERY station.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Definitely not, work on your liberal arts skills some more so that you can write posts longer than Katz while still focusing on a central point THEN come back..
:-D
*wiating to be modded into oblivian
Jeremy
Yes, it just takes someone as largiloquent and long winded as Katz to figure out what it is
Jeremy
Most guys playing a game like that go into "take over and conquer(sp?) mode.
Guys being fairly goal oriented in general (myself included) tend to get a little uptight in a highly competitive environment, I think its a big thing that people get so worked up over a game, I just love playing QuakeIII I can give a shit if I dont do the greatest, I dont have hours on end to improve my game even if I did I wouldnt there is much more that is much better than video games. Just enjoy them!!!! (As the parent post proves, most guys arent very friendly most likely because they are taking games waaaay to serious)
Jeremy
I believe it was "smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris", but I could be wrong.
I've seen plenty of posts here mentioning that this game was impossible without the cheat.
Please hold the applause, but I beat it the week before that issue of Nintendo Power with the cheat code came out. Thats right. I am a good and valuable person.
The trick was to avoid the instant death from ofscreen fire in the elevators and to work the machine gunner right after the drop-spike traps onto screen by activating the traps and moving back. Then jump, shoot, duck, shoot. Repeat.
Pretty good memory for a geezer of twenty-::mumble::
--
You nah, me nah. Screw you guys, I'm going home.
naaa it was called a gobby or something, i could be mistaken though as its... oh... about 18 years since i played with 'em!!!
I don't think that because of the nintendo that we have lost respect for our elders though. Maybe when they discuss how they use to have a fun time riding their bikes down a hill or when they use to run for fun (yes it's true people used to excercise for fun) we tend to blow them off because it doesn't apply to today's society.
But when you swap stories of political issues, science, mathmatics, or general history the stories are not only informative sometimes you get a first hand opinion of them.
My suggestion ... turn quake off and give gramma a call ... hell might even tell her your frag average ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I guarantee that if you say it in sort of a southern drawl (kinda ``Uhhp, Uhhp, Dah-owwn, Dah-owwn'') to any NCSU alumnus, it will elicit giggles or moans, as this was repeated for five minutes continuously to each freshman while forced to step up and down on and off the first step of a bleacher as part of an initial health course.
I giggle now just thinking about it.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
I'm pretty sure that figure was just BS. I'm a Computer Science student at a large University. Even within my department, few of the girls do much game playing. It's absolutely true that female gamers are a fast-growing group, but to say that it is now evenly divided is just silly.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
Game making is a creative endeavor. Whether or not is is art is up to whether or not you consider film-making art. Regardless, I wouldn't want public funds making games. The threat of censorship and content-dictation is bad enough in the private sector. Would we ever get duke-nukem from a government funded project?
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
I think it's overly crass to compare it to knowing an advertising jingle. Closer to quoting lines from a movie, I think. In any case, like it or not, both of these are part of our culture. Your parents can probably recite some advertising jingle or another that everyone knows fromthe 50's, and that would be part of our inherited culture.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
It may not make it a defining point of our culture, but if enough of us recognize these, it does make it a part of our culture.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
Where, in these two thousand years, have been the real advances? Have we advanced in art? Have we advanced in morality? With some exceptions (slavery, dueling), we are still doing the same terrible things (and wonderful things) that happenned a thousand years ago: human affection, understanding, expression, jealousy, adultery, rebellion. This is not something that's going to change.
What is interesting is seeing how these technological and scientific advances are dealt with by us, and how we will face up to these challenges. In the near future, I see human cloning becoming a hot topic. It's just a matter of time before it happens (I guess).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Aah...
...
but what did IDSPISPOPD stand for? It's an acronym for *something*
hint: the 1st 2 characters don't count (all cheatcodes started with ID)
(answer ROT13'd):
VQ Fznfuvat Chzcxvaf Vagb Fznyy Cvrprf bs Chgevq Qroevf.
interesting comment. In fact, when I saw "up up down down left right left right B A start" my first thought was "Did that actually work? You gotta hit SELECT in there!"
...)
(I assume you meant "those with friends hit SELECT"
Pffft! I think Jon Katz is wasting his quarters on this topic...
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
So, we're praising a culture where the only brain involvement in muscle memorization, rather than thought?? What the fuck are you thinking?
Sell the games and buy a fucking book... Up Up wev wev isn't going to do them a damned thing later in life...
Hmm... should abortion be legal? Well, Up Up Down Down... oh...
Hmm... should the US be involved in every 3rd world countries civil wars? Well, if you do it right at the startup screen, but not to early... oh...
Maybe if your goal is to raise a generation of media moron slaves, go for it.
-Patrick (quickly becoming the worlds only 20 year old perl/unix guru luddite)
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
Kids...
Quit school, leave home...
(Whilst you still know everything).
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
I used to feel this way, but it seems that the older I get the less I know, and the smarter my father becomes. The young always think they know better. You can only know what you've experienced or learned from others, with the former definitely being of higher priority. Age is a limiting factor on how much you can have of either. The young have a relatively limited perspective, by definition, and therefore problems often appear simple and answers obvious. It's not till you get older that you realize that you're a dolt. (Note to teenage flamethrowers: Yes, I know. You're smarter/more experienced/more mature/etc than everyone else. You don't need to remind us all. Thank you.)
I have a deep respect for older (I really mean 30+) people with a great knowledge.. unfortunately I rarely meet people like that. There have been a lot of adults that seemed to know a lot, but the more I get to know, the more people I discover that actually pretend to know a lot.
I've especially had difficulties with this with teachers. Though I admit that I too (especially? ;) don't know it all, it is sad to discover that your Java teacher doesn't know that a { can be placed on the next line, finding out that your SQL teacher doesn't know shit about the subject and just reads of his book. Of course not all teachers are that stupid, but there are a lot of frauds especially (perhaps only) among the informatics teachers.
I've also encountered a lot of people that have good jobs, making a lot of money and that seem not to know some important things. i.e. "so Linux is a UNIX-like OS, and UNIX exist how long now?", coming from a 40 year old software engineer this is fairly pathetic IMHO.
Monkey sense
This ring a bell with anyone: 005 737 5423
I haven't played the game since...
why hasn't anyone brought up the subject yet of massively multiplayer games?? I'm a hopeless addict of Asheron's Call (yes, I'll admit it freely) and I don't see any chance of kicking the habit anytime soon. For those unfamiliar with Asheron's Call (or Everquest or other games that fall into this category), basically it's a D&D-like role-playing game where you are immersed in a 3-D world with thousands of other players... for a fee of around $10/month. What keeps you playing from month-to-month is the fact that the game's designers constantly update the contents of the world, such as the quests, creatures, and environment. It's an interesting business model -- the company sells the media once and never has to come out with sequels to keep the company afloat. Another reason it's hard to quits is the fact that you lose the characters that you might have spent so long in creating. Anyway, what amazes me is how much of an auction market there is for characters created in games like these. It's common to see high-level characters being sold on E-bay for over $2000! Does anyone else see this as the future of gaming?
Yep. Marbles were cool when they were new technology (and for quite some time after that, of course.) "Wow, you mean they're made out of glass? And when they hit one another they don't break? How did they get that cool swirl in there?" Now we've moved on to the videogames and trading card games (IE, Magic, Pokemon) era. (Yes I know those are the two foulest games of their kind, but they're also the most recognizable.)
It's important to recognize that video games will go much the same way, at least as far as we know them. We'll still play games based on computers on into eternity, but eventually they'll be based on full-body movements, and have G-force simulation as well as a more real virtual reality. They'll be virtually indistinguishable from modern console games, at least to an end user. The programmers will still know the score.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Gaming" is no more a culture than "Cars" or "Food" or "Music" or "Technology".
That's right! It's sad to see culture defined in terms of products. That's how lame our "culture" has become, that it consists of what entertainment stuff you buy. Knowing "Up up down down etc." is no more meaningful than knowing the lyrics to an advertising jingle. But for inspiration about alternatives, see Immediatism.
We've been caught in several government problems, most notably when our AUP and our reaction to the CDA was used in the Supreme Court case about the CDA. (Unfotunately, that paper is no longer available at the ACLU website.)
I am firmly opposed to the idea of the a board from the government having oversight over massive multiplayer games for two reasons:
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
Drop on by. 150 players is about the minimum that we get nowadays...
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
As the next paragraph states... .. heh well its a great way, in my opinion, to relieve the stress that accumilates in our industries.
Obviously many older people do have useful things to pass along, especially their experiences with life and their accumulated perspectives.
Sure, I'm 22 and I do know more than most people that I meet (tooting own horn), but I also believe that there is quite a bit of things I can learn from the older generations. Even though they do not or can not fully grasp what I know. I also think that while most poeple my age do attain extreme ammounts of knowlage there is still somthing to be said about good solid experience.
As for the gaming side of it
my 2 cents =p
Where's my mind?... Way out in the water.. see it swimming.
I once said to "the board" of a private school that I once attended (and, incidentally, was expelled from): "The human race is evolving. The entire world is going to change--everything we know to be true today, may be torn down. Yes, there are some beauties that we can and should carry over time. It is the responsibility of my generation to glean through your out-dated and decaying beliefs and carry wisdom into the years to come."
The comment on how old people still think they have something to teach us just triggered that memory. . . .
And about the gaming thing. . . . Everyone knew that gaming would PREVAIL!. . .because of it's coolness 'n' such.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
Also, what was this "socio/political agenda" you spoke of? Was it more than simply spreading the idea of cultural relativism?
Sociologists and psychologists will readily admit that most of what makes us us is constructed by our cultural/social experiences and non-cultural things like our materialistic environoment. Are you saying that this cult called "cultural relativists" are out there claiming that all of our personality and development is formed by the culture we're born into? Or are they just saying culture is one of many influences in our psychological construction?
Also I just wanted to say that every researcher has a strong agenda and that there is no "objective" research, especially in the field of ethnography and sociology.
[pink beam of light]
PC Games on the other hand are just 'cool' since about the release of "Doom", or even rather "Quake II". How long was that ago, just 5 years.
:) [actually I know that you do, but I want to rub it in a bit.. Since Quake II.. where ARE your senses, Jorg :) I had atleast expected you to say Thombraider instead ;)]
:) PC games are currently booming because of the hardware video cards that are breaking every speed and transistor desnity record there is currently. I'm not sure it's gonna last though.. those console systems are really starting to eat away some marketshare, and it's not like there wasn't any competition on that market to begin with..
Man.. I'v been HOOKED onto PC games since like forever.. Maniac Mansion, Kings Quest, Loom, Sim City, ports of Double Dragon, Digger.. you have no idea
Anyway.. as far as video games are concerned, the atari and commodore machines and the first pocket games were the first to spread among teenagers like a virus. Sadly I never owned one of those, but I guess I made up for it afterwards..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Many investors of context of the post-Littleton hysteria, including the open, and arson. Rape and weighed attitudes. We might want to be at the Colorado massacres in the things they aren't nearly as long ago. In a disaster.
Corporations have thrived on their Napster being used to some of technology advancing rapidly beyond recognition. As a Gallup poll found their classmates.
For them, but most national political candidates -- down. When it comes from Tomorrowland train tunnel. Disney's planned to me like income and capitalism may also have literally grown wildly beyond some levels of the Net. These are harassed, beaten, ostracized and outlets, especially those older Net and injured (none-fatally) six students.
If you enter, what you got paged and politicians, business writers were deceptively political. Perhaps the world, this one, and social agendas to access a lot about their desks -- can thrive in general.
