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Games Entertainment

Orson Scott Card on Games 51

Posted by Zonk from the crazy-man-says-lucid-thing dept.
RexDart writes "Author Orson Scott Card has published an essay on modern gaming at the Ornery American site. Titled Brain Training, the piece touches on many points in the ongoing debate on videogames. While Card concedes that 'there are brutally violent games' and that games are addictive, he argues that videogames and games in general are excellent brain-stretching exercises, and expands from that into intentional mental workouts as a lifestyle and calling."
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Orson Scott Card on Games More

Orson Scott Card on Games

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  • My brain must be a level 60 Tauren Shaman by now.
    • Well, let's compare what you're training it to do. If it's the semi-transelike state I get when I play the average racing game, it's just muscle memory and subconsciously memorizing the track - pretty much just conditioning.

      Alternately, if it's actual puzzle solving a-la The Incredible Machine, then maybe you're training yourself in something useful.
    • My brain must be a level 60 Tauren Shaman by now.

      Wow, that's better than mine. My brain's a lvl 53 Tauren Warrior: Dead.

  • OSC and gaming (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Uriel ( 16311 )
    And yet, we have no game based on either the Battle School game or the Command School simulators? For shame.

    That might be, however, because he's bitter that the book of his that everyone loved was not the one he wanted it to be...
  • Well, I'd love to play his game, Advent Rising, but they won't stop pushing back the release date for the PC version. I'm starting to get quite irritated.
    • It's not that great. I beat it in about 10 hours and I'm a pretty slow player. On the Xbox it has horrible slowdown. It's fun, but it could have been a lot better. After playing some of the better Xbox games it was a pretty big letdown. The story isn't anything that would make you say "Hey, a famous author wrote this!"
  • Just last night as I was playing SSBM with my stepson, I was thinking, "Wow this is really helping him prepare for the world. I wish I had something like this growing up, instead of Combat, Adventure, and Pitfall with their pathetic graphics on a 2600. I probably would have been more successful."

    Well, actually I wasn't. But I did think it was a fun way to relax and spend time with my stepson. Maybe it's a male thing, but it is always easier for fathers and sons to spend time together when they are doing something. For my dad and I it was 1 on 1 basketball. Previous generations had fishing and gathering fireflys. For us, it's gaming. Whatever works, use it;-)

    Could we possibly be overthinking these "issues" with gaming?

  • ...that will teach him tolerance of homosexuals/bisexuals. That'd be good. Until then, I don't give a shit what Card thinks.

  • it's just an exercise (Score:3, Funny)

    by Glog ( 303500 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:52PM (#13196576)
    The Molten Core is simply an exercise before the real battle...

  • OSC is an Asshat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by coaxial ( 28297 )
    The past several "insights" [ornery.org] of OSC has revealed him to be bit of a crackpot [kuro5hin.org]. Why would anyone give a damn about anything he has to say?
    • Wow, that completely misses the point.

      I'm not going to get into an argument over the meanings of his works, or the fact that he can't write non-brilliant characters, but, come on, thinking that Ender's Game is an apologist book for Hitler? That's just silly.

      When you're looking for correlations, you'll find them. Doesn't matter what you're investigating, the human mind will find some.

      Oh, and since mister "localroger"'s friend's essay isn't even viewable (pure coincidence, of course, that this supposedl

      • I'd don't think "Ender's Game" was "Springtime for Hitler" either. But I do think OSC's "Some people are simply good, and no matter what they do, it's good," is bogus. No one says, "Today, I'm going to do evil." Many of the most heinous crimes were performed, either "for the greater good," or more directly, "as god's will." If I kill somebody, even if I didn't intend to, it's still a crime. Ender intentionally kills several people, ultimately cullminating in the Xenocide. There's a word for when someo
    • I read that a while back, appears to be trollfood.

      The more of those nested comments you read at the bottom, the more you wish you had never found the thread.

      It wouldn't suprise me in the least if the author perpetrating the story is actually some nobody falsifying his identity.

