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Most Dubious Videogame Claims Explored
Thanks to Buzzcut.com for their article exploring the most dubious claims made in relation to videogames, in which the author takes some time to refute game-related maxims such as 'Old people play video games' ("assuming the fact that older women playing Bridge online... can be generalized into broad statements about the general appeal of games lacks a sense of perspective"), 'Games will revolutionize education' ("We are not on the cusp of a breakthrough or entering an era of educational enlightenment. People learn from anything, so they can learn from games"), and 'Games are a social activity' ("Video games can be social. But so can knitting and reading. That doesn't mean they are deeply or purposefully social.")
Games only came to be one thing and one thing only: GAMES!
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Er, um, *claim.
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Now that's some edutainment!
Duke Nukem Forever: Out this Holiday season!
Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd but I've never heard anyone proclaim "Old people play video games", "Games will revolutionize education", or "Games are a social activity". In fact I've typically heard people say the exact opposite ("videogames are for kids", "games are mindless entertainment that get in the way of education", and "games are for social misfit loners").
GMD
watch this
>Still, it would be a gross mischaracterization to
>say that video games are a social activity. The
>fact is, most of us spend most of our time
>playing games looking at our own screen with our
>own eyes by ourselves. If we prefer to play games
>with friends, this is an artifact of our social
>natures.
This seems like a rather shallow/narrow rebuttal to the claim that video games are social. I agree that single-player games are not inherently social, but multi-player games are. MMOGs? I have a co-worker whose wife left him for someone in her clan on Dark Age of Camelot!
I think it's a lot more fun to get together with friends for a Halo frag party than it is to play a similar game online. And it's not just a group of people sitting there "by themselves with their own eyes on their own screen"... we talk trash, laugh together at funny kills/mistakes, yell at each other, get in fights, etc.
I've spent countless hours with co-workers playing Soul Caliber, having tournaments, etc.
Perhaps he should have argued that "many video games have multiplayer components, and many more are specifically designed for social interaction, but arguing that traditional single-player games are social is silly."
Books, movies, theater, even television may not make people kill each other.
Tell that to Ronald Reagan or John Lennon--both of whom were shot by people who claimed that their influence was "Catcher in the Rye." I do not even need to mention Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, the Bible. I could go on and on. We also have Nazi and Soviet propaganda movies that made people kill each. There is Natural Born Killers as well. I cannot think of any television program that has killed people except MTV's Jackass--but arguably, they deserved it.
Sponsored by Sony Playstation 2(TM) and Windows XP(TM)
10)Playing certain types of games makes you a nerd, but playing other types of games makes you cool.
9)Pushing blocks is fun.
8)Micromanaging resources in Warcraft is more fun than micromanaging resources in Microsoft Excel.
7)$400 on a video card is a good investment.
6) One game where you can carry 20 guns at once and arm yourself through osmosis is more realistic than another game where you can carry 20 guns at once and arm yourself through osmosis.
5) You can make a good game without ninjas.
4) The princess can take care of herself.
3)Carmack is God.
2)Final Fantasy is a hit video game, not a series of bad CGI movies written by a 16 year old Japanese school girl on ecstasy.
And the number one most dubious claim about video games:
1) I'm not cheating, you're just not very good.
And the number one
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
That's about it. It's a stupid thing to debunk myths with no data backing you up.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
Oops!
I agree.
I had a problem with this being included at all, simply because the "is video game art?" (or similarly, "what is art?") debate is way too broad to even begin to be covered by that blurb.
I wonder if the Director of Photography or designers of Ace Ventura would consider their work to be art. Fashion designers might find Jim Carrey's zany wardrobe and hair to be pretty artistic!
I don't really see how distinguishing art from "media" really helps raise credibility any. Doesn't art by nature convey one or more of the following: expression, emotion, ideas, information?
If you have media without artistic intent, you end up with journalism, and I think current journalism (in the U.S. anyway) is met with as much skepticism as anything else (or should be, if it isn't.)
Just my $.02
--- "Yeah, I'm a bit stressed out. I have a research paper due tomorrow and it has to be +5, Insightful."
I'm still waiting for your Toy Story level CG on the PS2 without using the Toy Story DVD.
--The revolutionary Xbox Live is a huge success (MS PR spin)
I wonder why you haven't signed on any new subscribers since early 2003. If it's so revolutionary, how come less than 5% of Xbox owners actually use it? (500,000 subs, 10 million Xboxes)
--The GBA SP was created to cater to a different market and was not a GBA "fix" (NCL PR spin)
Really? What ever happened to those GBA ads anyway?
You're right that the article presents no material evidence whatsoever to back up its claims. You're wrong when they say they don't define their terms. They make specific reference to "over 30". Which makes me, a 44-year-old, call bullshit. In fact, most of my friends and acquaintances who played video games in their youth continue to do so. And, in general, those who didn't still don't (which only makes sense, IMO). That's not a scientific claim, since my sample size is fairly small and somewhat biased, but at least I have a measurable sample to point to.
Anyway, wasn't there a recent study that showed that the average age of video game players was mid-thirties?
Dude, this guy was only wrong twice! That's a pretty good percentage of correctness.
5) Not social? No, some video games aren't social. Like some card games aren't social. Solitair for instance. Obviously, he hasn't played Mario Party or Mario Golf.