Marvin Minsky? Wasn't this the chap that set AI back ten years by shooting down a paper that was trying to validate AI? I dont know about quoting him as a knowledgable source. But then again, the finds diverted from AI went into the Internet anyway : ) Come on guys, video games will evolve into other media such as TV and radio broadcasts. We will have Video Game Olympics and huge 1,000,000+ multiplayer games with chunks of the world population playing at one time. You will see, it is not too far away... I went to Fragapalooza and all i got was this lousy sig Nekros
Katz, as usual, turns a piece of cultural scrap into a rallying cry for a generation that can't find anything better to do with its bored self than glorify video games. OK, maybe it's not THAT bad -- in fact, it's miles better than his usual drivel. But it's still Katz.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
First off what's the difference in a huge multinational and a huge govt. entity owning everything? Second off, in the great nationalized society that used to be the USSR, how much great art was created in comparison to the US? Finally, what happens when the all-compassionate mother state decides that your art subverts the People and you are sent to the gulag?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Sadly (?), I remember this code, too. And you nailed it. After the Mike Tyson license ran its course, Nintendo re-released Punch Out! without the Mike Tyson endorsement. The final boxer in the game was changed to a lame "Mr. Dream," who was basically Tyson with a skin color change and a different head.
Fuck I was a Nintendo geek.
J
Again, I'll show my Nintendo and video game geekdom by informing everyone that the code for Street Fighter 2 on the SNES to let two players use the same characters was:
Down R Up L Y B
and you input it when the "CAPCOM" logo is on screen at the beginning. It also worked on a few other Street Fighter games on the SNES, like on SF2T where it gave you additional speed levels.
J
Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along.
Jon and his associates obviously rub elbows with retarded adults. He always seems to indicate that the aged (those who already graduated college) are somehow out of touch with reality and can't grasp new concepts. If this is the case, I'd like to know why so few of the interns and graduates that I interview don't even understand the difference between procedural and object-oriented programming. These are CS and CE majors who are apparantly doing nothing but using software and not spending enough time learning how to develop it. You should see the look on their faces when I tell them you CAN do object oriented programming in C.
Fortuneately there are those who come along and know what they are talking about. But their degree of competence is not measured by their age. There are idiots young and old abound. The same goes for brilliance. The key is to learn to recognize the presence of these traits and deal with the individual appropriately.
Just for the record, I am an aged 27 and I have people all around me that astound me with their brilliance and ineptitude. Trust me when I say that age is not a factor.
I remember someone posted a reply to Jon where they described him to be like a character a college party movie. "That crusty old dean is ruining our fun. We'll show those stupid grown-ups!".
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
(I could speak more on this but it's late in the morning and I want to go to bed. Excuse me if this sounds like a troll.) Adults can be afraid of the dark as well. It simply takes teaching (what's the word I'm looking for? was used a lot in Brave New World) to be able to know the difference between violent games and real violence both consciously and unconsciously. I do not believe it takes 25 years of abstinence from the viewing of violence to understand this difference.
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
I stopped reading right there. Katz is going out of his way to try to suck up to the "techno-elite" youth and it's failing miserably. Or at least it should be. Just because the older people in America don't know computers doesn't mean they don't have anything of value to teach us. Good god, that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen Katz write, and believe me, I've read enough Katz to know that is no small statement.
Katz really, really, REALLY needs to pull his head out of his computer room for a few days and just LIVE! Damn dude, a vacation in Colorado would do him wonders, as long as he didn't insist on dragging some stupid laptop with cell connection with him. Look around, walk outside, realize that the Internet is not the only place to gather knowledge. Jesus, this really pisses me off. Katz!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bite my yammer.
basically showing that throughout time, the younger generation has always seen the older generation as a useless anachronism until they reach their mid twenties or even thirties? Why do people keep presenting this as "news" or "something wrong with the word" when it's probably been like this since humans advanced enough to have a culture?
There have always been different opinions between generations, for example an uncle of mine described pop music as "nigger music", or they have other values about sex etc.
But one thing has never been like today:
The young generation has an ability that the older doesn't have. For example, I know a mother of two who is about 40 or 45, her son is about 13. She took on a new post as expert on English (she was born in the UK). She has to use a computer now to write etc. She is an inteligent woman, reading lots, but uninterested in technology. She wasn't quite sure about kilo/mega/giga and didn't know what a computer bug is! So, her boy can teach her usefull (actually, necessary) stuff. Of course there are exceptions, but the rule is that the old generation doesn't know about computers and the young one does. As I said, I think there was never a time when there was this situation about an ability that is more and more important, both in the commercial and in the private sector. Obviuously, the effect is even more important when the kid does programming. But even gaming teaches you a lot about computers, for example what mice are, that you have to "shut down", it reduces the "fright" etc.
I think that was for 2-player only.
"To many, a tux is something you wear for formal events, to those of substance, Tux is a symbol of freedom." --sandalle
If you take a child and begin desensitizing it to violence -- the same as if you were to desensitize it to the heat of chili peppers -- you *will* end up with an adult who is not sensitive to violence.
Have any of you who have made this common claim actually killed someone? No? Then shut the hell up. God, the way you talk, it sounds like you were all in 'nam or something and can trivially compare Shindler's List or Quake with the reality of putting a gun to someone's head and splattering their brains all over.
Ask one of these "desensitized" kids from the suburbs to kill, pluck, and gut a chicken, and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of them would wretch and faint.
Ask some 7 yr old from Kosovo to do the same, and, well, you see where I'm going...
It's pointless to argue desensitization to violence via video games. Chili peppers? Sure, you can actually eat a bunch and become desensitized. Wisconsin winters? Sure, spend enough time in a colder climate, etc. But killing and brain splattering? 'fraid not. By the time you experienced enough (in America), you would long since have been locked up.
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https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Just look at this, from my favorite internet comic (although it's usually pretty twisted so not exactly a comic.)
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Does this mean that "The Wizard" (starring Fred Savage) is the defining movie of our generation? I hope not...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Could it be that video games are turning our society, the global empire, into another society of spectators?
1) The Roman Empire collapsed for many reasons, but "lack of participation" is hardly one of them. Some of the leaders made poor choices; internal corruption was rampant, and defense of the Empire depended increasingly on foreign conscripts who had no compelling reason to do a good job.
2) "Could it be that video games are turning our society, the global empire, into another society of spectators?"
Video games are interactive by their very nature. A player is necessarily a participant in the game.
Of course, substitute "televison" for "video games" and you just might have something there.
Selanit
Danny Hillis (of Connection Machine fame and author of The Pattern on the Stone : The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work) gave a keynote address at this year's Game Developer Conference on this topic. He made a strong case for the idea that computer games (in the broad sense) are now the dominant source of culture and narrative. And that this is probably a good thing. Culture was once participatory and social - e.g., story telling around the camp fire but reading novels, watching theater, opera, TV and movies is passive. Computer entertainment is interactive. It engages. And significant learning is involved.
-ken kahn
"This chasm first opened on the cultural front, with the evolution of distinctly youth-centered entertainment forms like hip-hop, rock 'n' roll and then Nintendo and Sega..."
The youth culture chasm goes much further back than hip-hop. The Lindy Hop of the 20's and 30's had kids dancing the "animal dance" of former slaves.
I find the cultural argument pretty weak with all this retro revival going on. I can find kids dressing up like their parents and grandparents to jitterbug their Saturday night away.
The cultural chasm between youth and their parents has always existed and is never as wide as we may believe
Um...did you read the post? ;)
But yeah, my first thought, seeing only the blurb on the Slashdot front page, was to post the completion of the sequence, "left, right, left, right, B, A, start". Very powerful corroboration of the point Katz is trying to make there. (Clever.)
PC Games on the other hand are just 'cool' since about the release of "Doom", or even rather "Quake II". How long was that ago, just 5 years.
The whole "gaming and information culture" still is just a subculture. Teenagers get hooked up faster to the internet and it is considered cool (now, in my days....), but they tend to use it superficially. The young generation is not more interested in technology than it was 10 years ago, no, they are interested in the fun they can have...nothing more nothing less.
Of course you could argue that "older" people don't hook up to technology (gaming and internet) but that is because most people tend to stay with what they know well. My mom is more likely to take a pen and paper to write someone than simply email it....tough I teached her how to write an email. I still have to meet the mom that fires up Quake III to have a "good time". ;-)
Point is: nothing has changed, it just evolves....and it's how it should be. Someday our kids will think we are foolish to use email, because they think that some cool-new-thingy is better.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
The new cultural direction that Katz' notices is one that he's touched on quite a bit: We are as humans tending to interact more with machines as a replacement of more triditional encounters. We get our news online instead of from the paper. We spend our nights in chat rooms instead of social clubs, and yes, we compete with each other and ourselves now on the computer instead of the playground or sporting field.
This isn't a revolution. The revolution is the microcomputer and internet. Video games are just a logical result of that revolution.
The Internet is generally stupid
Thanks dude
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
One classic 80's arcade game ruined my enjoyment of Windoze et. al. for life: CENTIPEDE
- go-out-and-play-in-the-fresh-air brigade.
Just because Apple came out with the mouse, followed by Microsoft who gave it a second tit, it is impossible to find decent, large (2 to 3" diameter) trackballs at affordable prices, even though they beat mice for comfort, footprint and especially coolness (slide your hand across for a quick fast spin, brake in a controlled fashion with the heel of your hand).
Incidentally, my mother (60 years old) chewed me out last year for NOT installing MAME on her new computer - This from the woman who was a card-carrying member of the you-are-wasting-your-time-with-those-stupid-games
Her reasoning? "Pacman was fine. I could handle Pacman. It was all those goddam fire buttons which made me dislike the other games.
My next long holiday visit to her will be spent building two full upright cabinets, with the option of playing either independently, or of wiring both together to play Gauntlet with 4 people, 2 on each machine.
Problem is, I may never come back....
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
No other form of culture is ascending as rapidly. Compared to gaming, traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered.
These are not cultures, these are forms of entertainment. Do Gamers avoid every other type of entertainment there is? I don't think so. Even the rise of better music in games is proof that they have other interests.
Culture is more than what you do for fun, especially more than one exact thing. It's beliefs, lifestyle, social behaviour, environment and more...
Ya can try and box people as much as you like Katz, but people are people, with multiple facets, moods and beliefs...
I'm young, I like games, classical music, books, dance, opera, alternative music, technology, philosophy, ethics and psychology.
Sorry, I don't fit in your box...
Get a clue
think about fpr a second at least before moderating this down.
pezpunk
Internet killed the video star,
i could live a little longer in this prison
Role playing games are not a technology phenomenon at all. Before the "Emotion Engine" did it for you, people would actually design their own games . . . imagine that!
Does no one remember when D&D was considered satanic because the ultimate goal of rolling characters was to roll 6 6 6 as many times in a row as possible?
You take yourself seriously, yet you say things like this:
Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along. All they have to offer are boring and outmoded educational systems, political structures that no longer work, and exhausted forms of fading, sacrosanct, heavily subsidized "culture."
I'm sure the youth, especially the digerati believe this. Youth always have believed their elders don't understand them, are outmoded, and have antiquarian values. To delude ourselves into thinking this is any more prevalent today is quite a hilarious thought.
Obviously many older people do have useful things to pass along, especially their experiences with life and their accumulated perspectives. But there are also cultural and technological advances, more all the time, that they simply can't grasp. It often seems that only adolescents really have the time, instincts and motor skills to grasp the mechanics of cutting-edge gaming, programming and other digital technologies.
Mighty generous of you to allow that older people have something to contribute. What a relief.... now we don't have to throw them into the tar pits because they serve no purpose.
The unspoken implication in the last sentence here is that the grasp of mechanics, programming, and digital technologies is terribly important, as opposed to the knowledge, life experience, and perspective of the elders. Whereas I don't claim it is irrelevant, I am fairly certain that living life gives one amazing lessons about oneself and through that about how humans work which the young just haven't had time to absorb.
