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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Most Dubious Videogame Claims Explored 54

Posted by simoniker from the cure-all-infectious-diseases? dept.
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.")
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Most Dubious Videogame Claims Explored More

Most Dubious Videogame Claims Explored

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  • Games only came to be one thing and one thing only: GAMES!
  • Now that's some edutainment!
    • The article is a joke. The bit that really pissed me off is the assertion that old people don't play games.

      My Dad is 60 next year, and regularly plays racing games, FPS (Medal of Honor mostly), hell, even Vice City.

      I don't personally know THAT many older people (55+) but of the 4 I can claim to know well, 2 of them are avid gamers. Okay, not a HUGE cross section, but it highlights how the article is filled with huge generalisations that are, to be blunt, bullshit.

      Utterly pointless article.
      • I thought the article was pretty good, but I agree, some old folks do play video games. My wife and I have played both Warcraft 2 and Everquest with her grandson. I don't think of myself as "old" but somehow that's gotta qualify.

        I would agree that not too many older folk play online shooters, but clearly you know someone who does.

        I liked most of his other points. Particularly about Myst... I absolutely loved that game. Maybe it inspired a generation of bad followon games, but the original was gorgeous

  • Number one most dubious claim (Score:4, Funny)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @04:24PM (#7048853) Journal
    Duke Nukem Forever: Out this Holiday season!

  • Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd but I've never heard anyone proclaim "Old people play video games", "Games will revolutionize education", or "Games are a social activity". In fact I've typically heard people say the exact opposite ("videogames are for kids", "games are mindless entertainment that get in the way of education", and "games are for social misfit loners").

    GMD

  • Video games not social? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thanester ( 705099 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @04:31PM (#7048939)
    >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."
    • 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

      • Heh, I have met a great many new friends via my gaming exploits. I run a guild of around 90 people, as well as an alliance (group of guilds) that has nearly 1000 people in it.

        Not to mention, communtiy sites such as http://www.palomides.net ... where they regularly schedule "Fan Meets", a gathering of people.

        Maybe playing Halo and Myst all the time like the author you won't meet many people, but I certainly do.

        Oh, and Myst sucked, sorry.
    • 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 p

      • Consider the fact that an old person from my perspective is anyone age 30 or higher.

        OK, so you've redefined the word "old", and wonder of wonders, a statement that uses it is no longer true.

        Man, kids today, etc etc.
        • Not sure whether or not you're joking, but the statistics put the majority of people playing (posting) at middle aged or older. The point being made is that that seems to dispell the rumor that video games (or in this case MMORPGs) are for just for kids.

          Now, who wants to take a shot at the rumor of Trix being just for kids..?
    • I'm gonna have to reconsider DAoC...

    • MMORPGs != social (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Metal_Demon ( 694989 )
      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 ot

      • You're right. (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        There was a Quake wedding, too. That doesn't mean playing Quake is the same as having a social life. Sorry, no matter how they try to justify it, hiding out in "The Painkeep" playing Quake Arena or whatever you nerds play will never amount to actually interacting with real human beings and having real *gasp* friends.
      • I played MUDs for about 5 years. Through those MUDs I made many RL friendships, some of which have lasted years after I stopped MUDing. And yes, these were roleplaying MUDs. There were mailing lists, IRC channels, and other off-MUD forums for hanging out with online friends and talking about the MUD we were playing. I also know that I'm not unique in this, or even that unusual. I've seen many people form friendships through MUDs.

        Most EQ-style MMOGs are direct descendents of MUDs. I played DaoC for about 2
        • Unless you live in a pretty big city it's hard to even find somebody on a MUD or MMOG that lives remotely near you. I also don't consider talking on the phone or IM outside of game RL either. Furthermore I'm not saying that people don't make RL friends in these type of games, instead I'm saying I don't think most people play the games looking for friends. I also have several RL friends that I play SWG with and while we chat in game, we stay in our rooms sitting in front of our computers rather than doing an

  • Not true (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @04:33PM (#7048949) Journal
    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.
    • " We also have Nazi and Soviet propaganda movies that made people kill each other."

      Are you sure the movies made people kill each other? It strikes me that society's acceptance of killing each other was the influence here. It's one thing to watch the movies on their own, but to watch the movies within a group of people who are showing their acceptance of the propoganda... well I can't help but think that had more to do with it.

      It's not something I want to debate too much, just a perspective I wanted to
    • I spent my childhood reading pulp fantasy novels and playing D&D, and I have yet to become lord high archmage of the known world.

      Face it. Watching/reading/playing something does not somehow magically force you to become something you're not. If playing a video game or reading a book somehow compels you to go out and kill someone, its because you are a weak-willed idiot who envies Pavlov's dogs for their amazing displays of self-constraint (ie, unlike you, they only drool some of the time). Sure, the

  • Dubious claims made about videogames top ten! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @04:39PM (#7049023) Homepage Journal
    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

  • My problem with the article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SandSpider ( 60727 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @04:56PM (#7049212) Homepage Journal
    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
    • You're right that the article presents no material evidence whatsoever to back up its claims. You're wrong when they say they don't define their terms. They make specific reference to "over 30". Which makes me, a 44-year-old, call bullshit. In fact, most of my friends and acquaintances who played video games in their youth continue to do so. And, in general, those who didn't still don't (which only makes sense, IMO). That's not a scientific claim, since my sample size is fairly small and somewhat biase
      • Well, I disregarded the bit about 30 years old, because the sentence made no sense. "The eddies of interest by demographics above age 30 are the exception that proves the rule old people don't play video games." I'm not sure what 'cicular liquid currents by demographics' is even trying to say, so I don't know if he's trying to make us believe that there are still some groups above 30 that play video games, so aside from that nobody plays, or that 30 is the cut off point.

