Taking Games Seriously 183
"The spirit of the hacker is one of the great creative wellspings of our time, causing the inanimate circuits to sing with ever more individualized and quirky voices; the spirit of the bard is eternal and irreplaceable, telling us what we are doing here and what we mean to each other." -- Janet Murray, Hamlet On The Holodeck
What will it take, wondered MIT Professor Murray in her classic 1997 book, for authors to create rich, satisfying stories that exploit the charactertistic properties of digital environments and deliver the aesthetic pleasures that cyberspace seems to promise?
For Murray, one of the first academics to take seriously the evolving digital world as culture, there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace.
Her prediction was especially bold at a time when the Net had already become almost synonymous with obsession, addiction, bomb-making, gun-buying, and porn. But day by day, it's clearer that she was right. Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some Weblog or messaging system. In our time, the Net is where smart, curious, freedom-seeking and restlessly creative minds go to express themselves, experiment, and create a new kind of culture.
Wherever he or she is, her work will probably pop on a Web site something like MyVideoGames.com, launched a few months ago by Neil Morton and Steve Park, two former editors of the culture-savvy Canadian magazine Shift.
MyVideoGames is already an important site, just by dint of its existence. It acknowledges, implicitly and explicitly, that games are no longer simple forms of entertainment, but increasingly creative, complex -- even political -- expressions of the new culture forming online. It's the gaming equivalent of the newsmagazine in the media world of yore - stylish, literate, interesting.
The site offers breaking vid news, reviews, profiles of game heroes and heroines, and essays. One recent edition featured reports on the sleazy days of gaming, and the controversial "tits-and-ass game" Panty Raider, as well as ruminations on the sometimes-addictive nature of creative games. Such a site, almost inconceivable even five years ago, now seems a benchmark of the way new media evolve to recognize and shape new culture. The mainstream press, as usual, gets left behind, clucking about the new world like Temperance Ladies outside a bar.
It makes sense that this new kind of medium is forming around a complex community of gamers who seek not only amusement but intellectual challenge, stimulation, role-playing and community. Gaming is becoming a bigger part of the cultural lives of more and more people all the time. On eBay, some game characters are auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars. Barely recognized off-line at all, gamers number in the tens of millions, a following as large or larger than that which follows many traditional forms of culture -- opera, classical music. Gaming, given the storytelling inherent in video and computer games, is perhaps the most vital new cultural form emanating from cyberspace. Many games have evolved far beyond mind games like chess and Scrabble. Their characters, storylines and intellectual challenges are demanding and highly evolved.
This isn't by accident. The formulaic nature of storytelling, Murray points out, makes it especially suitable for the computer, so skilled at modeling and reproducing patterns of all kinds.
The idea of cyberspace as culture is a particularly bitter pill for many of the shapers of thought and opinion -- educators, academics, journalists, writers, members of the clergy, the so-called intelligentsia -- to stomach. In fact, Murray still has few colleagues supporting her contention that networked computing is re-shaping culture in diverse and highly creative ways.
Undaunted, Murray began teaching a course in electronic fiction in l992. "These stories cover every range and style, from oral histories to adventure tales, from the exploits of comic book heroes to domestic dramas." She is, she writes in her book, drawn more and more each year to imagining "a cyberdrama of the future ... I see glimmers of a medium that is capacious and broadly expressive, a medium capable of capturing both the hairbreadth movements of individual human consciousness and the colossal crosscurrents of global society. Just as the computer promises to re-shape knowledge in ways that sometimes complement and sometimes supercede the work of the book and the lecture hall, so too does it promise to reshape the spectrum of narrative expression, not by replacing the novel or the movie but by continuing their timeless bardic work within another framework."
Murray's idea will remain bitterly controversial for some time, especially among the guardians of conventional culture. But that's exactly the sensibility that pervades MyVideoGames.com, from Sean Monkman's essay on the physical challenges of videogames on the hands to Jonathan Kay's heartfelt -- and very truthful -- essay on how vid-games became the "ultimate scapegoat" after the Columbine High School massacre in l999.
Morton and Parks got the idea for MyVideoGame last October after they noticed half the workers in the Shift offices playing and talking constantly about games, and organizing get-togethers to play after work.
"So, I thought, heck, I gotta start a site that focuses on nothing but that," he e-mailed. "Videogames are a new mass medium. So let's do real videogame journalism like [Jann] Wenner did with music when he started Rolling Stone." Morton and Parks noticed that while a number of sites were devoted to cheats and reviews, hardly any focused on gaming's growing importance as a cultural force. "So we made a quick adjustment ... Let's focus on implications, not just applications of gaming." The site began soliciting contributions from academics and journalists, game addicts, designers and players.
With the result, Norton and Parks have made a bit of media history, once again demonstrating how mainstream journalism has napped through many significant, if less sensational, parts of the digital revolution. MyVideoGame.com recognizes precisely what Janet Murray describes so convincingly in Hamlet On The Holodeck, now out in paperback from MIT Press.
One of the most vigorous, rapidly expanding forms of popular culture, games are growing astonishingly inventive, creative, challenging and complex. Some, without question, are works of art both graphically and conceptually. For growing numbers of Americans and people elsewhere in the world, gaming is intrinsically conected to story-telling, mental stimulation and recreation, for all that school administrators, politicians and many parents still don't get it -- or fear it.
Murray's notion of the transformative power of computing as an advance in the history of narrative also is reflected on the discussions and editorial agenda of myvideogames.com.
"Computers offer us countless ways of shape-shifting," writes Murray. "Using 'morphing' software, we can transform faces so seamlessly that a grinning teenage boy melts into a haggard old woman, as if under a magic spell. The transformative power of the computer is particularly seductive in narrative environments. It makes us eager for masquerade, eager to pick up the joystick and become a cowboy or a space fighter, eager to log onto the MUD and become ElfGirl or BlackDagger."
Gaming (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:1)
Boggle (Score:1)
Gaming community has been flourishing on the web, and on the 'net before that, for a long, long time. MyVideoGames is just Johnny-come-lately...
Kaa
As a service to /. readers... (Score:5)
Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The site offers breaking vid news, reviews, profiles of game heroes and heroines, and essays. Gaming, given the storytelling inherent in video and computer games, is perhaps the most vital new cultural form emanating from cyberspace. Many games have evolved far beyond mind games like chess and Scrabble. Murray's idea will remain bitterly controversial for some time, especially among the guardians of conventional culture. One of the most vigorous, rapidly expanding forms of popular culture, games are growing astonishingly inventive, creative, challenging and complex.