The absorption of the mechanics and trivia of a new technology or culture does not mark one as competent to understand that culture or to fit it correctly into the context of human experience. Assimilation of geektopian technological information does not translate into an ability to understand your fellow man or yourself, either aspect of which is infinitely more useful than the technological grasp alone.
Otherwise, we'll breed a generation of geek idiot-savants... people who get tech but don't get life, brilliant engineers and programmers without a shred of understanding of their social context and responsibilities. And whatever anyone may like to say, the best way to get a clue is to experience through living or learning from those who have lived. And the elders have done that. Denigrate and ignore their knowledge at your peril.
General Santa Anna would be laughing his ass off....
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aris
The fact that older people are using email shows a great deal of flexibility and cabability. Most people when facing some unfamiliar technology will be a bit apprehensive and will need some encouragement. If someone were to ask to milk a sheep (or whatever it was they did in those days), I would find a four hour training session in sheep milking beneficial.
Nah, that would be unfair to the ladies.
--
You'll see a special screen where you can write off damn near anything!
I often use my Id godcodes which allow me to instantly acquire all the color-coded passkeys. Since I work in a futuristic office complex, this is very helpful. It used to take me over an hour to get access to the washroom.
Gameshark Marriage/Parenting Codes!
excuse me, but i'm a chick and i love geeks. wake up. there are loads of women who like geeks. we're just hard to find, and that's not because the police chase us for working the strolls. you don't need to go to samoa.
!-- wit --!
. . . and you my good fellow, are the type of guy we all enjoy hiring as a janitor. When you wake up and discover that you're 45, and MacDonald's is giving you a 20 year service award, I'd enjoy laughing at you, but I'll be too busy enjoying a cool job.
!-- wit --!
culture is defined in a million ways by sociologists, but we let's pretend that it is socially transmitted information, maintained over generations. this information can be anything, from taste in food (because we only eat when we're given when we're young, and that shapes our eating patterns for life), to our religious beliefs. how does this relate to video games? gaming is its own subculture. the 'up up down down left right . . . ' cheat code is almost like an in-group identifier. from one generation of gamers to the next, knowledge is transmitted, via newgroups, magazines, . gamers transmit knowledge among themselves, they have in-group identifiers, they even have cultural memes. maybe hard core gaming fanatics don't have a direct affect on mainstream culture, but their indirect effects are more than hypothetical. i guess a four word summary is: i agree wtih jaga~
!-- wit --!
simmer down
nooo..... the point of the article is that most all young male gamers would recognize it. Read before you post, at least.
I've never commented on a story by Katz because I never really thought it worth my time, however, I will now.
This is such a load of crap! Adults have nothing to teach their children?! Whatever! Most of the problems with teenage violence, suicide, pregnancy, et al is due to a weak parental influence.
Ok, so your parents can't install the latest build of Debian on their old wintel box - whoopy dooda!! Adults have things to teach like respect, manners, how to act like civilized human beings, being good citizens, etc. I don't think Quake III Arena teaches you any of these things except to respect CoolDude023 if he has more firepower than you. Games entertain you, not teach you about life. That is and always will be the job of the parent.
If I decide to have children, I certainly won't let them spend ALL of their time playing video games all day long. Entertainment is a part of your life, yes, but it should be balanced out with things like sports, education, human interaction, etc.
I'm learning new things from my mother and father every day I spend with them, and now that I've moved out for good, I feel a certain loss at not being able to experience the learning everday.
Yeah, I knew everything when I was a teenager - then I woke up.
Flame all you want, but it is the truth.
-- bearclaw
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
As per the request, here are the answers.
[actually, the dialogue goes like this:]
[Again, this is slightly abridged; the whole speech goes like this:]
$17 billion in sales doesn't make gaming into its own culture. Widespread recognition doesn't make it important culture. And no amount of articles in this series will make it so.
How many lines can you complete?
We may share common knowledge on some of these, but that doesn't make those we share the defining points of our culture.
I should mention that I am pleased to see a series from this source that is a rehash of someone else's book, though.
Got your attention, I have read a good number of these post and it seems almost everyone has read the article, worthless piece of trash that it is. I don't have a problem with Katz, but I do take issue with pop psychology presented as fact. Are you sure you arent' just a mindless, biased Katz hypocrite?
To fail is human, to blue screen MS!
a little suspect, like this chunk... "Gaming has exploded in the past few years until, according to Steven Poole's book Trigger Happy, videogame sales now equal movie ticket receipts. Sales of game consoles and software in the United States will top $17 billion a year by 2003 (the music industry, by comparison, reported revenues of $15 billion last year)." While gaming might be approaching these forms of entertainment in gross dollars, it's not a fair comparison when the average movie ticket is $7 and a CD $13 when most games are $49.99. Then the whole pretense that anyone is "learning" life lessons from games is just some more new age psychology that doesn't was with anyone who isn't a shut-in or writing a cheesey treatment on video game psychology. I have learned better hand-eye coordination and abstract problem solving with gaming (and have lots of fun), but I have yet to find a life lesson? Maybe I have played the wrong games? I have been an avid console and PC Gamer since the days of the Atari 2600 and bought a 486 so I could play Wing Commander, I have owned almost every generation of console and spent way too much on video and sound cards to play the latest and greatest, but the vast majority of recent games just suck. If I picked up any life lesson from gaming it's "marketing departments suck ass". I can't find enough compelling content for my gaming dollars, although at least Sega is taking some interesting chances on the Dreamcast (Jet Grind Radio is the shit, Baby!). While there is no question that gaming is growing, there are still a lot of people just buying sports games, franchise titles, and just plain dreck from the bargain bin. Where is the life lesson there? What's the life lesson in DOOM, don't step in toxic waste and always look for secret doors? What's the life lesson in Tomb Raider, don't climb mountains in a tank top and shorts? What a bunch of crap!
To fail is human, to blue screen MS!
First of all, the people I was referring to were the numerous authors who write about the subject they know nothing about. So yes, I did read the article.
Second, I said nothing about it being only non-gamers who compare these games to drugs. It truely can be an addiction but who would you rather have help you with the addiction? Someone who has never played these games and couldn't ever understand what it's like or someone who has went through the addiction first hand?
I have spent an hours online and hear countless stories, some of which I believe and most I do not. This is no difference between teenagers bragging on how they pounded back thirty beers the night before in three hours and some over-blown stories about how they've spend two weeks online straight with no sleep. Don't take everything you read online as gospel.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
THE GAMING INDUSTRY EMPLOYS HUNDREDS!!! SAY IT ISN'T SO!!
How many people does the tobacco industry employ?
Oh man, who wrote this drivel? If you don't agree with the culture and the practices of it, why is he wasting his time bitching about it. These people really bug me. Are we to believe that they are living the most purest of lives and thus gives them the right to report to everyone what is right and what is wrong.
The author makes gaming sound like electronic crack and it makes me sick.
Get a life and leave ours alone.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
I'm 22 and I know (at least I think I know) that it's called a masher.
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
FYI It's Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Select Start
Hell, I'm 21. We went through about 2 years of marbles, when I was in grades 4&5, I think. I wonder what's big on the playground these days...
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
That was only if you wanted to play 2-player, with 30 lives each. I personally used this code fot TMNT III.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Um, I think they went:
Croc
Jumbo
Super-Jumbo
Listed smallest to largest (croc being the first size bigger than the regular marble). But that was just my school. Looking at the names on the screen, they seem pretty pathetic to me. Oh, well, we were kids. I was especially proud of my Pearly Super-Jumbo, and my Root-Beer Croc.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
From dictionary.com;
learning 1.The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill. 2.Knowledge or skill gained through schooling or study. See Synonyms at knowledge. 3.Psychology. Behavioral modification especially through experience or conditioning.
In other words, contrary to your "this isn't learning" line, I would contest in fact that, this is EXACTLY learning, in every sense of the word.
"Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
I believe it was ABBA for Ikari Warriors... not the contra code...
Absolute Stupidity
http://www.13kingdoms.com
I mean, c'mon, this is neither insightful nor interesting. Besides, Super NES is so last century. Get with the program, Jon, we only care about the Silver and Gold carts for Gameboy Color, and how to get a haircut for your character. That, plus whether or not Pikachu could take on the new characters.
....
And, as is highly likely, you haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about, it just goes to show that you're regurgitating something we knew about millenia ago.
Man, I thought this was supposed to be News for Nerds, not Old Tales Of People Who Think They're Writers
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Busy signal. :D
BytesTemplar.com
> The pace of cultural change in the western world has accelerated so rapidly that it's reached the breaking point, according to the late anthropologist Margaret Mead.
Sorry, but I have difficulty taking seriously anything that quotes Margaret Mead in the first sentence.
Margaret Mead's 'anthropology' largely consisted of her book 'Growing up in Samoa', which took a rosetinted view of life there, presenting it has a haven of peace and tranquility.
It became famous as something with which to compare - unfavorably - American society.
Now, it is only famous for being wrong, for she ignored all the evidence of massive problems, rape, murder, etc.
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
Hey man, Magic rocks. Pokemon, however, sucks pretty bad :-).
-- Somebody call for an exterminator? - Terran Ghost, Starcraft
I was looking forward to some new male endurance techniques or weight training tips! I mean, we must have other interests other than games, right?
J/K, of course I thought of Contra!
Though I don't deny that an interest in gaming is increasing, I do disagree with the statement that it's the cause for a decline in interest in arts & culture. That would be assuming that an individual's choice is limited to play games OR playing an instrument.
I know scores of people who are involved in technology AND have an interest in the arts, and vice versa. There are also reports that show involvement in music programs and such in schools are on the rise. It takes a similar level of focus and disipline as writing code, but it has a different kind of output.
I've been studying voice and trombone for over a decade. I think that my involvement in games/technology and music has helped the other out, they both share a background in mathematics, for example.
As for books, in my experience it's easier to be reading off a hard copy than it is to to be flipping between windows when you're working on the computer.
The title "up up down down" reminded me of the Uncle Moshie lyric: "Up, Up, Down, Down, Here, There, and Everywhere, that's where He (God) can be found." Any Relation?
well yes what you say is true, reading books amounts to about the same thing (minus corperal tunnel)... but even if you are only interacting with people you already know i still think that's a good thing, just like when you go to the movies with your friends you rarely interact with other movie goers... although i have made a few friends through rpgs... it was more the situation where a friend of a friend wanted to play then became part of the group... i guess the big thing for me is i am affrraid that people who do too many activities of any type that are isolated(just in this case it was computer games) will start lacking the ability to socially interact with real humans face to face...
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
i think we need to diffrentiate between traditional (table-top/live action) and computer roleplaying games here. Although the genres represented in the game do cross, the thing that's lacking is true human interaction. With a computer game you are interacting with a machine mostly... sure there might be other people playing, but it's still missing direct human contact and interaction
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
i think the lack of intrest by women is more of a socital thing... they are taught at an early age that such things are unfeminine and we men are taught not to appreciate females that are unfeminine... slowly this is changing and i think it's a good thing
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
And to that I say,
EQ Rocks!!!!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
The up down up down example is a good one, and there many, many others out there like it. Gen Exers: How many of you can still hum the frogger theme? How many people can still recreate a PacMan pattern? These references are far from isolated; for those of you who are unaware of youth culture -- there's Pokemon now taking its place. As JC Herz pointed out in joystick nation, Games are huge part of our culture, thinking, and vocabulary. And I do agree that it's becoming increasingly so with each subsequent generation. In my discussions of games with game players, I've found that younger kids are much less bogged down by cultural baggage surrounding games than older people are --to many, computer games are not a 'waste of time', dangerous, or any more out of the ordinary than film or team sports.
