On Cynicism and Disillusionment Towards Gaming

Hi. Welcome to every form of media. Video Games aren't the only thing that's gone downhill since it began.

I have felt this way for awhile, so I guess I am in the jaded gamer class

People may not like to hear this... they will probably think me a troll... but I am so sick of the mantra "they are just games, they are like sports, and all they need to be is *fun*"

I understand that not every game need be a work of art, I understand gaming is a business. I also understand that the market audience varies from 6 year olds all the way up to ~50 year olds. However, I will also say that humans are by their vary nature lazy when it comes to entertainment. For those people with less than genius level IQs and without strict *parental* training( even with in many cases), will fall victim to various forms of entertainment that please the baser parts of their brain. Its just a matter of genetics and the fact that we aren't all that different from the early humans that climbed out of trees many millennium ago.

However, given the knowledge base that is out there, given the amount of *art* and quality entertainment that IS out there, its sad for me to see people accept the same old @#$% from the industry so easily.

Its like the fictional literature segment. There are numerous books from various modern(read last 100 years) authors, in sci-fi, fantasy, and regular fiction that are all worthwhile reads. Many of them aren't even published anymore but they are still out there. However, the Da'vinci Code crushes them all under the weight of its sales receipts, star wars/star trek/etc dominate the sci-fi market, and romance novels are many women's dirty little secrets. Is it evil to enjoy those things? Of course not there is no evil when it comes to entertainment. However, the disparity in consumption between the cheap thrills, and the quality narratives is quite disheartening.

The games industry is the absolute worst though, and sadly my personal favorite. They have the ability to create worlds that we can interact with on an individual basis, in fact designers have been putting out quality work for well over a decade However, at a break neck pace people are more and more gravitating towards those cheap thrills, and the quality games get lost in rush for the human need to please the baser parts of our brain. I am talking about the countless sequels put out by companies like EA and UBIsoft that change so very little from year to year. Yet I keep hearing from the consumer "Oh its ok, I had fun with the last one so who cares if they don't try". Thats the part that bothers me. We as humans have an obligation TO try, to not be lazy about what we consume. That doesn't mean we should all be listening to classical music all day long, while reading novels from over a hundred years ago, but it does mean we should not accept mediocrity.

However, that is exactly what has happened... we have embraced mediocrity. So many amazing titles have nearly been forgotten, games like I'76, the Freespace series, Grim Fandango, Baldur's Gate 2.. the list is large, but growing ever so slowly these days.

I guess by her argument you could say that all types games are "mindless drivel" and pointless. Paintball, chess, cards, monopoly, even tic tac toe. Hell all fucking sports are just games so they are meaningless too. Might as well give them all up!

I'd love to get into discussing this one, good link - but it's 2:30am and I have a busted PC.

I will say that yes, many people overlook gaming as crap for a good reason, often it's shit.

I had a conversation just tonight with a pal about MP gaming, reminiscing about those few good times where everything just clicked in AQ2 and you actually worked as a team or in BF1942, things just meshed right good team, comradery and just this whole action movie feel - it's just fantastic.
It's that feeling which gaming is all about - you can't get it elsewhere

and no, it doesn't just apply to MP gaming, it was just an example- another one might be that first time you step out of the sewer in Oblivion for example - these small moments are ... well almost priceless - and to me it's not just a memory of playing a game, it's an experience I've really had.

I'll never forget deciding hell with it and just hiking up the mountains in Oblivion and watching the sun go down - I'll never forget the fear of the last room of E1M5 - those moments where you're 100% caught up in the moment and gaming is bliss.

It's just so hard to convey to others without them dismissing it as silly kiddy stuff

What a totally clueless article. Most of the games aren't pointless nor meaningless for most of their audience.

Hint: they are fun to play.

If you don't think that the game X is fun, then surely you are not part of the audience. I, for one, like to shoot men in virtual spaces, thank you.