Assumption (Score:2)
Now am I the only exception, or is this an unjustified generalization? I mean, there's lots of other stuff "we" do in our free time...
Re:Gaming (Score:1)
Admiteddly, gaming is probably a driving force in bringing better hardware (not just graphics, but sound hardware, processors, etc) to the masses, but it's primarily self-sustaining - for each new piece of hardware that comes out, a new game will push it to its very limits.
While I agree that games have provided an imperative for new hardware development, I feel that the fact that it's "near-professional level" is somewhat irrelevant.
Culture is dynamic (Score:4)
Healthy output... (Score:1)
Gaming as culture (Score:4)
Until recently, most games in our culture (I live in the US) were played outdoors by groups of people. Baseball, football, soccer, etc... However today, few people have the time or outdoor space to engage in these activities, and there are very few adult leagues set up on a purely recreational (ie not very competitive) level. As a replacement for these, online gaming has developed.
I both play and administer muds and have come to know people from literally all across the globe through my play and work on these. Much of what used to occur on street corners and ball fields now happens over computer screens, simply because that is what we all have free or relatively free and easy access to.
As Kirk observed (rough quote) "The more advanced the culture, the greater the need for the simplicity of play"
Games will continue to develop and become more a part of our culture, just as chat-rooms, messanging, and email have become.
Not the meduim--its the content (Score:2)
Mainstream games (Score:4)
Recently, though, other types of games have made it to the forefront. Final Fantasy VII was one of the first RPGs to have its own commercial - suddenly, RPGs were mainstream. It's games like these that the non-videogaming populace could look at and think (possibly) that they're worthwhile. Something with plot, depth, and artistic merit. Something that could spark a creative mind to make new things.
I'm not bashing any of the other genres. There's nothing like a good quakefest, after all - but to the folks who aren't really into videogaming, it's the games that seem to have more depth which are leading to greater acceptance of games.
Now, if I could only convince my parents
Games! :) (Score:2)
The meaning of gaming is not clear to most people not into computers. They mostly think games are for geeks, and that only nerds like videogames (or teenagers). A guy was arrested in my country, after shooting more than 5 people in a theatre at his town (Sao Paulo), and the accusation blamed it on influence coming from Duke Nukem (I even think there is an article about that right here at
Quake anyone?
Hyuh? what? eh? (Score:1)
Your title is a most accurate indicator of the intelligence of the content within. By their very nature games are not and should not be taken seriously - they are played to GET AWAY from reality! It is an oxymoron - it's like saying "Microsoft Works"...
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
I thought it was a very interesting piece. I'd never heard of Panty Raider....
dylan_-
--
Video Games are Evil! (Score:1)
Video Games and Children [uiuc.edu]
Violent video games unplugged by King County health board [metrokc.gov]
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com [webword.com] (Usability Portal)
formulaic? (Score:2)
Excuse me, but isn't formulaic the last thing a good story should be?
Personally, I think that games of any sort are not fit for storytelling. You can't really have "interactive" stories because you'd quickly run out of place if you made everything possible. At their heart, all adventure and roleplaying games are linear, it's just that some disguise the lack of choice you have better than others. And in the end, solving (often frustratingly arbitrary) puzzles is not something that really makes you enjoy the story better.
Link's broken! (Score:1)
Re:Gaming (Score:2)
Perhaps, but for those who can make good, productive use of it, the technology is available sooner and less expensively than it would be, and that's a Good Thing. The users of our CAD program have certainly benefited from the march of 3-D technology.
Corrected link - and corrected article. (Score:2)
I'm not usually a Katz-basher, but this one really seems to be stretching its content past the breaking point. And he didn't even get URL right!
- Michael Cohn
Emanating From Cyberspace?? (Score:3)
Far be it from me to challenge the many months of historical perspective behind this statement, but gaming with storytelling elements was old when the VIC-20 was new.
Gaming != Computer Gaming, folks.
/.
Unfounded steriotypes... (Score:2)
You are right in that it does seem to be an unfounded steriotype. I know pleanty of admins, programmers, etc. that either have no interesting in First Person Shooters or no interest in almost any games! Now, that doesn't nessisarily apply to me and most of my closest friends - we used to do the LAN-party thing quite often with Quake II, and then later Unreal Tournament.
There are quite a few steriotypes that are applied to geeks in general - can't get women (I'm engaged to a beautiful red head who's studying to become a Dr.), play games (hell, I've been spending too much time having fun writing games these days to actually play many other people's games! And I still really prefer a good strategy or thinking game to most FPS games), never see the sun (well, I am alergic to sunlight, so I suppose this one applies), etc. I know I don't fit the profile, and to tell you the truth - most of the geeks that I know don't fit the steriotype either. Strange how steriotypes work...
The Gaming World is Transitory (Score:1)
Once again, Katz is no so much irrelevant as simply not relevant.
Save six bucks. (Score:5)
I think that $CURRENT_TREND is forcing us to re-examine our entire culture.
With my vast imagination, I predict a time when these developments could lead to $OBVIOUS_APPLICATION.
Other clueless liberal-arts majors in my field scoff at the notion, because they don't "get it" like I do.
Technical experts tell me that all this is currently impossible, but that will all change once $FAR_OFF_BREAKTHROUGH happens, and we should be ready.
I have no idea what it will take to make this a reality, but that's because I'm a big-picture person, not a detail person.
You geeks, who clearly never would have thought of this without me, should all get behind my vision so we can make $OBVIOUS_APPLICATION happen someday.
Everquest (Score:1)
Computer games and violence (Score:2)
Funnily enough, I think it's because of the medium's relative youth that these 'tasteless elements' are not yet found in computer games. It won't be long before someone does it... And I don't even think it needs to be such a bad thing either.
The difference with movies is, of course, interaction. I hope I can live with computer games (18+?) in which the bad guy spouts racist crap (happens all the time in movies/novels), but it all becomes a bit more poignant if the game allows you to somehow influence what's happening (e.g. save your girlfriend from being raped?).
Things might even go further. When in a movie someone 'plays' the bad guy, we know this is only pretending on the part of the actor. How does playing a rapist reflect on the actor's character? Not badly I hope. And does this translate to someone playing a rapist in an online RPG?