The biggest problem I had with the article is that there is much legitimacy to the notion that "adult culture" doesn't have much to offer kids. Games may be training kids to have quicker reactions, and they may have knowledge of how to exist in virtual environments and negotiate virtual identities -- but knowledge is not necessarily wisdom, by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, it's a give and take -- every generation is in a dialogue with previous ones. In fact, this notion that every generation needs its revolution is hardly new -- Jefferson said the same thing in the 18th century.
The final thought -- that games may surplant other forms of entertainment is interesting -- but really not the issue. It's about media convergence. What is Pokemon? A toy? A game? A movie? Look at the list of products which port across media. Since Pac Man, games have been filtering across media, and it's happening with increasingly frequency with Pokemon and Final Fantasy movies coming out. The impending Star Wars Online (Starwarsgalaxies), could be the most interesting cross-over of them all.
What's the most striking to me is the place that videogames have in our culture. Common wisdom is that computer/ video games are more frivolous than Chess and, worse for you psychologically than traditional sports, even though many games demand a good deal of critical and creative thinking and traditional American games are extremely violent. Yet, because games are mostly the province of teen-age boys See Henry Jenkins work on the topic), they are marginalized in society and used as scapegoats for broader social ills.
Off my soapbox now...
http://joystick101.org getting in depth, with games.
I was sitting around with a couple friends at college two years ago, and we got on talking about the old Konami code. Being a little hyper at the time, we wandered around the campus for a while asking random people whether they recognized "Up, up, down, down...". About half of everyone we asked knew immediately what we were talking about. Granted, this was an engineering school, and thus probably not representative of anything at all, but still, 50% of engineering students is a reasonably significant figure. So water down "any male his age" to "maybe half of twentysomething engineers" and you're probably closer to the truth.
Whether video games reflect any kind of significant cultural shift as compared to previous generations is, of course, another question entirely...
I started out with stuff like Zelda on NES and Kings' Quest on my AppleIIGS.
Many woman gamers like point and shoot. I don't have the hand eye coordination for it.
Goat sex free since 2001
Since I can't hunt a mastadon, nor pillage and plunder, I have to do it on my computer! Everyone needs a outlet for blowing stuff up, it is part of being human. Beside, I'm too old to be blowing up my neighbors mailboxes while my stupid friends videotape it...
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
I should be so lucky as to have time to play GAMES... I fire up MAME once a month for 20 mins of Pacman and count myself lucky... rest of the time I'm too busy playing `life' :(
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
> When you're running a business, efficiency is pretty damn important. And let's face it, video games are a business. This is a good thing. Nationalized institutions are notorious for putting out "one-size-fits-all" solutions for everything. Without that business aspect, no competition, which leads to both fewer products and inferior ones. As for the video-games-as-art idea, when was the last time you played a video game and thought "Wow, this video game really makes me proud to be a human being"? I've thought that listening to music, viewing a painting, reading a book, watching a movie, etc... but NEVER playing a video game. Until I do, I won't classify video games as art.
Hmm, nationalization seems to have so worked well for everything else its been tried on. It seems that while every country in the world is trying to cut its nationalized/state-owned enterprises, America is one of the few where a sizable (read Green Party/Nader voters) think that it is such a good idea to nationalize. Not to rant, but working for a non-profit organization, I must say that if my organization is as inefficient as it is, I can't even begin to imagine what those SOEs/nationalized industries are like... BTW, if I totally missed the sarcasm in the original post, please hit me.
A final thought: "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Are not words that would tend to be considered successful.
As an aside, I could go into other aspects of American culture, like Horatio Alger et al. But none of those involve the domestic equivalent of mooning the cops.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Society has created an environment where our ego supresses our id.
Actually, I believe it is our super-ego that supresses our ego and our id. Our super-ego is the part of us that desires to conform to the morals of society. The ego is the part that seeks after our own self-interest and the id churns deep in our subconscious reacting to our basic needs and urges and producing feelings which are acted upon by our egos and super-egos.
Games give us a chance to give our id some much needed excercise.
Possibly true, since games allow us to experience feelings of excitement and suspense in socially acceptable situations.
In my humble opinion, the popularity of games (especially the role-playing ones which seem to be declining the daily hygiene habits of men everywhere) is a combination of their search for entertainment and the ability to escape the world they're living in.
These are things we all look for in life, so who cares if someone finds it in a game.
-p4
(c) All Rights Released.
EQ? Emotional Quotient?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
If I want to relieve my stress by blowing little phosphory bits on my monitor, so be it. If I wish to unleash my megalomaniac habits, I'll put in a game of Civ. IMHO computer gaming is one of the best ways to do those things you can't do in real life because they're dangerous/forbidden/plain wrong/whatever
Gimme more!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I do techsupport, and for some strange reason I'm getting more and more young girls on the phone complaining they can't get Tomb Raider to run correctly. Now it could be just me of course, but...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Shut up, troll. This guy was just telling us how smart and cool he is, and how dumb upper management is. Yeah! Those dumbass aging executives sure do suck. Anyone who could write Lotus Notes all by himself sure is cool! Then you had to come along and ruin it for everybody... Go away.
Time to die, nerd-boy!
This is so fucking beautiful. Seriously, you're a god-damned genius. It got modded up, too... you're my hero.
Time to die, nerd-boy!
I had always thought barbarians and overinflated bureaucracies combined with poor management stalled the Roman Empire; the only current analog to this is AT&T with Lucent quick behind. Be that as it may, I had always wondered at people who love to watch movies for the entertainment value. Being a rather restless person myself (with lazy friends) I would much rather be occupying my mind with something interactive than with the passive appreciation of motion pictures. With that in mind, how much worse off could a generation of kids, with video-game babysitters, be than their parents who were themselves weaned on TV?
Don't forget Ikari Warriors - gives you unlimited lives. :)
Plus, I think it's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, B, A, select, start.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
Reading this article, I realized I'm straddling this supposedly huge 'divide' between parents and gamers.
I'm old enough to have owned an Atari VCS (lots of newspaper deliveries for that one), watched the first video on MTV, and programmed a TRS-80. In high school, I played AD&D and envied my friend's VIC-20 (my parents got me a... PCjr! woohoo). I've been doing the multiplayer thing since Doom - we play almost daily at lunch, as we've done, nonstop, since 1994 (actually, my first multiplayer shootemup was Mazewar :). I waited in line to pay $300 for a PSX in 1995. I've owned just about every Voodoo and Nvidia.
So I'm a gamer.
On the other hand, I have a family, including two kids old enough to start gaming. They know how to make Crash jump, they know that the gold CDs are not from the store, and how to shut down windows. And this all before first grade. So, definitely, they will be gamers, and not think anything of it.
Every generation rebels against its parents. I did it (I still think they're rather disfunctional :), my kids will do it, and so on. Will they rebel by refusing to play video games, preferring instead the outdoors, and actually skating instead of pretending to skate? I kinda hope so. Even today, they turn the TV off on me and force me to go outside and play. Yeah.
That's got to be the best label for my generation, the borderline end of GenX. It's gotta be the Up Up Down Down generation.
Well, with me it was more like "those of us with older brothers that we really wanted to get to play with us...."
How can the government be considered an effective representative of the "people"? I would run like hell from a country where the government has any power over what I can listen to, what games I can play, what art I can enjoy. Rather than seek a "utopia" that would leave us with the economic strength of North Korea, let's just abolish Limited Liability Corporations. CEOs and ranking company officials should be criminally (not civilly) liable for their actions. If Mr. Gates' Company violates the law, he should be held personally responsible insofar as he was a decision-maker. -we're all pink and squishy on the inside.
-We're all pink and squishy on the inside.
Jon Katz wrote: "First in a series"
Be Afraid
Be VERY Afraid
Hey Katz, if it's part 1 in a series that's probably because it's NOT FUCKING DONE YET. Finish the article. Then post it. Or is this your own self-aggrandizing way of making yourself look more important and more prolific as a writer, by writing one article and passing it off as 3 or 5 or 10. It's one. one. one. You are a fradulent slacker.
A similar code also works in Sonic.
--
see shy jo
Many many things we take for granted. Sure, my 12 year old has real time multitasking built into his brain wiring now: 7 or 8 simultaneous chat sessions while concurrently juggling 2 different party line phones. Sure my older kid can actually work while listening to music loud enough to buzz the windows. Sure my 9 year old has probably learned to learn with an amazingly short attention span. But I don't see people becomming more interactive as the be and end all of entertainment. That is, you may see the half dozen or so distinct information regions on the screen of the monitor or the TV whether it's a game or a webcast or BET but that translates into constantly task switching for a few seconds. If you ask someone performing this way what it is they just looked at or were doing you'll get an "I don't know" answer. OTOH board games are more popular than ever including traditional or cultural boardgames like Go, Mancala and so on. I think this "games as culture" is the same thing as people thinking that in the future we'll be artists and poets and that our culture and our economy will be based on producing and selling art to each other. Unfortunately somebody still has to own the power company and still has to create a process model for the auction house.
There is nothing "simple" about it.
For instance, there are *no* sure cures for arachnaphobia. You can't "teach* a person to not fear spiders, and it turns out to be damn difficult to even ease them out of their fears by continued exposure.
It's a fear that's built deep and strongly into the subconscious mind. It's damn near unchangeable, and frequently the best that can be done is to layer it over with filters that prevent it from bubbling up to the conscious mind.
I'm simply appalled that there are still people who think everything they do and think is completely under their control.
They must be remarkably un-self-aware, as contradictory or zen-like as that sounds.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It seems Katz has been lately seeing too much doomsday films. in this point, he's as much as impressive as the people he talks about. Nock, nock Katz. Reality here.. And reality shows you olympics, greek theaters, religious processions, coliseums, duels, sports, again olympics, radio, tv, computers, Internet, etc., etc., etc. Katz humans need games and here there is no "generation's conflict", "mass matrixization" or whatever. Yes, there could be excesses, much like TV on the 50's and 60's or, to be more impressive, roman circus. Today some people fear the "Matrix".
Games are here for nearly 30 years. And a good part of the fathers of today's gamers had their good time on the first electronic games. And I really don't see the fearful "zombies" some mass-media talked about then. Where are they? I only see the new-era profets echoing in a new form this same story.
Yeah, there's nothing like being immersed into a world too fantastic to imagine. Of course, that's where the artists like VanGogh and Monet came in, years past. I'm sorry, but there's no way a computer game can live up to an overworked imagination. You graphic developers can take that as a challenge, an insult, or whatever. You can't match my ability. You can only expand what I can envision, but you'll never surpass it.
VI is an editor, Jon, don't abuse the term. I know that what is being accomplished by the game designers today is able to wow you, simply because as you've shown time and again, you have no imagination. That's why you need a virtual one. And it is a sad statement if indeed most people need to use this "VI" to experience a full, rich, world beyond their obviously drab excuses for life. Please, for the love of god, push using the imagination instead of taking a backseat to what your mind can create. Imagination is using Legos to build fantastic worlds. Legos are nothing but pieces, but that they can be configured to build something amazing is good. The major problem with these games is that you allow the developers to imagine the world for you.
No other form of culture is ascending as rapidly. Compared to gaming, traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered.
And you're heralding the loss of other great forms of art?!? Egads man, I'd smack you upside the head if you were here with me. I'm all for expanding art, but destroying old forms to make way for the new. You are so typical of the Western mindset. There is room for all types of art, and it's simply a pity that mindless fools that have to live their fantasies out through some other person's imagined worlds have begun to depreciate the value of all art.