        As for the study about the average a
        • 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" [infidels.org] 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,
    • I have never heard any studies claim that a signifant portion of the "older" world population plays video games.

      I found interesting the author's link to Chris Crawford, who ran his own small survey on gaming habits, after being suspicious of another published survey's results on gamers and age ranges:

      http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Game%20Design/Ga meStatistics.html [erasmatazz.com]

      and his conclusion is that you can make anything you want of survey statistics.

      I would think that most older people wouldn't play video
    • No data backing it up. Rely's upon, basically, 'I say so.'

      What in the sam scratch are you talking about?

      This buzzcut feller cites Pew Internet studies, stock quote data and links to other weblogs supporting his position.

      Not every noun is hyperlinked, if that's what you mean. I will grant that buzzcut could have used a few more citations for items 1 (Games don't influence behavior) and 2 (Academics need to justify their interest in games). Buzzcut does say "study after study" for item (1), and if academic

      • Well, I've done my own online study in Everquest the last 3 years. And time after time, the people that I've talked to have clearly in the over-30 crowd. So the "older folks don't play games" doesn't hold up.

        It doesn't even make sense... as he points out, video games have been around a long time. The original generation that played them has grown up. Even if they had forgotten about them, when they buy games for their kids, you think they don't play along with them?

  • These claims go together because both confuse artistic expression with the medium. Are movies art? The question is, "Is the Godfather art?" or "Is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective art?" It's like asking whether painting is art. If you are painting the Mona Lisa sure, it's art. If you are painting your house, maybe not.

    There are some good reasons to blur the line between media and art. It helps raise the credibility of the entire medium. But in more precise terms, media covey expression and emotion, ideas and in

    • I agree.

      I had a problem with this being included at all, simply because the "is video game art?" (or similarly, "what is art?") debate is way too broad to even begin to be covered by that blurb.

      I wonder if the Director of Photography or designers of Ace Ventura would consider their work to be art. Fashion designers might find Jim Carrey's zany wardrobe and hair to be pretty artistic!

      I don't really see how distinguishing art from "media" really helps raise credibility any. Doesn't art by nature conv
  • --The PSP will have graphics on the level of the PS2 (SCE President Ken Kutaragi)
    I'm still waiting for your Toy Story level CG on the PS2 without using the Toy Story DVD.

    --The revolutionary Xbox Live is a huge success (MS PR spin)
    I wonder why you haven't signed on any new subscribers since early 2003. If it's so revolutionary, how come less than 5% of Xbox owners actually use it? (500,000 subs, 10 million Xboxes)

    --The GBA SP was created to cater to a different market and was not a GBA "fix" (NCL PR s

  • Dude, this guy was only wrong twice! That's a pretty good percentage of correctness.

    5) Not social? No, some video games aren't social. Like some card games aren't social. Solitair for instance. Obviously, he hasn't played Mario Party or Mario Golf.

    11) Myst was piss poor crap. It was the game that ruined games. Fancy graphics != good gameplay. He provided no real argument that the gameplay of Myst was entertaining or quality. Because there isn't one.
  • [insert witty jab at Daikatana and John Romero's bitches here]
  • Over time games will begin to expand and contract to become a kind of lightening rod for the masses. Educational games often shuned by uber 1113 gamers will become mainstream enough so that dungeon crawling losers will no longer rule. As this happens more and more people will unite and games will prosper as a result. Just as some people believe that economics and even Socionomics [slashdot.org] are good predictors of human behaviours I too feel that games are the ultimate in simulating the future of our culture and maybe
  • People can read alone and knit alone. People can play a one player game together just as easily as they can watch a movie together.

    But let's face it... if the public is afraid of something it must be anti-social.

    I must be anti-social.
    I hate awards shows.
    I hate karaoke.
    I hate bars.
    I hate cliques.

    I love RPGs.

  • Credibility (Score:3, Insightful)

    by daVinci1980 ( 73174 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @12:31AM (#7052380) Homepage
    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? (Score:4, Funny)

    by extrarice ( 212683 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:31AM (#7053253) Homepage Journal
    Nintendo Creates Piracy-Proof Console For China [slashdot.org]

    Remember kids, bits are meant to be copied!
  • Huh. This guy's justification of "old people don't play video games" is interesting. First, he states that old people do, in fact, play video games. Then, he draws a line between games like Bridge and Bejeweled and games like KOTOR and Halo. Then, he asserts that because Grandma doesn't go for fast multiplayer action in Halo, old people don't really play video games. The implication being that Bridge and Bejeweled, while video games, aren't really video games, because they're not "mainstream".

    Mainstr

  • My mom plays Civ II every day, plus The Sims on a regular basis.
    My dad doesn't play any computer games.

    Both of my parents are defined as "old" (around 60).

    Note: My statistical universe is complete and verifiable!

  • Sure! specially if you are able to knitt at the same time with up to 1000 people, chat and form knitting quests and knitting guilds together!

    Grandmas all over America we invite you to get social! forget about that 100 year old chair you sit all day to knitt and talk nonsense on a daily basis, get "Knitting" online today!
  • "John Romero's About to Make You His Bitch."

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