Re:As a service to /. readers... (Score:2)
CULTURE BAD! I SUCK! WAH! GAMES GOOD! I SUCK AT QUAKE! VALIDATE ME! WAH!
Thank you.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Gamers on the net are a huge minority in real life (Score:1)
Gaming is social. (Score:1)
joel
Culture =IS=. (Score:2)
To say that "the Net" redefines culture is like saying that FTP redefines a computer program.
Sorry, but that's so much carp, and I think you know it. (At least, I hope you do!) Trying to pump up the Internet (calling it the Net makes it sound so... ...pop trash) is not only foolish but, IMHO, counter-productive.
A latter-day Shakespere is unlikely to care about someone ranting about the Freedom Of The Net, or Libertarian Codswallop. They'll be too busy DOING to care about such stuff, and too busy BEING to worry if someone thinks their culture is post-techno-hyper-counter-revolutionary.
The secret of success is not fanatical obsession with preaching an ideal. The secret of success is simply being. Let yourself exist. If humanity needed propoganda chiefs THAT badly, we'd be born with a newspaper in one hand and a stock ticker in the other.
Forget blind obsession and trying to look good. If you try to look good, you won't and you aren't. Get on with your life, and if you don't have one, then get one. The Internet is simply one more part of that life, the same way the dishwasher is. I don't see people shouting from the steepletop about the amazing Cultural Revolution that caused, although it was arguably a lot more extensive and pervasive than the Internet has been, to date.
Honor (Score:4)
Honor doesn't take much, other than true skill. It's teaching the cheating bastard a lesson. It's taking on the guy attempting to rape the newbie as opposed to the newbie. It's sticking for the ideals of "That's just not fair, it's not right."
You're not often going to get the chance to do it in real life, I'd wager. I mean.. if you're truly pious and good you'll stick up for what's right. You'll probably get the shit kicked out of you a number of times too. As much as we'd like to be truly honorable all the time, we also have this thing about saving our own asses sometimes.
Online gaming culture has the chance to be different from this, to actually have some honor in it. Sadly this doesn't seem to be happening. More people become obsessed with being Ultimate Rambo, or winning at all costs, or taking down the easy ones. Online gaming is becoming more popular. I hate to sound nostalgic, but I'm dead sure the two are linked.
Anyway, I guess my point is online gaming appeals to me because I have the chance to cultivate a (albeit small) culture akin to Arthur's Knights. Sounds stupid, but feels cool. Whatever keeps me happy?...
i'll bite the bait (Score:1)
stick you head out of your bubble once in a while
I don't know any serious programmers or engineers who like to play games
what about the hundreds nay thousands of serious programmers who WRITE games. It's no done in VB ffs.
you're obviously not very good at them
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
with verbal diarrhea
we are his toilet
Video Games as Art (Score:1)
When film was first introduced, a number of devices for conveying both narrative events and symbolic meaning were invented. As this happened, the public learned to follow these queues. As this happened films became more complex. They were able to make extensive use of editing and camera angle to express the director's intentions in a more precise and compact form. This same development of devices occured in literature and is now occuring in video games.
We have become acclimated to the usual devices and genre's of video games. These are analogous to the serial genre films that dominated the first half of this century and are still popular today ( "The Maltese Falcon", and "Scream" being good examples of these). Video games differ from movies only in that they provide an interactive vicarious experience, wheras film is passive. (Multipalyer games would be analogous to watching a film in a crowded, noisy theater).
So, what I want to know, is when will the french new wave of video games get here? I mean genre breaking games that have an actual philosophy embodied in their creation. The "Literary Game" would be an interesting thing to see developed, but right now people are still learing the ropes of playing, so I imagine it will be a few years yet.
stuart@linuxfreak.NOSPAMcom
Why not contribute instead of reinvent? (Score:1)
I find it humorous they pin down video games as the Defining Game. RPGnet [rpg.net] main focus has been "Gaming Culture and a Culture of Games" for four years now. MUDs and MOOs are incredibly well documented and dissected in referred print publications. Gamasutra [gamasutra.com] has some of the best essays looking at computer games from an social and even an anthropological viewpoint.
While I'm not decrying MyVideoGames, I am always a bit saddened when yet another Net Startup leaps into the fray... to reinvent the wheel. If your goal is to reach existing communities, why not contribute to those selfsame existing communities, instead of building a new one and fractioning the already crowded web?
Cheers,
Sandy [mailto]
Re: (Score:1)
Blatant plug (Score:3)
Kaa
some truth to them (Score:1)
Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:4)
Gotta give the guy credit: he's as earnest as college freshman writing his or her first term-paper.
In fact, Katz's articles usually read like freshman, 5-paragraph paper material.
For example, the typical freshman paper always contains that first paragraph which either quotes the dictionary ("Webster's dictionary defines the word 'geek' as
As for the 'body' of the paper?
Well, Katz, like most college freshmen, relies on broad, sweeping assertions to drive home a point that hasn't been properly (or even 'clearly') specified. We know we're reading something -- the author is certainly making a lot of assertions -- but we aren't convinced why the author so adament in his or her assertions.
The persuasive power of the text is lost in what I've come to understand is the typical Katzian sentence.
For example: "...there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace."
Are we to believe this literally? Does Katz even himself believe this? Is this a quote? A paraphrase?
Or is this just rhetorical flourish? Or, worse yet, rhetorical "filler" to bridge the paragraph previous to the paragraph following?
Or, another example:
"Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
Katz is fixated on the notion of the next Shakespeare. It's an interesting idea: but he's using Shakespeare -- or his *notion* of Shakespeare -- for a specific rhetorical purpose.
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
Or, better yet: "a writer who creates enduring work?"
But Katz's Shakespeare is "clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
WTF?
First, why would anyone "clack away on a weblog?" And is clacking on a weblog really similar to clacking on a "messaging system"?
Second, why would Katz's Shakespeare -- one who creates enduring art -- clack away at a message system? Is Katz implying the cultural shift from creating theater (the first "Shakespeare") to creating applications (Katz's new Shakespeare)?
If this is the case, it's an interesting thesis: perhaps, this new "eCulture" has made some gradual shift in its notion of the imagination -- creative works now include stuff like "weblogs" and "messaging system" and if Shakespeare is to be found, he (or she) will be located not by examing plays, novels, or stories, but instead web-based applications like "weblogs" or "messaging systems."
This, as I say, is pretty damn interesting. Katz is no fool -- he just writes like one. Why not pursue this notion?
