This last week we were invited to a games conference in Bradford that i opted not miss out on. After the event i have been thinking about the pros and cons of making the decision i made.
Having been doing this course for a couple of months now, i am beginning to notice definite divides in approach and outlook amongst the people i am surrounded by. The weighting, as far as i can tell, is far more game and fantasy orientated than i expected, with care and attention being taken over doodles, character design, cartoons and comic book imagery.
I have no interest in this anymore. I stopped playing games properly a few years ago and have no inclination to go back to them. Not saying that i didn't enjoy my time with video games, the motivation to have them envelop me just isn't there anymore. Time for this, as far as i'm concerned, is not expendable. Having just played Res 5, to my mind in present context, playing a video games is metaphorical masturbation. There is no greater purpose. It is similar to the guitarist that only plays in his bedroom. It only benefits short term, and it only benefits the gamer. Its not giving back or enhancing peoples lives (in the hunter/gather sense of existence), seemingly the suits at the top operate on ego, games operate on ego, who can be one better than the rest, who has the most MONEY and who has the slickest presentation. I used to love it, but its all based on something that means nothing.
Take The Burning Man Festival for example. The concept of a progressive modern society that is created in the desert for a week or so each year... This also is an exercise in similar technological fallacy, however there this sense that its bringing people together to enrich and shape their existence for the better. Not to see which sweaty pizza fiend can create the best warlock or gremlin, but a synthesis of technology and humanity, people coming together to make machines and ideas something so much more than circuitry and plastic. People/humanity breath life into machines/mechanics, almost creating progressive, spiritual commune in which this ideology is given meaning and context.
I consider myself a dreamer, and a geek, my reality is fantasy (its all the same anyway) but i fail to see any benefit in this aspect off escapism any more. Its surely about being able to bring these ideas back from imagination land and using them to help progress humanity in reality. How many people can you aid playing a video game, how many lives are actually aided by war simulators, gore and violence?
The only positive i can see is that video games are a platform for people with quirky personalities to act out there twisted little fantasies, ensuring that slightly fewer people don't actually go out and buy a WW2 costume and a rifle and start shooting Germans or in a GTA sense, become a vigilante.......
All of this imagery combines in the collective unconscious or noosphere, as well as conscious being, clogging up space using the time/resources for ideas that help people, positive vibrations and global progression.
Having said all that i will be playing Mario Kart tonight and wasting some time with my freinds, but we will be together, enjoying each others company and enjoying shared experience, not holed up in a bedroom on my own basking in my own ego climbing to the top of some pathetic, unimportant score board just so i can say to myself
"Yes, Im the king of my own castle, in a kingdom that consisting of me, me and me."
Happiness is only real when shared!
(A train of thought that became more exaggerated as i wrote and got more frustrated with the topic.)
If you don't like it then bugger off.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, MY life is aided by war simulators, gore and violence. It stops me losing my short temper with real people.
It seems odd that you are on a course that has GAME in the title of it, surely it was mentioned on your interview.
ReplyDeletePeople like "escapism" in many form, some like to take drugs and raves/festivals which they think make the experiance better. Some sit at home high as hell doing nothing with there lives.
Some people like hobbies, like learning the guitar not everyone picks it up and think "Yes I'm gonna be a rockstar now and make loads of money" some might to just want to play songs they like.
Yes this course has so far looked alot at game, as it will move on from that and look at film later in the year.
It seems the people on this course are beneath you with your thinking that gamers are stereotyped as "sweaty pizza fiend's". I could say all people who like dance/trance whatever are all pill-popping wasters.
Maybe you should look at another course that will help you further humanity. Wasting your time and money on this course can't be a good thing.
Couldn't agree more chris. If i rant like that they are just trains of thought. I didnt mean to be nasty and I don't want to offend any one. Everyone in the class has skills. Im always impressed at the quality of work that ive seen from everyone, and for the most part i feel i have to work extra hard just to understand what alot of you seem to already understand.
ReplyDeleteAnd i have no comment on what anyone does to pass their time, everyone is entitled to do what makes them happy, whether it be computers, sport, drugs or whatever your right, i just wanted to vent some frustrated angst towards something that i used to love but now cant seem to enjoy. I was trying to explore the idea there and then, i didnt want to offend anyone or insult ways of existence, just question it. And it did the job. You have given me stuff to think about which is ace.
Really just thought bubbles, i still went out and bout COD last week and have sessioned it by myself. That kind of sparked the need to vent.
And danny, it says what your commenting on in what i wrote. Im not doubting that video games have enriched all of our lives, and i envy the people that still play and enjoy it. Im the one thats missing out.
It doesn't say that at all! I commented on your criticism of graphic violence in video games, not your lamenting in the loss of enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteAnd in response to your remarks about 'mental masturbation', am I to assume you're calling people who enjoy video games mental wankers? Am I to assume you are therefore calling ME a mental wanker? Am I also to assume your enjoyment of video games in social settings (total hypocrisy of your original argument, by the way) means you enjoy mental circle jerks?
"The only positive i can see is that video games are a platform for people with quirky personalities to act out there twisted little fantasies, ensuring that slightly fewer people don't actually go out and buy a WW2 costume and a rifle and start shooting Germans or in a GTA sense, become a vigilante......."
ReplyDeleteIf you think im calling you a wanker then yes i am.
x
I dare you to say that to my face on Monday.
ReplyDeleteI cant tell if your serious or not?
ReplyDeleteAnd where the agro is coming from?
But sound. I appreciate your efforts and constructive feedback.
Playing video games is like wanking. It's an enjoyable hobby to do on your own.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant+++
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ReplyDeleteSeems this post has become infamous at the college, just want to say Tetris is safe family whole some fun! gosh darn it! In any case Danny's reaction to an opinion is greatly over stepping a line, you make some very good points such as should there be such an importance placed on video games, are they just entertainment or something more? can they become more?
ReplyDelete