11) Myst was piss poor crap. It was the game that ruined games. Fancy graphics != good gameplay. He provided no real argument that the gameplay of Myst was entertaining or quality. Because there isn't one.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I have never heard any studies claim that a signifant portion of the "older" world population plays video games.
a meStatistics.html
I found interesting the author's link to Chris Crawford, who ran his own small survey on gaming habits, after being suspicious of another published survey's results on gamers and age ranges:
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Game%20Design/G
and his conclusion is that you can make anything you want of survey statistics.
I would think that most older people wouldn't play video games initially because they came from a generation where entertainment didn't have a computer understanding requirement.
However, I see more older people play video games these days. I encourage my older mother to play rather simple games online on her computer, which she enjoys. I'll be moving her up from card and match games to SimThemePark and perhaps Starcraft or Warcraft once I upgrade her system.
I'm in my 30's, and I will be playing video games as long as I can physically and mentally function to do so, so I imagine that there are others like me and we will see more older game players in the future.
I look forward to Counter-Strike 6, and I will continue to school the 13-year olds in that game, too!
[insert witty jab at Daikatana and John Romero's bitches here]
Over time games will begin to expand and contract to become a kind of lightening rod for the masses. Educational games often shuned by uber 1113 gamers will become mainstream enough so that dungeon crawling losers will no longer rule. As this happens more and more people will unite and games will prosper as a result. Just as some people believe that economics and even Socionomics are good predictors of human behaviours I too feel that games are the ultimate in simulating the future of our culture and maybe even our destiny as humans. Some people may disagree with my views but I challenge anyone to disprove this theory.
People can read alone and knit alone. People can play a one player game together just as easily as they can watch a movie together.
But let's face it... if the public is afraid of something it must be anti-social.
I must be anti-social.
I hate awards shows.
I hate karaoke.
I hate bars.
I hate cliques.
I love RPGs.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
He had a little bit of credibility until we got here: "11. Myst wasn't a very good game."
Myst wasn't a very good game. It never was. It wasn't neat, or novel. It was a slideshow with hotspots. (What we now refer to as "The web")
Actually, I had problems with some of the other items on the list, but I almost laughed out loud when I got here.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Nintendo Creates Piracy-Proof Console For China
Remember kids, bits are meant to be copied!
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Now for my point: Nobody cares that people on MMORPGs are real (your example on DAoC was a freak occurence between morons, IMHO). That is to say that if you could create a game "smart enough" to have the NPCs act like other players nobody would care that they aren't real. In fact, I believe that most people would rather not associate in game characters with RL people as it detracts from roleplaying. The purpose of an MMORPG is to allow you to do and be things you can't normal do and be. Therefore you don't want to think about that orc/wizard/wookie/whatever being some fat loser in his parents basement.
I would also say that fighting/racing/sports games I could go either way, but generally play alone. I would possibly give merit to the idea that MMOFPS games are social in that they are often played at LAN parties or at least with people you know. However, I prefer not to play these games against people I know, because should I frag somebody 15 times in a row (not that I could, I suck at these games) I wouldn't want to have to hear them bitch about it, especially once the game is over. *badeep badeep badeep* thats all folks.
Trust Your Technolust
Of course, I never have seen a Nintendo in a retirement home ... maybe he's on to something.
Mainstream (adj.) Representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of a society or group
If anything, games like Bejeweled are more mainstream than your Super Console Kill Kill Hit Of The Week 2. Gamers who play Halo are likely to be young, male, and hardcore. Gamers who play Bejeweled cover the entire spectrum of old, young, male, female, hardcore and casual. Tetris has universal appeal. I regularly get mail from grandparents telling me how nice it is that they can play my game with their grandchildren and have a great time at it. That is mainstream, not the cutting-edge stuff that we (a group largely comprised of young men) think of as mainstream.
Old people play video games. Old people play lots of video games. Old people do not generally play the niche games that are designed for and targeted at young, male, hardcore gamers.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
My dad doesn't play any computer games.
Both of my parents are defined as "old" (around 60).
Note: My statistical universe is complete and verifiable!
#man woman
segmentation fault - core dumped.
Sure! specially if you are able to knitt at the same time with up to 1000 people, chat and form knitting quests and knitting guilds together!
Grandmas all over America we invite you to get social! forget about that 100 year old chair you sit all day to knitt and talk nonsense on a daily basis, get "Knitting" online today!
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
There was a Quake wedding, too. That doesn't mean playing Quake is the same as having a social life. Sorry, no matter how they try to justify it, hiding out in "The Painkeep" playing Quake Arena or whatever you nerds play will never amount to actually interacting with real human beings and having real *gasp* friends.
"John Romero's About to Make You His Bitch."
http://www.talknerdy.org
I played MUDs for about 5 years. Through those MUDs I made many RL friendships, some of which have lasted years after I stopped MUDing. And yes, these were roleplaying MUDs. There were mailing lists, IRC channels, and other off-MUD forums for hanging out with online friends and talking about the MUD we were playing. I also know that I'm not unique in this, or even that unusual. I've seen many people form friendships through MUDs.
Most EQ-style MMOGs are direct descendents of MUDs. I played DaoC for about 2 months, and the interactions I saw there were very similar to the MUD interactions I was familiar with. (Granted, there were a LOT more idiots, since the interface is much more accessible.)