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The Escapist Magazine Launches
A new online gaming mag has launched with an impressive array of contributors. Entitled The Escapist, the magazine appears to be going for gamer culture and commentary, as opposed to specific product information. Jennifer Buckendorff goes into what it means to be a gamer in Gamer Like Me, Kieron Gillen comments on the scapegoating of the games industry in Culture Wargames, and Tycho Brahe talks acceptance in The Mainstream is Coming! The Mainstream is Coming!. From Buckendorff's article: "Am I a gamer? I review video games for various sources, including a major metropolitan newspaper. In May, I made the rounds of E3 for ten hours a day. I have a carefully selected games library, and my adoration of GTA dates back to the London expansion pack, when I used a double-decker bus to evil ends. I grew up in the arcades, standing on tiptoes to feed quarters into the slots. I give game recommendations to friends and acquaintances as if I were reading their tea leaves. But, in the opinion of some, I am not a gamer."
The example in the article, of a person who plays only GTA3 but plays it all the time, is no more a gamer than someone who saw Star Wars III ten times is a movie buff.
I think "gamer", implying someone who really likes gaming in general, has a requirement of a sense of history. Sometimes people try to put time into it (someone isn't a real gamer unless they've been playing for X years and remember buying ET for their Atari 2600), but I've seen this phenomenon in music... some artists start out with a small dedicated following for many years, and suddenly become very popular. Some people say that you're not a real fan of Band Z unless you knew them before the radio or whatever, but I think that if you become a fan later on, as long as you look beyond the "popular" stuff and realize that, hey, this band has been around for awhile and has more songs than just Overplayed Radio Tune, and seek out the older stuff, then you can become just as much of a fan as someone who has followed them around in bars for ages.
The same thing applies in movies. Unless you're around 90 years old, you can't be a "movie buff" only having watched movies when they first came out. You have to acknowledge the classics.
And, more ontopic, the same thing applies to movies. Even if you don't know where to find the Warp Zone in world 5 of SMB, or where the three (or is it four?) warp whistles are in SMB3, or whatever, you still have to acknowledge them as pioneers. As Tycho said in a Penny Arcade comic awhile ago "I'm sure you've played Final Fantasy X, and that's great, but X isn't just, like, a letter. It means 'ten'."
The author of the article is obviously a gamer. She gave other examples (the boy who only plays GTA3), but I can't get back to the article now to quote them.
I think maybe where this is falling down is that some people are trying to use "gamer" as just "someone who plays games", rather than "someone who is a fan of games". There's a big difference, and I suppose it is a failing of English that there's not really two separate words yet.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
It was a dark day for me, when in junior high or high school, I was talking with my fellow outcasts (and I'm not kidding, we were geeks/nerds/freaks/whatever at the school) about FFVII and some average looking girl whose skin showed signs a blush of health said "Yeah I play that game. It's awesome, but I hate how you have to walk around and talk to people"
Has the internet taught you nothing? That wasn't really a girl, it was a 45 year old fat guy from Florida. Case in point: would a girl really hate the part of a game where you walk around and talk to people?
I've been through this with my music (punk) and my hobbies (skateboarding and tagging) before, and it's no fun at all.
Poser.
The Sex Pistols and Ramones did not suddenly stop being cool just because Hot Topic started selling black fishnets and plaid to 14-year old girls who listen to Greenday on their iPods.
Punk rock, to the (very) limited extent that it was ever cool at all, was cool because it embraced the idea of not giving a fuck what other people thought of you. If you were embarrased that valley girls were now aping the style which you so were aping first, you completely missed the entire point. It sounds to me like are every bit a phoney as the members of Offspring which you are so quick to dismiss.
You want to be a true punk? A true non-conformist? Go downtown with a boom-box and listen to Britney Spears in a public square. Not her new simi-sexy "Toxic" stuff... her old "Hit me baby" crap that everybody is fucking sick to death of. Crank it up. Sing along. Dance to it. Naked.
Then you will be truly worthy of the awe and adulation of your co-workers at Starbucks. You can show off the inexplicable tatoos of Heinz Ketuchup bottles and Teletubbies which you got ON YOUR FACE while in jail for lewd behavior.
Until you are ready to go that far to break the mold and be a real bat-shit loco non-conformist, shut the fuck up and accept the fact that you are no better (or worse) than those kids at the mall who you seem to think are ruining it all for you.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think that the "Nintendo is Dying!" rant is wrong. Here's why:
-The Gamecube was the only console of its generation to be profitable. Every PS2 and Xbox that was made cost Sony and Microsoft money.
-The DS is beating the PSP in sales in Japan. I believe that it's winning in the US, but I can't find any hard data.
-The Revolution will almost certainly be the only profitable console of its generation.
-Microsoft's Xbox division is in the red by several billion dollars. Nintendo has only slightly less profit than Sony does, even though Sony has significantly more sales and market share.
-The Gamecube is only slightly behind the Xbox for US sales, but is solidly in second place in the world.
If you want to compare them to Sega, then you should take note of the large disparities in profit on console sales and in general between the two companies. If anyone is going to pull out of the console hardware business, I see it being Microsoft.
In US, gaming used to be a niche... not anymore since it now racks in more money than Hollywood.
you forgot to add the little legal text:
*based on box-office sales
Hollywood still trounces the games industry when you factor in vhs/dvd sales, rentals and broadcast rights. Not to mention licensed materials (games, soundtracks, posters, shirts, toys, etc.)
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