Well, because that's not what the article is about. The article is really about gaming. And, um, this (apprently) new idea: a gaming site.
WTF?
I could go on, but I won't.
Instead, I'll make a plea: Katz, please don't underestimate your audience here. Please tell me that you really don't think we're as naive as your writing makes us sound.
Tell me that it's all done for a rhetorical purpose. You think Slashdot readers aren't as savvy as they really are.
If that's the case, I can forgive you. You've made a mistaken assumption about your audience -- and, well, in the future, you'll crank your rhetoric and analysis up a notch.
You don't actually write this sort of simplistic analysis: you just write it because, well, that's the sort of quick analysis you think Slashdot readers want.
If all this is a rhetorical mistake, you're forgiven. But, if not
Drivel, ignore. (Score:1)
But seriously folks, anyone who thinks that pretending to be someone you aren't in some online fantasy game will make you a great storyteller ...(you complete the sentence)
Gaming and the Internet... (Score:1)
Now, the internet has done a few things to change the standard, role-playing game. I can now meet new gamers on the net, as Katz said, there's lots (I think he said something around 10 million or so) of people out there. Not only meeting them online, but it's also possible to play a RPG (Role-Playing Game) online (through IRC or ICQ, or other messaging systems... even email, it's just that email games take a while to play ^_^). The format of this is different than table-top gaming, and seems to lend itself more to character interaction than combat.
Another way of using the net, (which I've started to do) is to play table-top, or online, and to post information about the campain online. This is great for maps, or giving people the background that their characters should know (for fantasy worlds).
The net is involved in games now, I've seen reference to ICQ and IRC in the source books; and for one game, I've got a source book dedicated to the web.
Anyways, I'm not sure if a new culture is actually being formed (although I wouldn't doubt it), but the net is influincing normal table-top/board games, and the way we play them.
Destruction vs. Re-invention (Score:2)
One of the earlier examples of this would be the spread of music outside of the church. This was resisted vigorously from the idea of anything other than monophonic unison chanting through harmony, polyphony, accompaniment, etc. Especially interesting is that before that time, relatively complex quasi-orchestral music had been the norm before culture altered its course toward the "music is religious" idea.
Follow the pattern through radio destroying books, movies destroying radio. Television destroying a culture of children going outside to play. At the end of the day, all we have is a richer society with more options for entertainment, more lifestyle choices, and more culture than at any other time in history. And the pattern shows no signs of letting up.
When the next shift in culture appears, will those who are comfortable with this one cry out, "You're destroying our culture! What will happen to the Internet?"
Another point... (Score:1)
Re:formulaic? (Score:1)
No, good stories are very formulaic. In fact, the absence of formula often produces only boredom or confusion in an audience. This has been true for as long as we have recorded myth and story.
Think of the typical Schwarzenegger or Stallone movie. At some point one 'superman' type guy will have to single-handedly kick dozens of bad-guy asses. Realistic? No. Expected? Yes. Satisfying? Yes.
Flash back hundreds of years to Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus returns home to find bad guys all over his castle. He has been gone so many years that only his dog recognizes him. After giving the dog a pat on the head, he proceeds to singlehandedly disembowel and decapitate hundreds of bad guys, but not without taking time to throw out a few wisecracks while he is at it.
There are only a few stories that people like, and we tell them over and over and over.
Mike van Lammeren
Excellent (Score:2)
This is beyond parody. Classic Katz :-)
Re:formulaic? (Score:1)
I'm an Everquest player and although the tasks set for players are kind of linear it's the players themselves that make the narrative. The outcome of many interactions of human intellects makes the story out of what happens.
We (eq players) truly adventure in a fantasy world. We have tales to tell and many memories. Anyone who's been to Neriak can remember what it was like to walk in there. The adrenalin pumping hoping you won't be summoned by Vox to face the bears. Put four eq players together in a room and they'll talk for hours about it. Much more than any amount of Jet Set Willy or Quake players.
The MUD will take over almost entirely i think. It's a virtual world every e-commerce shopping mall can only dream of. If I could do my shopping in EQ, I would. It's what VRML promised and it's coming to a machine near you.
Katz talks crap though and knows as much about computer games as my dog.
Re:formulaic? (Score:1)
All "good" stories have to follow the same time-tested formulas or else it doesn't "feel" right. Read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" for a serious breakdown of storytelling. A story always has a beginning, middle, and end. There is always some sort of conflict and then resolution.
Games naturally lend to this kind of story telling, especially FPS. Some folk always decry the violence in these video games. But, it's the life and death situations in stories and games that make them dramatic and emotionally moving.
joel
Re: (Score:1)
The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:5)
a professor at the most famous Ivy League University (along with being
a partner at a software startup). And I for one *do* think that video
games *may* become the central artform of the 21st century. At the
beginning of the 20th century, film was a used for little more than
silly experiments and peep-shows that people who could not afford the
theater attended. But by any reasonable measure film became (along
with the novel) the great artform of the 20th century: Kurosawa,
Bergman, Kubrick etc.
But greatness is just the promise of video games. No video game has
achieved anywhere near the sublime greatness of ``Wild Strawberries''
(a better example for this audience would probably be ``2001''). I do
think, however, that video games may achieve greatness sometime in
this century. Such video games will almost certainly look vastly
different than they do today.
I usually don't bash J. Katz, but this post was aggressively stupid.
Katz often rants about the stereotyped, oppressed geek. But I guess
stereotyping the ``intelligentsia'' is fair game. Nowhere does he
present the arguments that *SOME* in the ``intelligentsia'' would make
against video games---arguments with which I do not agree. He just
bashes them for their conclusions.
Moreover, I would welcome the next ``Shakespeare''. But given that we
haven't had one since the original, I'm not holding my breath. We've
had great, fantastic wonderful writers and artists, but no one with
the overwhelming culture transforming power which was Shakespeare. I
refer Katz to Harold Bloom's masterpiece ``Shakespeare: The Invention
of the Human''. But wait, offer a reference? That's just what
someone who's part of the ``intelligentsia'' would do! Never mind
that Harold Bloom (who is a professor at Yale) is much hated by many
members of the literary establishment. Does that still qualify him as
a member of the ``intelligentsia''? I thought only geeks were allowed
to disagree and have the right not to be stereotyped. Then again,
many members of the ``intelligentsia'' are geeks, one would say most
members if one follows Katz's very expansive definition of geek. MR.
Katz you are full of contradictions. I wish that were the only
problem that the post had.