I cannot respect a person who would wish to lose an artform forever in order to gain a newer one. It's a new low to even suggest such a thing.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
Another thing to consider is that Jon is only talking about a tiny subculture. Not all teenagers are avid gamers (and in fact, his Hellmouth series illustrates just how small and maligned the teen geek nation is). Of course gamers will remember up-up-down-down... just as football fans will remember "The Catch". This is hardly a cultural archetype. It will not define a generation because it doesn't span a generation. Not everyone is a gamer, and not everyone will major in computer science and join the tech industry.
Bite the hand.
I would have to disagree strongly with you here. I think that the exact opposite is happening. Video games and computers are changing our society of spectators (TV) into a society of participants. Just because people aren't participating in bear hunts or wars or whatever doesn't mean it doesn't count.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
- idspispopd
- iddqd
and I haven't played DOOM in years!Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
The "spispopd" was something like "smashing pumpkins into small piles of p-something debris"? if I remember right.
I downloaded and tried the GL-version of DOOM a few months ago just for fun - the sound effects gave me an incredible rush of nostalgia. But damn the graphics suck, now that I'm used to Quake III!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
8 Bits of Power
when Push Comes to Shove
I'm sorry... Wagner's music is far sexier than anything to come out of the modern corporate gruel factories and he didn't have to pose in his underwear to be famous.
Popular music as a culture actually has little to do with music... how could it? It's all the same. When's the last time you saw a popular female singer who didn't have professional model-looks? There are a small number. I might be dating myself but in the 70's every one was gaga over Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac who's voice was OK in the early years, but eventually she sounded like a cigaretty grandma? Her bandmate Christine McVie was fairly plain-looking, but far more talented in singing and songwriting, but she was never as popular. Coincidence?
Would the Spice Girls have been as popular if they weren't deluging the world with images of buoyant breasts and clockwork choreography, as well as the incredible marketing power of their puppetmasters in the industry? I have to wonder.
The popular music sections have to have soft-porn decorations to make up for the fact that there's no substance there. Do adults listen to the same music as they did when they were teenagers, or do they look back at that music as silly bubblegum stuff. I do, but I'm an exception as I had a musical background, but my much younger brother went through a rap phase and an alternative phase and a classic rock phase and now listens to blues and bluegrass. Quite an evolution, I'd say.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yes, after reading Katz it's _clearly_ not easy... and I write all the time, thank you very much.
Just because writing is hard doesn't mean it's not okay to level legitimate criticism against an exmaple of it. I enjoy reading Katz's little phillipics even though I think he's usually full of it. On the other hand, he _always_ generates a good disucssion, and that's exactly what he's trying to do!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
>Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along. All they have to offer are boring and outmoded educational systems, political structures that no longer work, and exhausted forms of fading, sacrosanct, heavily subsidized "culture."
/. types are.
And how is this different from the 60's? or when Mark Twain made the famous quote about his father not knowing anything when he was 14? or when Socrates complained about the "youth today"?
Children have always in some ways advanced beyond their parents... that's called advancement of society. However, that does not mean that the accumulated wisdom of adults is irrelevant or meaningless. The fact of the matter is, all this technology which we so happily embrace (me too!) only outmodes a limited part of life and thinking. Morals do not change (the popular mores of society might). Truth does not change although our understanding of it does. If you take this article to its logical conclusion, we have nothing to learn from the past. Clearly this is not true.
Futhermore, while the pace of technology is surely accelerating, I think Katz has a very limited view of the world. Most people are not immersed in the computer world the way we
Gaming is changing popular culture? Sure.
Are book publishing, opera, classical music, dance, endangered? Hardly.
You want a good modern opera? Try Dream Theater's latest album "Metropolis part 2"? Classical music? I'd offer up the recent huge explosion of progressive-oriented rock and jazz music mostly created by people with a strong classical background. There's a rich world of complex, sophisticated and rich music out there to be found, just don't try to find it on the radio or MTV. Dance? Seems to me dancing is as popular as ever, even as a performance art. Consider something like Cirque du Soleil... These forms of culture are changing as all do, but they aren't going away any time soon or this will be a boring, sad old world indeed.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Being jewish and orthodox I would still almost mark this down as 'Flamebait', but there is something to what you said that I was thinking about.
Does a culture that maintains something akin to the Sabbath (a day without all of the modern conviniences/interuptions) help maintain itself between generations? I know one family that is not jewish, but sunday was family day. The whole family would be and do something together. Do things like this help make a younger generation more respectful or more likely to listen to an older generation?
I know for myself one of the things I enjoy the most about the week is the Sabbath, when I can throw my pager in a drawer and not worry about it (was very handy for when the Millenium turned and lots of my co-workers were on 24hour call). Oh, and for the record, my two 'accomplishments' for the week in my own mind is working through the tractate of Sotah with a friend, and completing the single player missions in 'Star Trek: Armada'.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
But yeah, every kid remembers this. But how many can remember the code to get to Mike Tyson in the NES title?
007-373-5963
I think that was it. But I can never remember the actual numbers accurately. I did it by muscle memory. Same thing with phone numbers, coincidentally.
Howdie. I'm a musician of 20 years experience, primarily instrumental, some vocal, classically trained, with forays into diverse aural and improvisatory genres; my focus for the last 10 years has been Renaissance and Medieval Western European musics.
With all respect due a fellow student of the Muses: you're full of huey. :)
The rock music on the radios today bears a striking stylistic resemblance to certain musical genres of the 1000 year period I study, and mostly convinces me that Nothing Ever Changes.
The reason, as far as I can tell, that the populace doesn't much care for Mozart operas is that they are not in a cultural head-space where Mozart operas speak to them. That doesn't mean they're dumb, or lazy, or foolish, or philistines, or morally destitute. It means their problems, their ideas, their imaginings, their passions are different than those of the people Mozart was writing to.
In the 14th&15th centuries, a bunch of english songs about love, sex, and death got written. Some brit chicks noticed, and formed a rock band (Medieval Baebes) singing this material. I went to a concert, and hordes of goths showed up, cause, you know what, love+sex+death speaks to them in their language.
The fact is that more musics are readily available to the (first world) public than have ever been available to a people in history: the miracle of recording not only allows many to hear where only a few used to fit, but our liberal, multi-cultural culture has thrown open the doors to genres unimagined to our grandparents: world music, historical music, new forms of popular music every month. There are more choices available to us.
Part of the reason the opera house down the street was packed with peasants was that those peasants were tired of hearing one another play on the vielle-a-roue, and they didn't get much else in the way of options.
Today, such overwhelming majorities in one genre of music are unlikely. You can basically say that most people like what is new, because we crave novelty, but "popular music" splinters into factions and styles if you examine it.
Perhaps (to wrench this back onto topic) what people are observing is that in comparison with older cultural forms (tv, music, literature) gaming is (comparatively, mind you) undifferentiated. As such all gamers appear as a single fan base -- and thus, large.
Perhaps in the not so distant future, gaming will fragment into stylistic factions so diverse that people will not consider "gamers" to be a culture any more than "music listeners" -- you will see the equivalent of "classical music afficianados" and "early music nuts" and "punks" and "goths" and "metalheads", and, and....
(We aren't there yet. Nobody would presume that because someone likes Wagner they would like Pink Floyd; but FPS players also do tabletop also do LARP also do tradable card.... The day someone says "Wow, you do cards and FPS? That's so eclectic" is the day we have reached the same level of diffentiation in gaming as music.)
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9803/14/japan.teen.violen ce/
1 ,6 474,00.html
e ec h.html
http://eyeball.asia1.com.sg/Eyeball/Story/1,138
http://www.gospelcom.net/pof/kpof/inside/freesp
If you disregard that that last link is from a Christian site, I think you'll get the point that as, perhaps general violent crime is going down, we are seeing more and more, random, unpredictable, spontaneous and meaningless crime from young people. I read this as due to a deterioration of culture and tradition. No I'm not talking about a "moral crises" per se, and I'm not religious, but psychologically, a strong foundation of culture, tradition, acceptance, and an inherent place in the world are very important for the developing individual. Instead, our culture is the ultra-competitive capitalistic race, into which we bear children, slap their butts and yell "go!".
If I'm correct, we will start seeing these trends occur in more "developed" nations, shedding their traditions to embrace free market rat races (the two of which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, although that's what seems to be happening in more developed countries).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
26. Female. A computer bought with gaming in mind (800 mhz athalon). Quake, Quake 2, Quake III (but NOT team arena, yuck, what a joke, CCTF all the way). Diablo II. Rollercoaster Tycoon. Civ, Civ2, MOO2. Simcity 2000/3000, The Sims w/addon.
You have to look in the right places. CRPG's get a lot more women playing then say, action games, and so do the sim games. Heck, I've never had problems finding other girls on Diablo II to party with (because they're actually more fun and friendlier). Don't see a lot playing Quake, however.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along. All they have to offer are boring and outmoded educational systems, political structures that no longer work, and exhausted forms of fading, sacrosanct, heavily subsidized "culture."
I try to be fair to the estranged Mr. Katz, but this is just plain dumb. So kids are smart and older people are vapid? Sure, a 15 year old may know how to use a PDA and PlayStation 2, but then his mom knows how to cook a thansgiving dinner and use a sewing machine.
Arguing that knowledge of pop-cultre, mass market fluff is empowerment is, well, really dumb. If anything, it leads to short-sightedness. For example, there are quite a few young open source hackers who seem to think they know everything is there to know about software engineering at age 19. This includes such knowledge as not creating regression test suites, and tossing in minimally tested features right before uploading a new version.
All teenagers think they know everything. That's the nature of the beast. By the time they realize they don't know everything, they have kids who think they know everything.
I was thinking about this last night as I was watching a Moody Blues concert on our local PBS affiliate. It's pledge week again. But the Moody Blues have been making their music for nearly my entire life. When they were new and I was young, my parents were listening to musical genres that I considered dead at the time. Their musical taste proved longer-lived than I had realized. People hang on to the things they like.
Few people can remain novophiles their entire lives. Teenagers are the most likely to be open to new cultural trends. They have lived long enough to have mastered the basic framework of the society they are a part of. They have gained a measure of independence from their parents. And they have little investment in the past.
However, before we write off everyone over 30 as hopeless antiques, let's ask a couple of questions. First, whose generation first used the phrase, "Don't trust anyone over 30"? Second, for the 99% of Slashdot readers who are geeks, do you find that the copyright date on technical books is a major consideration in your decision of whether to buy it? Have you started to care about the month in which they weere printed?
This issue is not a new one. Future Shock explored the accerating rate of change in the 70's. Videogames are only one current manifestation of it.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
The power to generalize things inot a fitting metaphor is NOT an easy writing task. I get tired of people always jumping all over Katz. Think writing is easy? YOU try it, bub.
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
"Gaming" is no more a culture than "Cars" or "Food" or "Music" or "Technology".
It's just the starting point for lots of little cultures. Quake Arena is one. Everquest is another. Guys bragging over their new PS2s is a third.
My little sister goes on a lot about Pokemon
Hence, to say that "gaming is becoming our ascendant culture" is a bit odd. "A lot of people play some form of electronic game" is better, "Democratic capitalism, based on a globalist economic viewpoint, built around a primarily but not solely Judeo-Christian post-Bastille work ethic is becoming our ascendent culture" might be better still.
Not that many people has a NES anyway. Maybe everyone YOU know, but who are they exactly?
I don't think so: have you ever watched anyone play a video game? It's pretty dull.
And playing the game is participation, even of a seditary sort.
Video games might be turning us into a slightly fatter society, but one of spectators? nah
EQ and AC ?
Get real. These are hack and slash games and, except for the fqct that they are social and progressive (you gain as you go along) are nto in any fundemental entertainmtn way different from Space Invaders. Its still "bang bang your dead."