This article reminds of the time my brother and I were playing Bubble Bobble and my grandmum said "How can you keeping playing that? It's the same thing over and over." Answer: because it was fun!

When explaining to people why I find video games fun, I respond with "Well, you like watching [their sport of choice], right? It's like that, only you're not being passive about it." It's just good entertainment!

This article hits on two issues that are separate, and I think have pretty simple answers:

Firstly, games are entertainment. They aren't any more, and they aren't any less. They're no more a quality waste of time than playing golf, basketball, movies, reading, or anything else we humans do to entertain ourselves. Ultimately, people do in life what makes them happy. If games make you happy, why question its meaningfullness? It's very easy to have meaningfullness in other areas of your life, it doesn't have to exist in every thing you do.

Secondly, games are shaped by its audience, and that audience is mostly young and new to the genre. Most of them have yet to grow tired of the repetitive themes and experiences offered by games. I do believe there is a growing segment, the "jaded gamer" segment, that has grown tired of playing the same games over and over.

For them, getting to shoot an AK47 in and of itself is not entertaining. For them, getting to fly a jet or helicoptier in and of itself is not entertaining. They've done that. They've done that over and over and over. They've been in WWII for years now. They've been a counter-terrorist for years. They've been on the MMO treadmills far to long for the next shiny piece of armor to really motivate them. They want new experiences to be offered in games, and hey, a half decent story wouldn't hurt either.

The jaded gamer segment is only going to get bigger. This segment isn't going to waste their time with yet another crappy WWII game. They're only going to buy the games that provide something new and innovative. This, I hope, will push the market towards providing more qualitiy games than we've seen in the past.

Who cares?

Gaming is entertainment.

I find shooting people in a million different ways as entertaining as it would be in real life. Except the "no jail" thing. Except of course when I was in the war.

You know what else is pointless and repetitive? Sports. You smack a piece of rubber into a net, then you do it again. You toss a ball into a metal hoop, then you do it again.

Games are supposed to be entertainment, not life defining. If you don't enjoy playing video games as a form of entertainment, then don't play them. ffs.

Once or twice a year, mired in the repetitive, cynical profiteering rubbish that seems to constitute so very much of videogaming as a whole, I ask myself that question [why do we bother?]. Cast a relatively neutral eye over our industry - an eye like my aunt's - and it can be difficult to see why anyone takes us seriously. Games are pointless, meaningless and ridiculous; men shooting other men in virtual space in an enormous variety of ways; the eternal quest for the next meaningless shiny thing, or higher number; a sea of sheer, mindless drivel punctuated by the occasional example of something more worthwhile, so infrequent as to be irrelevant.



What? I don't undestand a damn thing she said here. What a bloated, self-indulgent writing style - pure crap.

Huh.... I guess I have been living under a rock or something; never heard of this online mag. Anyone keep up with it? is it worth looking into past issues?

In a world of Cup Stacking competitions and Magic: The Gathering tournaments I don't have any problem embracing my love for games. There are worse things to do.

Hypocritical? Yes.

I love my job, but I tend to not take games seriously at all. I love them, and I love the industry, but they're just for fun. If something truly catastrophic were to happen, I really wouldn't give a fuck that Halo 3 might come out in September instead of November.

Relax, enjoy the games, and chill out.

As the rest of the world comes to take games as seriously as we do, I would not be at all surprised if our fanaticism were to diminish.

I dont think this will happen. I think the games industry and the movie industry have parrallels - most people have heard of the heavy-hitting games, the franchises - Madden, Pro Ev Soccer et al. Most people hear of the big studio movies.

I think interesting games and the art house scene will have more in common in the future.

hmmm... Looks like I'll have to pick up that Ratchet and Clank game now. :)

Are there any film buffs here who can say what films were like 50 years after the very first experiments with them? (I don't meant the first commercial film attempts; I mean the first successful "hey, I bet we can do this" experiments, ala Tennis for Two in the video game realm.)

I'd speculate that they were mostly crud too.

Hey, Kelly, good luck with that!