Re:some truth to them (Score:1)
Re:formulaic? (Score:1)
No, it's the formula that produces boredom, if it's followed too strictly. Admittedly, not following any kind of formula is likely to produce serious confusion...
This has been true for as long as we have recorded myth and story. Think of the typical Schwarzenegger or Stallone movie. At some point one 'superman' type guy will have to single-handedly kick dozens of bad-guy asses. Realistic? No. Expected? Yes. Satisfying? Yes.
Good storytelling? Hell, no!
IMO the difference between a good story and a bad one is that the good one diverges from the formula, plays with your expectations and stays unpredictable.
Re:formulaic? (Score:1)
You're not seriously claiming that "story" is an issue at all with FPS games???
That's ridiculous, the "story" in virtually all of those is basically nothing but a few paragraphs of atmosphere building that most players will ignore anyway.
shakespeare (Score:1)
Actually, I'm from Iowa. I only work in cyberspace.
imuho
(with apologies to jtk)
Re:Hyuh? what? eh? (Score:1)
BTW I once got a copy of Microsoft Works (a cut down office suite) bundled with a computer. It wasn't very good, but it did _work_, so it's not really an oxymoron ;)
Re:As a service to /. readers... (Score:1)
--
Re:As a service to /. readers... (Score:2)
That is unfair. Why does that fucking moron gets rated as funny, just for using M$ Word 97 to summarize the text?
Because someone reading the comment, who had moderator points today, thought it was funny. Any more Mysteries of the Universe you need revealed?
dylan_-
ps. Actually, I thought it was funny too, and wish I'd thought of it first. Auto-summarise is just so...appropriate for JK. :-)
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Re:Blatant plug (Score:1)
No, it's not just you.
Re:Gaming as culture (Score:2)
I am deeply skeptical that online gaming is a replacement for sports (i.e. outdoor gaming). My impression is that online gaming still appeals primarily to those people who were never terribly inclined to sports in the first place. Lumping games of purely cerebral strategy (chess) with games of physical tactics (football) strikes me as wrong. They largely appeal to different personalities.
While I am quite willing to grant that you have a great familiarity with online gamers as such, are you sure that, if you met them in real life, they would turn out to be the same sorts of people as play sports? They may talk the same, but... well, this is the internet.
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More proof of Microsoft monopoly: (Score:2)
The only people who understand what that refers to use Windez.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Re:Assumption (Score:2)
Hackers tend to like games (not only the computer kind), but not FPS. The stereotypical hackers' type of game is an RPG.
FPS games are played by adolescent males who need to give vent to their aggression because they cannot get laid [ grins, ducks, and runs away trying to pull on his asbestos underwear at the same time
Kaa
Re:Save six bucks. (Score:2)
Re:Mainstream games (Score:3)
Just to be contrary, I'd like to point out that at the previous turn of the century, similar issues surrounded pugilism. You know, boxing.
It took a few poet-souled writers to articulate the beauty of boxing, but then it was in vogue in the intelligencia to "appreciate" it.
I never Got what there was to appreciate about the aesthetics of boxing, until one day I saw one of the two-person kick-boxing games being played publically at a cybercafe(tm). And I Got it!
And I thought that was so cool, my getting in touch with the aesthetic of a previous century's forbidden violence obsession via this century's forbidden violence obsession.
So don't be so quick to dismiss the aesthetic value of Quake, etc. It was cool for aesthetes to disdain pugilism, too, in its day, until the Poets (complementary to Geeks) got their hands on it. When a Poet falls in love with Quake, all bets will be off.
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Re:i'll bite the bait (Score:2)
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Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:2)
I've never seen a better outline of what makes Katz a bad writer.
Freshman papers! Until you said it, I could not put my finger on where I had seen his style before. Brilliant!
You are also dead-on that Katz does not seem to have a clear idea of who his audience is (which is kind of disturbing in an interactive forum). This is a web page by geeks, of geeks, and for geeks. We don't need a writer to tell us that computer games are sometimes interesting, or that computers change lives. We are up to our eyeballs all week long in the technical trends he writes about. We want our writers to tell us something new.
(BTW: This is not meant a flame, just honest criticism. Being a bad writer does not neccessarilly mean he's a bad journalist. I don't think any other reporter in the country would have, or even could have, written anything like the Hellmouth series.)
Re:not for everyone (Score:2)
Er, no. The hippies, the beats, the flappers all did just fine without computers.
Subcultures -- that is what we're talking about -- have been around for a long time. Much longer than computers. Computers do indeed facilitate it by accreting minorities, but merely having a highly mobile culture (lots of cars or trains) is already a big help.
IMHO subcultures are a natural result of the fact people are different -- are born different -- in very fundamental ways. Subcultures arise from people sharing certain personality traits, often rarer traits, banding together for mutual support. Subcultures are inexorable. They may be hindered by lack of mobility or free flow of information, but even in the worst situations of information flow (say, heretics trying to find each other in 12th century France) humans manage. They're amazing that way.
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Baffling (Score:3)
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Re:Games are not a culture (Score:2)
Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:2)
This, as I say, is pretty damn interesting. Katz is no fool -- he just writes like one. Why not pursue this notion?
While I don't think Katz is a fool, I think you're giving him too much credit. While I think there is occasionally a point in his writing, you have brilliantly illustrated Katz' biggest weakness: his tendency to overwrite, overblow, overstate, well, pretty much over-everything.
When I read a Katz article, I feel like I am wading through a sea of molasses, waves of thick prose washing over me, while I try to make out that faint searchlight of the point. Sometimes I manage to swim to shore, exhausted, only to find a flashlight mounted on a stick. Other times, I simply drown as I die alone, in confusion.
[since we're talking about literary prose, I thought I would throw out some vivid imagery. :) ]
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Re: (Score:2)
Inconceivable what? (Score:2)
Such a site, almost inconceivable even five years ago, now seems a benchmark of the way new media evolve to recognize and shape new culture.
Huh? Really?!
I wish I would have known this 5 years ago, when I built my first site in college, the focus of which was on computer gaming and table-top role-playing. Where I wrote about my characters and their trials, tribulations, and triumphs. Where I wrote about the computer games I was playing, those I wanted to play, and those I'd soon play. Where I wrote about my own experiences in gaming, both computer gaming and table-top. Where I wrote about how I thought gaming shaped me, in part, into who and what I am today (or was at the time... though it tends to carry through the years in it's own funny way).