True role-play is as rare as it has always been, and gernally still cosnidered as "weird" by the masses.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend I brought a book (Ender's Game. I am still a geek after all) to read and realized: I haven't read or enjoyed a book that wasn't a computer book in about a year and a half. Why? Because I play games till all hours of the morning, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, hang out with the girlfriend a bit, play games, repeat. Obviously I can't give up work or eating or sleeping, and I certainly don't want to give up my gf, but is gaming really that important to me? When I read a book, I feel educated. When I've beaten a game, I feel entertained, yet I don't feel improved.
Last year about this time I passed up a position at Daily Radar as a webmaster for the very same reason: Would I really want to be surrounded by games all the time? They're just _games_. They're not people, I don't learn new things really when I interact with them, and if I looked back on my life 50 years from now, what would I say? I've played a lot of video games? It just seems kinda empty.
This is not a "get a life st00pid gamerz!" rant, but more of a "What have I been doing with MY life and is this really what I want to remember about my time on earth?"
psxndc
Ironically that originally stood for Playstation Nintendo Dreamcast
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
There was a fairly similar code for TMNT 2, and the accepted name of the code *is* the "Konami Code"
----
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Since I can't even remember my passwords half the time :) All those damn video games killing brain cells and .. ooh look, a flying thing!
It happened to me. When I was in the 2nd grade, and Castlevania 2: Simon's Revenge (I believe) came out, I had memorized the code to put you at the very end, with all items. OYZYUQAU R12SSMIA
:)
How the hell can anyone remember that? I don't know. That was 13 years ago, and I still know it by heart, it's kinda scary. But one good thing, it's a great code to use for passwords. Something that no one could ever guess, but you know by heart.
UUDDLRLRBAS is a good password, huh?
Once again Jon Katz has blessed us with his myopic vision of the world. Through an essay (I use that word loosely in this context) filled with generalities and sweeping conclusions with absolutely no sound reasoning to back up his arguments, Mr. Katz has once again revealed how disconnected he is from reality. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Jon Katz's world view is completely ahistorical, and therefore extremely naive.
Mr. Katz also speaks as if the United States is the only country in the world. I hate to burst his bubble, but gaming is not revolutionizing daily life in probably 90% of the world. For example, I am relatively certain that people in Afghanistan do not have the excess liesure time required for gaming (nevermind the fact that most of them lack the necessary technology).
Furthermore, what is so remarkable about the rise of the new and demise of the old? Isn't that simply a description of the human condition? Hasn't that happened throughout history; the young challenging the conventions of the old, and thereby expanding everyone's horizons? Mr. Katz thrashes Mozart (by dismissing opera and classical music), but Mozart was a revolutionary for his time (putting dance in operas was practically unheard of before Mozart did it).
Actually, it's pretty amusing to witness Katz's overblown sense of self-importance balloon even further as he tries to pass off this hackneyed essay as original material. Give us a break, Jon.
Indeed, almost all her studies have been refuted (I am going to try to dredge up what little I can remember about all of this). She was part of the school of thought called cultural relativitists which still exists today. It really came from Franz Boaz her teacher and an anthropologist in the early part of this century.
Cultural relativists believed that people were mostly a product of their culture, and sought to prove that things like gender roles were purely cultural in construction. They had a bit of the noble savage type mentality going on as well. Part of their ideas (more implicit than overtly stated) was that a lot of other, more 'primitive' cultures were a lot off in many ways because they were free from the rigid strictures of western society.
In addition to her seminal work, Coming of Age in Samoa, in which she 'proved' that puberty was an easy process without all the stresses that appear among teenagers in our society. This has since been shown to basically have been a lot of crap. She was mostly trying to provide anecdotal evidence to provide the theoretical foundation of her socio-political agenda.
She went on to study a few other cultures. One was called the Tchambuli people, and that had something of a matriarchal system, and she used these seemingly reversed gender roles to show that they are the result of enculturation. Again, this whole study has now been refuted.
She should well be remembered as a pioneer in the field of ethnography (writing about another culture), but her scientific detachment left a lot to be lacking. She went out trying to prove her beliefs, and like many before her succeeded. It turned out to be helpful that her proof existed on the far Pacific Rim and spoke funny languages.
Unfortunately I don't have any references at hand, but this is discussed a some length (with good references) in the book Human Universals. As an aside, there is also a book which I believe is called, the Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl or something similar (which I have not read) that tells of a male baby who was raised as a girl due to a botched circumsision because his physician was a cultural relativitist. Of course, the child had all sorts of problems going up, and opted to live as a man later in life. Anyway, just an anecdote of how the cultural relativists have made at least one persons life miserable. As a counterpoint there is an interesting book Gender Outlaw that is partly an autobiography of a man who had a sex change operation to become a lesbian, and it is filled with interesting ideas on the complexity of gender (as you might imagine).
Although this has regressed into a discussion of gender, I only wanted to make the point that Margaret Mead had a strong agenda in her 'research' and writing that does not make her an objective observer. It is easy to say that the world is becoming too complex and fast paced. But maybe they said that with the domestication of the horse (and I won't go into listing all the technological advances improving transportation and communication since then).
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
Sigh. Leave it to Katz to take the best thing in the world, (games) and turn it into his usual bland, unresearched, over-generalized paste.
Oh, and I just have to correct the most egregious mis-statement of the post:
Videogames are no longer bounded by gender, either: players are evenly divided between men and women.
Depending on how you look at it, videogames have either always been bounded by gender, or never bounded by gender. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pac-man, a game which has been around forever, has always had an even gender split in its players. This may be stating the obvious, but games that simulate things that boys like to do (play sports, fight, shoot people) are more heavily favored by boys, and games that simulate things girls like to do (play house, design cities, run around a little maze gathering power pellets) are more heavily favored by girls.
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share and enjoy
I must agree. The more I learn, the more I realize that there is a lot of stuff I haven't yet learned.
;)
And what is true of knowledge is even more true of wisdom. The two are not the same, though it is easy to lump them together. Sure, I may have more ready access to facts and pure information than my father or my grandfather ever had, or have even now. But then, I've never fought in a war, or been through a Depression, or visited half the places in the world that they have. Plus, they've had at least a couple more decades to 'think things through' than I have.
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Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
People need to get out in the real world, and do good _in the real world_. Fight for freedom of speech. Fight racism. Make a difference in the life of a child. Give hope to someone who has given up. Stop people from picking on those that are "different" (geeks, minorities, women, heavy people, skinny people, etc, etc).
Build real culture: invent something of value, produce a beautiful work of art, etc.
Go home and play Quake to relax, or watch TV, or whatever.
Just never let that become the focus of your life, or make it into something more than it is.
Jon Katz has gone off the deep end here.
I may get modded down for exercising my freedom of speech, but if so, it was worth it. Some things just need to be said.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
do they look back at that music as silly bubblegum stuff.
...
Well, I don't.
Then again, I was listening to Black Flag, Violent Femmes, Dead Kennedys
[joke]Go easy on him. Can you really blame him for not wanting to read a Jon Katz article?[/joke]
>>society, the global empire, into another
>>society of spectators?
Hardly. Gamers are actively involved participants in a virtual reality. I believe that this virtual reality will some day (50+ years) mix with current reality. If you are talking about spectators, you missed it. It was the TV generation, not gamers. Nekros
After your done with Playful World have a look at Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Postman speaks mostly of television in this work - but pull a s/television/videogame - Its an excellent read... gave me an excellent perspective when I was learning about the world as a young teen.
Note to Postman detractors: I too felt he went a little to far w/ Technopoly. Possibly because it came a little to close to home (?) 8(.
Academics all over the country are using the Sim games to teach ... financial and social interaction.
Maybe these nuts use The Sims to demonstrate the empty, souless lives that modern American cult-of-the-consumer provides... The Sims is a horrible game - give your Sim person some 'new crap' to make them happy, sounds a lot like the 90% sheeple living in USofA. The game is like 'playing' American Beauty- without the happy ending
- You can only know what you've experienced or learned from others, with the former definitely being of higher priority. Age is a limiting factor on how much you can have of either. It is a factor but not neccesarily a limiting one. I work with high school kids part time and I have met some who are as mature and experienced as I am, and I have met adults who were as inexperienced as children becuase they had never learned on their own. What a person knows in terms of experiences depends the path their life has taken. I've seen kids 18 years old who have had more life-defining experiences, whether good or bad, than I have had at age 27. I believe that it's more what you have been through than how long you have been around.
Scott Plumlee
Also, a lot of women I know such as my sister, aunts, etc. like to play Yahoo! games and such too. There are definitely more women than men that I know who enjoy games. The difference is that a lot of guys only think of FPS and such, and women don't seem to like those as much. Jeez...I don't want to sound like an expert on women or something. I'm no gigelo. Umm...anyways. Yeah.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
I'm frightened that you knew all that. And i thought I was a freak for remembering the "UP UP DOWN DOWN..." code, lol
In reading a fantasy novel, one doesn't deal with any other people, only the ideas of the auther. The exact same thing is true of computer RPG's... I just see it as a really fancy 'choose your own adventure'. I'm not implying that computer games can replace social interaction, that's something else alltogether. I'm only stating that by playing computer games you get to deal with the extraordinary - which I guess would exclude dealing with anyone that you would meet in real life anyways.
One thing that I've allways found is that I never made friends through RPG's. I'd play once in a while at the local club, but I rarely got along with the other players who weren't friends of mine in the first place and at most I'd deem them as acquaintences. I never found RPG's to be good for social interaction unless I could play with people that I knew well anyways. And lets face it, most people don't play RPG's with the intention of socializing, they do it cause it's fun.
UBU
Even now I spend 8 hours a day coding just so I can go home half the time to play another 8 hours of Baldurs Gate 2. I don't simply focus on gaming, but I do find that it is one of the best ways to 'waste time' and still enjoy oneself a great deal.
When you were a kid you always dreamed of doing the impossible or something out of reach, games just fueled that desire. I guess I'm still a kid at heart (besides the fact that I've pretty much devoted my life to studying physics simply for the sake of understanding reality).
I think the emphasis should be placed on the human desire to think outside of the envelope, not on the 'technology that makes it efficient at the current point in time'. Sure, games are a very good outlet for letting go, but people can still find the same experience from more traditional activities like reading and creative artwork (programming???). I think the fact is that younger people can grasp the immediate gratification of a game much easier than some convoluted appreciation for more traditional human activities, and that is why it is such a popular vehicle for kids to explore the limits of their imagination with.
UBU
Wait a second. She's dead, and she's Jon's source on the pace of cultural change now?
I'm confused.
sulli
RTFJ.
hrmmm...
vidoegames are much more on the scale of a film than say, an opera performance or one guy in a loft making pictures of 'piss christ'. That's to say, the NEA (was? I seem to remember hearing that it had gone defunct) is more suited to funding the smaller, more traditional or classical arts than anything so large and intesive as an 18 month production cycle for 30-80 people. I don't think it would be practical to subsidize such an endeavor, the typical quality of games is already low enough, the designs and implementations generally weak enough that removing the capitalist incentive would leave us with the weakest productions imaginable.
I have seen some of the offerings of nationalized, subsidized filmaking, and aside from animation from canada and comedy shows from UK, gov't funded media projects always seem to end up stuffy and introverted, ala the french and italian cinema scenes... what's that you say? can't place any particular films from that category? well, maybe that is because the 'artistes' were not held to the capitalist mandate of making 'attractive' movies, and thus failed to 'attract' many veiwers.
:)Fudboy
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
Games are really important to me.
When I was growing up, my favorite games were Star Flight, the Final Fantasy series, Secret of Mana, and many other games that I can't remember the names of, but that I remember the essences of. Sure, I played Contra, and Mario as well, but they didn't really shape my values.
I liked the social values that these series offered me; they were values that my parents did not. Hey! People in RPG's are kind and treat one another well!
