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.")

Comments

Number one most dubious claim

[Henry V .009]

Duke Nukem Forever: Out this Holiday season!

Video games not social?

[thanester]

>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."

Re:Video games not social?

[WTFmonkey]

I think his point might have been more along the lines of expanding your social group. When playing with friends, you're right, it's a blast because you know the people, know their likes and dislikes, their senses of humor, etc.

But playing enemy territory online with strangers is different. I think it would be fairly easy to build a bot that could pass the Turing test during an online game like ET or DOOM. But chances are that in the majority of cases you haven't really interacted with anybody like you would with your friends. Yes, occasionally you meet someone during a game that you ccontinue to play with in the future, but I think I agree with his statement that "if we prefer to play games with friends, this is an artifact of our social natures." He's right in that some people are more social (sociable?) than others, no matter the surroundings, and video games aren't an ideal surrounding for increasing one's social structure. (And slashdot is?)

Re:Video games not social?

[Kethinov]

An equally shallow rebuttal is made here

Statement: Old people play video games[.]

Response: [A]ssuming 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[.]

I know for a fact that a ton of old people play video games. (Consider the fact that an old person from my perspective is anyone age 30 or higher.) When I used to play UO, I posted on the Stratics messageboards which has hundreds of thousands of posters. Age polls were taken every once in a while and the average age seemed to hover close to middle aged. There seemed to be an equal number of elderly people and minors playing. This puts the number of minors playing (or at least posting in the forum) into quite a large minority. (And keep in mind that Stratics has been made the official forums for UO. This is no backwoods niche community. [anymore...])

Not true

[Henry V .009]

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.

Dubious claims made about videogames top ten!

[Gizzmonic]

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

Re:Dubious claims made about videogames top ten!

[secolactico]

5) You can make a good game without ninjas.

No, no... remember, any game's coolness factor can be increased by adding one or more of the following: ninjas, pirates and/or monkeys.

I'll be damned if I can remember who said it first. Was it the Penny Arcade folks?

Re:Dubious claims made about videogames top ten!

[miyako]

From gamespy's review of Tropico 2
Let's start with the premise. One of the fundamental truths of the universe is that there isn't anything that can't be improved with the addition of pirates, ninjas, or monkeys.

My problem with the article

[SandSpider]

My problem with this is that, for something that's meant to dispute myths, there's precious little actual data to back it up. Prime example is the one about the old people. He says that, aside from "older women playing bridge", old people really aren't playing video games. My problems:

1. No data backing it up. Rely's upon, basically, 'I say so.'
2. No defining of terms. What's an "older lady"? I mean, if it's older than the average gamer, then yes, that kind of implies that they aren't the majority of the gamers. But does that mean age 40 and up? 90? What's the age?

That's about it. It's a stupid thing to debunk myths with no data backing you up.

=Brian

Re:old people and video games

[Xtifr]

Well, I disregarded the bit about 30 years old, because the sentence made no sense.

Granted. But I think he's basically using a variation of the "No True Scottsman" logical fallacy. It's true that old people don't play video games if you ignore the old people who do. :)

"[...]the exception that proves the rule[...]"

For anyone who's ever wondered about the apparent oxymoronicity of this phrase, it actually dates back to an older meaning of "proof": a test or a trial. So, the exception tests the rule, and may well end up showing it to be false.

As for the study about the average age, [...] He's saying [...] that those studies are wrong or lying.

But the only evidence he offers is that his mother doesn't play video games. (And why isn't she the exception that proves the rule?) Even if the claim is completely false (and I indeed suspect that the average age is a bit lower than mid-thirties), he hasn't done squat to debunk the claim. All he's done is offer bald-faced assertions with no evidence to back him up. The article wasn't worth the minute or two I took to skim it. Even if he's right, he's still full of crap, and his rightness is just a case of dumb luck.

Credibility

[daVinci1980]

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.

Most dubious video game claim?

[extrarice]

Nintendo Creates Piracy-Proof Console For China

Remember kids, bits are meant to be copied!

MMORPGs != social

[Metal_Demon]

For starters let me say I've been playing SWG since about 3 weeks after it's release for on average 5 hours a day. That said I will attempt to refrain from using that as too much of an example because it hasn't really been around long enough for too many people to get to know each other yet.

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.