Katz, where were you five years ago to tell me that I couldn't put that old site up? You could have saved me a lot of time...
Re:No sanity check? (Score:2)
I don't know, but not necessarily. See how it says "Posted by JonKatz" and not "Posted by CmdrTaco"? JonKatz is one of the authors [slashdot.org] on Slashdot, so he has the ability to post whatever he wants on the main page (he can also go through the submissions and post things people submit, but it doesn't look like he ever does.)
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Gamasutra? (Score:2)
Obligatory Penny-Arcades: (Score:2)
Bloody Birthday [penny-arcade.com]
Violence Schmiolence [penny-arcade.com]
Let's Play Pretend! [penny-arcade.com]
And, probably the most ironic, hilarious, and appropriate one:
The Longest Line [penny-arcade.com]
Freshman Writing? (Score:2)
And just to indulge you, Webster's dictionary defines the word 'sophomoric' as "conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature." Bull's-eye.
Re:some truth to them (Score:2)
If you've ever read Windows documentation, MS does it's best to stop you getting past a certain level of expertise. With Linux you get the feeling you could keep learning until you know everything there is to know about the system, even if that would take you forever in real terms. In windows, you just don't get that feeling, and games consoles are even worse.
A complete newbie sitting down in front of a windows box has a high probability of turning into a drooling idiot, in computing terms. He'll get "stuck in a rut" of MS-isms.
A complete newbie [NOTE: Not someone who has ever used windows before - they are not computing newbies. To use linux you have to unlearn some of your windows habits, such as multiple filesystem roots C: D: E: etc, and continual effective root access] sitting down in front of a modern linux box (a)won't find it any harder to use than windows (I've had the opportunity of testing this with a cousin, who used linux first, and subsequently found windows clunky and illogical...), and (b) can keep learning about the system, and never gets the feelng the computer is acting randomly.
There's a famous line about BASIC damaging the minds of aspiring computer programmers forever. A similar line applies to Windows - After learning windows, bad habits become engrained, making it harder to move to a different platform than for a complete newbie. I'm sure MS does this deliberately.
Culture Shock (Score:2)
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Re:More proof of Microsoft monopoly: (Score:2)
Re:We are the intelligentsia! (Score:2)
I'm a geek and an intellectual, and I don't see any contradiction. Surely these are just words for the same thing?
But this isn't Katz's mistake, it started when romantic poets at the beginning of the nineteenth century, horrified by the dehumanizing work conditions of the industrial revolution, turned their back on science, rationality and the enlightenment in favour of worshipping nature without understanding it.
Since then we've been living through almost two centuries of a bogus division between technical and humanistic cultures, mainly propagated by the humanists - scientists have always read (and written) good novels, appreciated great art and music etc.
Finally, now, we might, if we're lucky, manage to get through the prejudices of the humanities educated administrarchy and put together a society where technical knowledge and its associated culture are an acknowledged part of mainstream culture.
Don't knock Katz. We need people like him to spell this out in thought sof one sylable.
Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:2)
Shake a Spear? Feh! (Score:2)
But to pay all this lip service to 'high culture' or what-have-you... grow up! The man, like Steven Spielberg, does not shit gold! There are other things worth your time! Pick up something new, different, daring, something that other people may have overlooked. Remember, most people that we consider artistic geniuses today were overlooked in their own day and age -- what has changed? We're incapable of judging for ourselves, we need a cultural consensus! Bah!
I repeat, for those in the cheap seats -- Bah!
See, now you've gotten me all worked up.
-Grendel Drago
Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:3)
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
I think Katz's notion of Shakespeare is something along the lines of, "An incredibly famous writer who changes the way the world thinks for the next five hundred years."
Probably very closesly connected with, "And he'll also be the author of a book called 'Geeks.'"
Keep clacking away at the weblog there, Johnny Boy.
Re:Honor (Score:2)
Honor can not simply be reduced to "that's not fair; that's not right". Part of Honor is knowing the difference between right and wrong, but breaking it down to a general, amorphous thing can ruin the meaning.
Honor is personal knowledge of right and wrong, the strength of heart to stand up for your beliefs in any circumstance, and the moral character to live by those beliefs.
And I'm sorry, but shooting a rocket at a 1337 d00d playing quake online is not Honor.
A large part of online gaming is dealing with people; these people choose to do anything from playing by the rules and trying to live in that world, to ruining the atmosphere and doing stupid things like naming themselves [\/]()4f30uS (in alternating yellow and blue, of course).
Yeah, there are KeWl DoOdS out there. They twink and powerlevel in EQ, camp the quads in Q3, and have a standard build order / rush in SC. But you find them *everywhere*... in the Comp industry, lawyers, engineers, executive assistants, doctors - they are the people who kiss ass, take advantage of folks, and "play the system".
Honor is personal steel, and no matter how many times they frag you online, or disrespect you in life, they can't touch your Honor.
I'm sorry, but Honor isn't a thing that goes away when you log off. You may actions may be honorable, but personal Honor is a thing that only is gone when you throw it away.
-lw
Re:The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:2)
And yes, I have been to the opera, twice. Madame Butterfly and Tosca. It was fscking incredible, but it's supposed to be, isn't it...
In any case, why don't you offer constructive criticism about FF3 -- no about anything interesting? What would interest you? Whip out a plot for an RPG. I double-dog dare you.
-Grendel Drago
Too simplistic a view (Score:2)
At the same time, game design creativity has stagnated in a horrible way. Authors of fiction create worlds and tell stories and the results end up in bookstores. Typical authors don't start off a project by saying "Okay, that last Stephen King novel sold really well. I'm going to write the same book, only better." Yet this is what game developers always do. A game design starts out with "like Everquest, but..." or "Quake with a fantasy RPG element..." and we get the same old stuff. Yet we have no subversive element, just people writing more versions of old arcade games (but now they're Open Source).
Rather than discussing the current crop of games in an adult way, perhaps a better approach would be to try to foster a generation of game creators who can think for themselves and want to distance themselves from what's expected of the so-called game "industry." After all, it's common for writers and musicians to start out in a subversive way and grow into mainstream: Kerouac, REM, Hunter S. Thompson, Smashing Pumpkins.
Re:Shake a Spear? Feh! (Score:2)
You're allowed that. Vulpone and Paradise Lost just weren't my cup of tea. Of course, Shakespeare was the pop star of his day and he had a larger body of work than all those other guys put together.