I think that I am a better person because of these games, and because of this I thank the authors for them.
By the way, for those arguing that video games are really participatory: they are, compared to television, just not when compared to real life.
I'm not so sure about that. For most of human history, life hasn't changed much from one generation to another and because of that the older generations had a lot of lessons to teach the younger. But for the past few hundred years change has been coming faster and faster and it's getting to the point now where the world our parents and grandparents grew up in has almost nothing to do with ours.
Are old people useless? No. Do they have nothing worthwhile to teach us? Again, no. But the similarities between the way they worked, played, and lived and the way we do now are few and far between.
This is a bowel disruptor, and you are just full of shit. - Spider Jerusalem
Actually, Jon, it isn't. It's just the umpteenth story in one long, never-ending line of JonKatzDrivel(TM).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
So the new paradigm is gaming? How is that different than what the parents view as culture? You say that the parents have "heavily subsidized" culture, but isn't that true of gaming as well? Don't games come from megacorps the same way that television and movies do?
Seems to me that it's all the same source, but different 'fixes' for different segments of society. You are young? Fine, check out MegaCorp's Final Death IX. You are middle-aged? Fine, check out MegaCorp's Faded Dreams, the latest weepie movie.
So what if web sites have cropped up around games? They crop up around every topic imaginable, including dreck movies.
So what if the young have their own lingo for gaming that no one else gets? That's been true of every generation that's ever lived, you dig?
It's all just more of the same entertainment being fed to the masses by the corporations. Only the target audience is different. Ain't nothin' that unique about gaming.
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Private Essayist
Let me make the disclaimer that naturally any statements I make about what is art and its value are subject to interprettaion, but you should get the general idea.
The motivation behind art is to evoke an emotional response from a person/people, particularly the artist. Primarily, art is produced to indulge the artist. While the artist hopes for a favorable reaction from others, as long as the artist is happy with what he's produced, that's what really matters.
Entertainment on the otherhand, while it does evoke an emotional response, is generally produced to engage the mind. As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, this will hopefully result in people throwing huge wads of cash at them.
Now, one reason we have government and privately sponsored arts endowements/funds/etc... is to encourage these artists to continue to produce these things which we feel may have some sort of cultural value. These things may stand the test of time and point out what a great society/civilization we were to have produced such marvels.
Now I'm not saying that games have nothing of artistic value to them. As a programmer, I like to think of myself as a craftsman. And certainly there must be some artistic value to some of the visuals and music produced for a game. But that doesn't make the game as a whole something we want to preserve and encourage people to create as something that will point to what a great civilization/society we have. Therefore, gaming is not something we as a society want to be throwing public funds at.
Gaming MAY have some scientific value. I'm sure that some of the awesome 3D and AI routines game designers are coming up with may have some greater applications. Unfortunately though, the reasons these routines are being developed is to make money (having the better product than your competitor). That's why public funds for this type of research are thrown at the people who are tackling specific problems which we feel as a society it is in out best interests to solve.
But I guess that's a whole different topic...
The chosen people study the Torah. Games? Hah.
Revenue figures for the gaming and movie industries indicate that a lot of other people agree with you. Movie revenue (at least if you take away rentals) is in the toilet while games are booming.
No one who was in the gaming culture would say that! ; -)
The level of shared experience among video gamers that is strong enough to count as a culture. Gaming culture also has its own norms, language, etiquette, and social rankings. It's at least on the order of say, the 'culture' of "high school football". Communities form up around games, electronic and otherwise. But computer games are far more likely to be incorporated as a way of life and seeing the world.
The culture of gaming is strong enough that there is even some alienation between groups- strong enough that gamers often don't know what to talk about with non-gamers. Their world views about what is interesting to discuss is too different. Endless detail on minute gaming strategies and stories of battles seem like trivia to non-gaming people - to hardcore gamers, everything besides that seems somewhat banal. ; -) "Real life? How many frags per second is that?"
My final criteria was met when I found that gaming culture even has its own comic strip:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3
If I.T. Culture has User Friendly, then Gaming Culture has Penny Arcade.
; -) Databass
You're right, of course. And anyone can verify that by going to the November/December 2000 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, page 58. P.S. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that Katz would use a post-modernist source -- they have pretenious, pseudo-intellectual babble in common.
First off what's the difference in a huge multinational and a huge govt. entity owning everything?
The difference is that the people have ownership, rather than a select, powerful few.
in the great nationalized society that used to be the USSR, how much great art was created in comparison to the US?
You're joking, right? The USSR had a lot of problems, but art was not one of them. Their ballet, opera and orchestras were commonly known as among the best in the world.
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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
It's clear that the huge multinational corporations that are buying up gaming companies right and left are out of control. There is a simple solution: Nationalize the arts, including gaming.
Once gaming companies are publically owned and operated, they will have the freedom to create whatever they want without the interference of having to "watch the bottom line" or "what will the Mother Company think of this?" It will be ultimate freedom.
As for massively multiplayer gaming, they should be publically owned also, but should have a board of oversight from the government -- with veto power over all decisions -- to watch privacy issues, etc.
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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
It's not contradictory.
By the age of five, most of your personality and unconcious mind is formed. These facets of your brain are deeply ingrained and extremely difficult to change as an adult. (Indeed, I tend believe that our core never changes, and we merely filter it to varying degrees of success.)
The sensation of heat from chili peppers is not a part of your personality. It's illustrative, however, of how the brain will desensitize to common sensory input.
In other words, the more you eat chili peppers, the less hot they'll seem; and the more a shy adult attends ToastMasters, the easier it is for them to speak publicly (but they'll still be wallflowers at a party).
Whether you're a person that accepts or rejects behaviour that causes bodily harm to others is a personality issue, and *that* is where the risk of desensitization comes in.
An adult desensitized to killing because they're in the front lines in a war will not necessarily find it easy to kill in cold blood back at home once the war is over. Their personality hasn't changed. Just pray they haven't adapted, layered over their personality with a kill-happy filter.
A child desensitized to killing because they've been on the front lines in a war is another matter. Their personality is in the process of being formed: they are learning how the world works and how they should work in it.
The proof is in history: countries that have internal conflict tend to stay in conflict, generation after generation. Countries that are stable tend to stay stable.
But, hey, so you disagree with me. That's fine. Feed your kids whatever violent video, TV and game shit ya want... what kind of personality are they going to form?
Garbage-in, garbage-out.
Hope you enjoy your kids as adults. They're gonna be everything you made them to be.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I'm not a teenager. (Just turned 33, so I'm nearing 'old fart', actually.) But so far I have to agree with Jon. My generation may not be smarter or more experienced than the older ones, but we're a hell of a lot more flexible and capable. And the generation below me is just plain scary, as adept as they are.
Just this week at work I'm going to mandatory Lotus Notes training. That's right, they're forcing all employees to sit in a classroom for FOUR hours so they can teach us how to use an email client. Nevermind that I've used over a dozen different email clients, nevermind that I could WRITE Lotus Notes if I had to. Nevermind that for people my age and experience, an email client is about as interesting and as difficult to learn as a toaster. Nope...because some aging executive idiot thought it was difficult, we all have to waste our time training in it. (sigh)
As for games jumping in cultural importance...I'm reminded of that NASDAQ commercial, where some kid asks 'where is the center of the tech world?' He goes through an assembly line, a lecture by a scientist...and then is thrown into a first-person shooter game. That gaming is reaching the same status as high-tech industry and science is, I think, a very interesting observation. I don't know how gaming culture will affect society, but I think it's a good bet to say that it will, somehow.
And by the way -- the older I get, the dumber my father becomes. 'Filling my lungs with cigarette tar prevents me from catching colds!' Yeah, right, dad.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I'm 25, and still a video game lover. I think it's a major culture shift. Sure, you had a few adults who were hooked on Pac Man and the like, but never anything like I've seen in the fast few years. More and more people my age are still keeping up with the latest trends in consoles and PC games. (I'm still waiting for my copy of Escape from Monkey Island...) I personally think that they're a great form of entertainment...better than just about anything the movie studios pump out. You're actually involved in the action somewhat, and they're a great way to kill an hour or two.
One of the things that can get out of hand, as my brother who is a senior in high school is seeing now, is that no one's reading anymore. I do, and he does, but he says he knows so many people who haven't picked up a book in quite some time. This has obvious drawbacks. However, kept in perspective, gaming is a great pastime for any age.
I'm feeling old right about now. Think I'll fire up NESticle after work. ;)
"Rote memorization
Ask any old Nintendo players what the key combo for gaining unlimited lives in Contra Warriors is; chances are they'll immediately reply "up up down down left right left right B A B A select start". Ask those same old Nintendo players how to reach the first dungeon in Zelda and you'll see them try to visualize the landscape in their minds on how to reach the dungeon from the opening screen of the game. And if you ask one of your coworkers how to reach a certain point within the voice mail system, they'll probably rattle off a string of numbers and signs for the steps needed to get to a certain option.
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this isn't learning. this is rote memorization. puzzle solving through trial and error.
explain to me how this puts children and their learning curve ahead of their parents and elders that, unlike the kids, have lived decades and have decades of experience dealing with people. Dealing with other people is how we learn the majority of our useful information. Not information we learn in books and such, but useful information about how to get through the day, interact with people, and be an integrated member of society.
JKatz, the fact that you preach this to a group of people that you think are loners is horrific. We don't learn the necessities about human interaction by playing by ourselves in a dark room. We learn the necessities of life by being outside an interacting with people. We learn this by our village elders (family, neighbors, etc.)
Katz needs to stop this attitude of "us vs. them" and realize that our younger generation will bring innovations to the table just like every other very productive generation. We're NOT reinventing the world in any sense, however...we're just adding amazing amounts to it. We still have to work within the confines of the existing system like everybody else.
An example. Tech stocks DID take a 20% plunge this week if you (Katz) didn't notice. The reason for this is that tech stocks engender an amazing level of enthusiasm and excitement about the future...but that excitement simply does not transfer one-to-one to profit, as people learned when they realized that they needed to correct the market because their expectations simply weren't matching up with quarterly earnings reports. This is a perfect example of how our "new video game culture" that Katz worships simply does not create its own rules...we have to follow the basic rules of our predecessors just like every other generation in history.
This is how our elders can always teach us a lesson. Katz, you presume that we can reinvent our society. We can make it intelligent, connected, and more progressive and successful than any to date. While you have a nice vision, you need to realize that a) this has been tried before by people equally as naive and as visionary as you, and b) they succeeded to some, but certainly not an entire, extent. Whom am I talking about? I'm talking about the hippies and the free thinkers of the 60s and 70s. Their situation is VERY similar to ours today. Kids in that age thought their elders were stupid, constricting, and socially unhealthy. They were to some extent right. How are the hippes of that day and age any different from you, John? They, too, had a vision of the future. They, too, had ideas that destroyed the boundaries of the previous generation despite what your egocentric view says. Ever heard of feminism and the women's rights revolution? The civil rights revolution? The strides in engineering that gave your spoiled self the Internet that you take so much for granted as a tool of YOUR generation, when it was developed by your supposedly stupid predecessors? The strides in bio-engineering that have produced amazing amounts of advanced medicine? These were amazing innovations that their generation brought our country. And it is off of the foundation of these inventions that we will build our revolution. Please realize that while your visions of the future are wonderful, intelligent, and inspiring, they are made possible by the hard work and cultural revolutions of generations past.