"Pick up something new, different, daring, something that other people may have overlooked. Remember, most people that we consider artistic geniuses today were overlooked in their own day and age -- what has changed? We're incapable of judging for ourselves, we need a cultural consensus! Bah!"
The curse of Van Gogh, right? The guy was ignored during his time and killed himself. We shouldn't let that happen again.
Consensus is basically how culture works. I hate to get on a literary flame here, but what makes a work important is by how much it's copied. Shakespeare was pop culture and continues to be pop culture. "Three's Company" really is just a continual rehash of "Merry Wives of Windsor." I'm not saying that theres no brilliance in obscurity. But, "Close Encounters" is probably going to be hailed as more of a classic than "Koyaanisqatsi." Madonna will be more remembered than John Cage. That's just the nature of culture.
joel
ps.-All the surprise ending movies probably exist because everyone hails "Citizen Kane" as the best movie of all time. Rosebud is a sled!
Seurat Paradox (Score:2)
This is modern computing. To even get to the point where you can create skilled works you often spend years learning mechanical programming skills in a structured environment. Worse yet, in every age prior to our own excess productivity resulted in a class of people who devoted their lives to nothing but the arts and philosophy. Today we watch TV, play videogames and browse porn on the web.
I think to move any further we must develop the tools to make the internet a natural extension of our creativity instead of becoming mechanics. At the same time we must be enticed to want to express ourselves in ways that create greater things.
Re:By George... I think he's got it!!! (Score:2)
most writers do get paid by the word, but the problem is usually compensated for by editors with standards. Katz is his own editor, and so far as I can tell, does not hold himself to very high standards.
And the sad thing is, in all that space that he took up with fluff, he could have been actually making a point. Tell us about a specific game which requires creativity. Interview a MUD player about how long they worked to design the charecter and whether they worry about staying within their created "personality". Show its true, REPORT for the love of bagels, don't get make assertions, mention one web page in passing and fill the rest in with fluff!
You know, if I had an editor ask me to write a feature about creativity and culture in the modern computer gaming world, I'd have a lot of research to do. And it could be a really good story. Maybe Katz should just offer his broad generalization and then let someone who actually cares about good writing make an interesting feature out of it.
-Kahuna Burger
Re: Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:3)
In short, you seem to be victim of the very crime you apparently disparage: bad writing.
I'm not going to give anyone any lessons on how to write well. God knows I'm the last person you'd want to ask for polished prose.
I just hope your not trying to say that there's some objectively pure manner in which good prose should be written, or that the only point of writing is to make a point.
What's the "point" of a book such as "Lolita"? I hope you agree that there's a place in writing for stylistic flourish. (No, I'm not comparing Katz to Nabokov. Please.) (Do you think the bard at the weblog is
Does JK write poorly. Perhaps. I'm just not sure why you got your panties in such a bunch. What do you propose be done about this horrible situation? You end your posting sounding somewhat like a stalker. Should we have all potential Slashdot articles pre-moderated by the style marshalls? Would you like to volunteer? Do you secretly wish that you were Roblimo?
Do liberal arts majors make you nauseaus? All you computer geeks out there better thank your lucky stars that some people have other interests, or you wouldn't have a job. Not to mention a mother and a father. If your idea of heaven is a island full of Linux geeks, free solar power, and honking network, you need to go outside and get some sunshine.
Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:2)
Well, the answer to the "clack" question is pretty simple. When I learned to type in high school in the early 80's, our school only had mechanical typewriters. They make this wonderful "clack"ing sound when you type. So it's easy to talk about someone "clacking away", if your mind hasn't moved beyond the days of an old Underwood typewriter.
How do I know that Katz's mindset is stuck in the mechanical typewriter days, and that he probably has little (if any) clue about computers? Besides the obvious clue that he thinks "clacking away at a web log" is a productive thing to do, or the other obvious clue that he thinks that a web log and a message system are similar, or that people playing games is somehow equivalent to creating games is the way he types 1999.
He types it 'l999'. As in lower-case "L", 999.
Why? Because in order to save a little bit on the mechanical movements, old mechanical typewriters do not have a '1' key. Instead, people who learn on a mechanical typewriter are taught to use a lower-case "L" in place of the number "1" when typing in numbers. Some of us who have used computers know there is a difference between a "1" and an "l", especially while programming, and have moved beyond using a 'l' for a '1'. Especially younger folks like myself, who only used a mechanical typewriter for the first year of our typing classes, and moved to computers as quickly as we could.
But then, there are those who have remained locked in the dark ages. Whose ingrained habits and ingrained thinking patterns betray themselves.
I'm still trying to figure out how playing games is a form of literary expression...
Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:2)
Hmmm... Joss Whedon. Now *that* could be a fun /. interview... :)
Re:Assumption (Score:2)
And yes, I'm computer savvy.
Re:The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:3)
well, i'm a redneck in a trailer (along with owning a seadoo with my brother cletus).
i agree with everything you said. does that make me part of yer "intelligentsia"?
Re:not for everyone (Score:2)
The MA RMV! Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt to avoid triggering PTS flashbacks.
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Re:The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:2)
Yes!! FF3 sucked me in like no other game before and no other game since. It basically ruled my life from the time I got it until the time I finished it. I can remember playing it until my parents made me go to bed (hey, this was years ago!) and then getting up at 3:00 or 4:00 am to get in a few more hours before school. And whenever I wasn't playing it, I was talking about it, which kind of drove away my friends because they had no idea what I was talking about. I don't think most of the poor fools ever got to experience the greatness that is FF3.
But do you know what the most amazing thing about FF3 is? It still does it. Every once in a while I fire it up (Using a ROM and an emulator. Hey, I did buy the original game and I don't have my SNES anymore.) and even though the graphics are incredibly dated and I've played through it 17 million times already it still sucks me in. Maybe not quite as much as it did the first time through, but still more than most modern games.
The only games which can compare to FF3 are other Squaresoft games. Those guys are brilliant. FF7 was excellent, although still not as good as FF3 (which was actually called FF6 in Japan, in case anyone reading this is wondering why there is such a big gap there). FF8 was a bit of a disappointment. It was still a good game, although not as good as FF3 and FF7. The only other game that even comes close to FF3 (in my opinion) is Chrono Trigger. The only non-Squaresoft game that I really think is comparable to Squaresoft's best would be (again, in my opinion) Planescape: Torment, although it's a very different style game (much darker).
Oh, and about the music: You couldn't be more right. I happen to collect Final Fantasy music (actually it's a rather small collection right now but I am very interested in expanding it) and I have to say that FF3 has some of the best there is. FF7 and FF8 are also have some rather good moments (In fact I find myself humming Liberi Fatali [the music from FF8's opening, Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec...] to myself rather often), however FF3 has more variety and (in my opinion) consisten quality. Unfortunately, SNES synth is rather primitive sounding by today's standards and there was never a decent arranged version of FF3's music made. My current hope is Project Majestic Mix, an independent project by KFSS Studios to create arranged versions of the best music from the final fantasy series, and it is currently set to feature a great deal of FF3 music. This project is not affiliated with Squaresoft, however the guy running it obviously has the same passion for FF music of freaks like me, and some of the mp3 samples on their webpage look great. Check it out. [kfssstudios.com]
Anyway, as you can probably tell be now this post has little purpose besides me ranting about how much I love Squaresoft. So sue me. And yes, I realize I'm a dork. I just don't care.
Re:Save six bucks. (Score:3)
- Jeremy S. Anderson
Google can find anything. :)
Actually, it's a great book (Score:3)
Hamlet is not a Toffler-esque "The Future is coming!" screed. Katz, like the folks he started out with [wired.com] seems to think everything written about New Media must point to a transformative future with miraculous developments like jet cars, eternal life, and libertarianism. (Actually, to be fair, he didn't say as much in his article. Maybe I'm reading the futurist schlock into his article, but whatever, it's fun.)
Hamlet on the Holodeck is actually a fairly modest book that was written for people who care about writing, storytelling, and art. It's a book not about society, but about narrative and storytelling. I happen to ardently love good RPGs, digital or dice-based or whatever. I happen to have a near-religious belief in the impossible dream of collective authoring enabling all of us to be social, creative, and thus fulfilled. No jet cars necessary. I am a freak. This is a great book for me. It is not a book for everyone.
That said, the book does offer a lot of really cool background on narrative and storytelling in a lot of genres--including fiction writing and video games--that might be interesting to a lot of folks. In the way it offers a great overview of broad themes across art forms it is a lot like Scott McCloud [scottmccloud.com]'s dazzlingly outstanding book Understanding Comics, which focusses on comic books but also contains the best 15-minute gloss on art history that I've ever encountered.
As for the site that Katz rhapsodizes about: please!
Just my $.02.
goodmike
Re:formulaic? (Score:2)
Dante lives a life he is not happy with, but he has grown accustomed to feeling sorry for himself, and does nothing to break away from the security his drab existence offers.
Randle is mostly there to vocalize Datne's thoughts. The inner voice that expresses his desires: to take life less seriously, to stand up for himself, and (most of all) to simply escape. Almost every time he does anything he enjoys, it was Randle that prodded him into it. At the climax of the film, he wrestles with Randle, like Jacob wrestling the angel, while coming to terms with his own restless soul.
His girlfriend is a symbol of the ideal life that he fears moving towards. She wants him to go to school and build a future for himself. When given an opportunity to reject her (via a discussion of her torid past, a theme that Smith ressurects in Chasing Amy), he takes it. Not because of the "betrayal" itself, but out of fear of committing to his new life.
The old flame might represent the vices we turn to when we want to avoid reality.
Jay and Silent Bob are there for pacing... they basically are the Rosencratz and Guildenstern of this film. (I knew I could work in a Shakespear reference!)
What makes Clerks such a great film is that you don't really have to be conciously aware of any of this deconstruction babble to enjoy the movie. You can just sit back and laugh at Dante's sad, sad life (...and the creepy story about how Randle's friend broke his own neck.)
Re:The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:2)
I know of extremely few people who have obtained tenure at Stanford or MIT largely because of ass kissing. But when in doubt, many resort to ad homenin attacks without evidence. That indeed is a time-honored strategy.
Your posts have merit even though I don't think one is going to be able to defend the Pushkin line; don't forget that Shakespeare has greatly influenced Eastern literature. I'm most familiar with Hindu literature and his influence was great even before the British took over.
Also, I think the philosophical implications of Einstein's work are VASTLY exagerated. His work implies nothing about morality, human nature or epistemology. WWI and the resulting cultural crisis is a better explanation for the culturally relativist turn in our civilization. But Katz may be referring to a more general influence, and then your point is sound.
Your ad homenin attacks do not serve you well. At best they reveal insecurity and at worst they reveal anti-intellectual resentment.
And...who disagrees? (Score:2)
You actually bungled your post by not including a single example of somebody who disagrees with you. I'm serious--I have no idea who this Intelligensia is that disagrees with your arguments; most of what I've heard which decries online culture seems to focus on the ephemeral nature of it--small emails, lousy grammar, everything archived temporarily, nothing archived permanently. Gaming itself has nothing to do with this cultural loss, though online gaming does introduce interpersonal communication and thus these worries. But you didn't really disagree with these cultural concerns, did you?
Outside of people screaming that games are too violent(Joe Leiberman's campaign comes to mind, and he's a congressman--not particularly intelligensia
Besides not including any reference to somebody who diagrees with you, you also posted this the day after Game Over magazine--pretty much the highest quality review site out there--put up Decency in Multiplayer Gaming [game-over.net]--amazingly enough, a pragmatically harsh view of what you're talking about. They also gave a singularly awful rating to Panty Raider, which is more of a commentary on the paucity of pornography in games than anything else. Supply and demand is about the only reason we've paid an ounce of attention to that game.
Games should be taken seriously, and they have become a fascinating art form--what else so intrinisically bridges mathematics, computer science, physics, art, game theory, self-optimizing systems/AI, and mythological structure? The problem with your post is that you never really identified anyone who actively disagrees. I hate to say it, Jon, because overall you've avoided this problem...but ascribing opinions to a group without a single shred of evidence that such opinions are generally held by any individual ostensibly within the group(let alone by the group as a whole!) is, unfortunately, unprofessional. Such is the domain of demogogues and propagandists--I'd like to think we're better than that.
After all, as Weasel Boy pointed out, we are the intelligentsia.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:VisualPILE!! (Score:2)
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Re:Culture Shock (Score:2)
But you cannot doubt that the market affects culture globally, when there is a McDonalds in communist Beijing, and Hindu New Delhi (where it is anathema to eat cow meat), and when the French have been trying to "cleanse" themselves of Americanisms for decades now.