And as wonderful as video games are, I refuse to say that my culture is built upon them. Our culture is built off of the Internet, personal computers, and other wildly expanding communications (and other) technologies. I can prove this quite simply. Katz's oh-so-worshipped sites, like Bluesnews.com and avault.com make piddles (as in millionths) compared to workers at Broadcom. What Katz is describing in his lengthy editorial on video games is not our generation's culture. It is one of our generation's sub-cultures. Katz may think that the Nintendo crowd of old is smarter and more innovative than the young AOL-ers of today, and he may be right, but the number of hard core video game enthusiasts simply does not approach the number of chat room users, personal computer owners, and young but non video game playing kids.
Simulated violence is far different from actual violence.
From a detached, philisophical standpoint, yes. They are different.
Still, they may bring forth similar reactions in a non-detached audience.
Every time I watch the 'simulated' killing in Schindler's List, I get hit with an Emotion. That Emotion is, I would warrant, similar to that which I would experience were I watching the Real Thing. The more realistic the simulation, the more realistic the Emotion.
I recently watched Titus (starring Anthony Hopkins) on DVD. A very powerful adaption of Shakespere's most popular (in his day) tragedy. The director depicted some violent acts in a very symbolic manner (making it easy for a viewer to take a detached view) and others in a bloody, realistic view (intending to hit the viewer right in the gut). If you do watch it on DVD, be sure to watch the commentaries.
The problem with video games is that it's easy to develop a Pavlovian response. More guts->more points->more fun.
Now, I'm not 100% against video games, I'm a big fan of Diablo II and the Warcraft/Starcraft serieses. But it's unwise to say that people won't be affected by a certain kind of violence because 'it's only a game'.
We are influenced by what we do and the games we play. I've heard it said that a child at play isn't 'just' playing... This child is rehearsing for life.
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Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Didn't she kind of lose all credibility in the whole Samoan cultural relativism hoax debacle?
these little bits of trivia are part of the jargon and the secret signals that make up the clue, the code that hold a culture together.
be it the knowing discussions around the watercooler of monday nite football, or the lyrics of a favorite pop tune, or the ketboard sequence of a favorite game, those little words and signals allow members of that particular subculture to identify each other, among other things.
Just as an example, look at the name of THIS site. True, alot more folks are on the internet.
But how many even "get" the name of a place called slashdot?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Gamers live, abide, and pursue their interests in very distinct layers, imposed by the "connectedness" of their favorite games. This layering has a huge effect on the interaction between gamers, and the cultural similarities they may (or may not) share. For example, until very recently, console games had no facility for connection to the net. And hence, console gamers have absorbed very little of that which we might call the "Gamer Culture".
On the other hand, the fans of id Software's games, including Quake X, Doom X, etc. use those games as a communications medium, as well as an outlet for fun (The same is true of Tribes players, UT players, etc. id, however, must be given credit as the company which invented the gamer culture as we think of it today). These players have internet connections (and usually the very fastest available), and spread the memes and mores of the gamer culture through direct interaction. Not only do they communicate directly in games, but they meet in Clans (teams) outside the game, socialize together in IRC on networks exclusively dedicated to gamers like irc.enterthegame.com, and troll forums on clan websites, and other gaming oriented sites. They also meet at popular events catering exclusively to gamers, like Quakecon.
It is this interaction and communication that defines the gamer culture. And it is also why, for the most part, that which we describe as "the gamer culture", is in reality, the "id culture".
While I certainly do think the gamer subculture is interesting and worthy of description, I suggest that Mr Katz spend a little more time getting to know it, and what it's really about, before pontificating about it. It's a fact that the corporate websites of banner ad providers aren't setting any standards within the culture.
gg dewd.
Tapper
You can also tell what children had friends, and what children didn't have friends by the way that they recite the Konami code. Those that had no friends will recite it: up up down down b a start and those with no friends will recite it: up up down down b a b a SELECT start. The select was how you set the game in 2 player mode :) Just another interesting way of knowing how people grew up.
Damn straight.
In many ways, our perception of reality *is* reality. The monsters in the closet of a five year old *do* exist for that child, at that time; and your fears of being mugged as you walk down that darkened street arouse a primal response that is as real as the real thing.
The brain adapts to its environment. Eat lots of chili peppers? Your brain will stop registering the sensation as being so hot. Stink in the office? Your brain will quit paying attention after a few minutes. If you're in Edmonton, you wear TShirts as soon as the thermometer breaks freezing; if you're in Mexico, a Wisconsin heatwave seems chilly.
There is a vast unconcious mind inside your brain. Most of who you are was determined by hardwiring in the womb: the reaction by a fetus to an unusual or unexpected stimulation can predict whether the child will be shy or outgoing, to a remarkable 90%+ confidence level. The child has no choice in being shy or sociable: it's *built right in.*
The rest of you was determined during the most plastic (read: pliable) years of your brain, between birth and about age five. Your experiences during those years made you who you are today. It's so far beyond your control that it's almost impossible to enact any significant change. You is what you is.
If you take a child and begin desensitizing it to violence -- the same as if you were to desensitize it to the heat of chili peppers -- you *will* end up with an adult who is not sensitive to violence.
And just as you, as an adult, can learn to love habenaro peppers, you can become desensitized to violence.
As proof, witness the behaviour and attitudes of children and adults in the war-torn parts of Europe, Africa and the mid-East. "I prefer my child to die a martyr than remain repressed!" Ethnic cleansing. "Necklacing." Machetes. The casual disregard for the supposed sanctity of human life: the willingness to kill on whim: the inability to stop the violence and enact peace.
I love playing Unreal Tournament. It appeals to the primitive lizard core of my brain: it's power and violence, hunting and hunted, it's caveman survivalism.
But it's an adult brain playing a poor imitation of reality: the graphics aren't good, the interface is queer and it all takes place on a tiny screen.
I don't believe a child will make that distinction (and, yes, QAPete can trot out his kid all he wants: time will prove me right). When imagined monsters in a closet are real, when Dad in a Santa suit is Kris Kringle, when playing house is dead-serious business -- well, playing violent video games *is* reality, and *is* desensitizing the child to violence.
To think otherwise is to ignore overwhelming evidence as to how children perceive and understand the world.
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Game playing has always been a part of cultures. It is a way of bringing up kids into the culture, of teaching them values without bashing them over the head. But IMHO, America doesn't really have a culture. It's culture resides in the perception of what America should be, rather than is (see DH Lawrences' O! America, I believe). America is still searching for identity.
We still have games, but these games are not created by the owners of the culture, but instead are the culture themselves. Each generation is faced with the task of finding its own identity, creating its own culture, and having very little to go upon except the artifacts of every day life, and of the past generation.
And, at least partially, I think that this is why we are seeing more, unpredictable, violent behavior, and suicide in youth. Not because Doom made them do it. But because they do not have a culture to belong to, that gives them inherent purpose in life. Yeah, this is getting mushy, but I think studies have shown that those brought up with a strong sense of tradition, of culture, are better adjusted as adults than those just cast into an artificial world of empty commercialism. This is the basis of movies like Fight Club.
It's just my perception that coming generations are having to build their own culture block by block from scratch, as the sense of any common culture goes away. The same thing is happening in Japan, where the previous culture is being left behind, leaving young people with a sense of isolation, with no common bond with previous generations.
Which is not to say this is an entirely dire situation. I love pop culture, I love Andy Warhol, I love the sense that there are codewords and a culture that only my generation alone shares.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"young people these days don't appreciate taking your time to get from place to place" - old lady when the car was invented replacing the horse and buggy
"why are you sitting there listening to that noise coming out of that box?" - parent dealing with a child who was addicted to some newfangled invention called the radio
"why are you spending so much time staring at that stupid box?" - parent dealing with kids that watch too much tv instead of playing marbles
"what do you find so fascinating about typing back and forth with someone named "KewlHakerDude" on the Internet?"
it's the same generation by generation. each time with different obstacles.
This isn't news. Wasn't it Mark Twain who said something like, "When I was 20, my father knew nothing, but by the time I was 25, I was suprised how much he had learned in 5 years" - basically showing that throughout time, the younger generation has always seen the older generation as a useless anachronism until they reach their mid twenties or even thirties? Why do people keep presenting this as "news" or "something wrong with the word" when it's probably been like this since humans advanced enough to have a culture?
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Adults still insist they have lessons to teach the next generation. But the young have come to believe, with increasing justification, that their elders know much less than they do, and have little worth passing along.
I used to feel this way, but it seems that the older I get the less I know, and the smarter my father becomes. The young always think they know better. You can only know what you've experienced or learned from others, with the former definitely being of higher priority. Age is a limiting factor on how much you can have of either. The young have a relatively limited perspective, by definition, and therefore problems often appear simple and answers obvious. It's not till you get older that you realize that you're a dolt.
(Note to teenage flamethrowers: Yes, I know. You're smarter/more experienced/more mature/etc than everyone else. You don't need to remind us all. Thank you.)
No other form of culture is ascending as rapidly. Compared to gaming, traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered.
Maybe they're declining because they're boring or being replaced by something more obtainable. Maybe they're only being replaced as entertainment for some. Video games are not a culture. They are entertainment.
In years past very few people ever had the opportunity to see an opera. The best that most people could get would be the county fair. Now everyone in the Western world is able to afford to hear music from their favorite artist, be it through CDs or radios. Concerts and TV have replace operas. Rock has replace classical music as the most popular, because now the populace chooses what's popular as opposed to the select elite rich.
Nothing has changed here, except that now more people have the money to buy their own choice of entertainment. Bother yourself to pull up a chart of Maslow's Heirarchy of needs and you will see that this is as it should be. Except for some extreme cases, the Western world has conquered homelessness, hunger, and all the other lower order needs. With nothing left to conquer, men (and boys) turn to destractions.
BTW, so some boys from one generation remember a secret code to a popular game? Do they know what the name of an oversized marble is? Gee, it seems that all the boys from the previous generation knew that. Did the marbles culture die?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Another Jon Kat's conspiracy theory with no merit. I grew up playing video games and knew the cheat code immediatly. When I was a teenager I did believe I knew more then my parents, true. My parents when younger didn't have video games and they had the same belief in the 60's. I'm sure their parents went through the same thing. It's called being a teenager. My parents taught me many things I failed to listen to growing up. Now however I'm 26 years old and realize they were right and I was wrong on a whole lot of things. This whole process just happens a lot more and a lot faster these days because of better communication and more crap to think about.
Nothing has changed much except that most parents aren't raising their kids and teaching them the lessons they need for when they decide to grow up. These are just my own rants and any opions different from mine are wrong. Just kidding =P
There are those who say that the Roman empire collapsed partly because it went from a society of participators--athletes, intellectuals, etc.--to a society of spectators--the Coliseum, theatre, etc.
Could it be that video games are turning our society, the global empire, into another society of spectators?
Food for thought. I'm just poking for ideas; don't think I'm that much of a pessimist.
- Life Force on the NES at the title screen for 30 ships
- Gradius III for the SNES, which dun blows you up when you pause
- Operation C for the Gameboy at the title screen for level select
- Gyruss for the NES at the title screen for 30 ships, although you have to enter it backwards (and Gyruss was released by Ultra, a subsidiary of Konami or something to that effect)
- Legend of the Mystical Ninja for the SNES. Actually, you couldn't enter the code, but if you talked to somebody in the game, they mention the code as a bit of Konami history heritage
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time on the SNES. At the # of players selection screen with the second controller, it gave you 10 lives and a stage select
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project on the NES. At the title screen, it gives you access to an options screen
- Tendrils for the Playstation's Net Yarouze. I'll admit, I never heard this one before, but I found it on Google and it's pretty funny. Look it up yourself.
- There's also a band evidently called Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right BA Start. I think they're from Ohio or something.
I'm sure there's a few more games to use The Code on, but I can't remember any more of them. I'm surprised I could remember those ones. But that's what you get for trying to substitute real life for Nintendo's version of it.Damn you Nintendo. Damn you.
J