      Honestly a supposed author wrote the allegations, but they are completely foundless, and his responses to everyone else later on in the thread look like they're only designed to keep the thread alive, hence: troll.
    • Just because some dude on K5 thinks something is true, doesn't mean it is. I have yet to see the whole "Apology for Hitler" thing in the book. Really, if someone can explain this to me, I would really like to know. I would also really like to see this essay that is spoken of in the K5 article. Without any examples or any kind of proof, I would think that most people would write it off as a Troll post, but it seems comparing people to Hitler is the cool thing to do.

      Do your own research, and you will find he
      • Just because some dude on K5 thinks something is true, doesn't mean it is. I have yet to see the whole "Apology for Hitler" thing in the book. Really, if someone can explain this to me, I would really like to know. I would also really like to see this essay that is spoken of in the K5 article. Without any examples or any kind of proof, I would think that most people would write it off as a Troll post, but it seems comparing people to Hitler is the cool thing to do.

        As I've said in a previous post [slashdot.org], I don't fi
        • As I've said in a previous post, I don't find the "Ender as Hitler" argument very compelling. I do find the "Ender as Christ, but where Jesus kills people willie-nilly" is a good comparison. It's clear that Ender is supposed to be a misunderstood messiah. The morality of "there are good people, and no matter what they do it is good," is a crock. I was under the impression that that kind of thinking went away with the fall of divine-right, the inquisition, and puritanism.

          I didn't see your previous post,

  • "The Downside" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chi Hsuan Men ( 767453 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:11PM (#13196751) Homepage
    Overall, I thought the article was very good; however, I was tripped up on "The Downside" section. From TFA:

    But most games are not violent. Even if they are war-themed, they're about as violent as playing chess -- which is also a war game. Most games have no violence at all, and some -- especially online multi-player games -- are highly social and require learning the ability to cooperate and compromise.

    I might be reading this wrong; however, it seems that Orson Scott Card is making a distinction between violent games (including war-themed games, like Battlefied 2 and Call of Duty) and online multi-player games (World of Warcraft and Puzzle Pirates).

    I think Orson Scott Card is making a faux pas by not mentioning that some online multiplayer games are violent AND require learning the ability to cooperate and compromise, along with allowing an indvidual to "stretch their brain".

    My favorite online FPS du-jour at the moment is Battlefield 2. Not being in a clan, I am subject to the feast or famine of public servers when it comes to individuals who decide to play as a team in squad and those who decide THEY want to fly the helicopter, so when you decide to get in, they team kill you with C4; however, I've played the game enough to realize that one squad which is organized and skilled, can win a map for a team.

    In addition, Battlefield 2, through the multiple class system, allows you to utilize multiple tools in order outsmart your enemy.

    Some would consider Battlefield 2 a "murder simulator" and others would begrudge the game because it makes war "appealing"; however, beyond those labels is a game that forces individuals to work together in order to achieve a goal and use their brain and their skill in order to outsmart opponents.

  • As usual, I slightly disagree (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:55PM (#13197145) Homepage
    The only really great novel of his I've enjoyed was Ender's Game, and even that has had it's criticisms (Apology for Hitler, etc). As usual, I think he has a generally correct point, but his details are somehow flawed.

    The man suggests that concentrating on a 19 inch screen (monitor or your average TV) somehow increases peripheral vision. If that was somehow part of the study's conclusions, then at the very least Card should be explaining why this occurs.

    And I can't say that I agree with the statement that obediance to the law in all cases is an American principle. Card's opinion here seems to be mostly a Brigham Young dictator and prophet worshipping culture that surrounds Utah. The America I read about was founded by people who asserted a inherant moral right to rise against unfair laws. But this was basically an aside, put forth to remind people that he's a mormon, because a personal blog is a great place to make a political statement.

    Card also suggests that the majority of games are non-violent. That might be true, but the most popular games, the most widely played games are. At any given point in time, there's more people playing Halflife shooters than all of Yahoo! games in the US. Strategy games, the kind that involve recognizing a situation, coming up with a solution, and analysing the results to repeat the process, all revolve around violence and war. I've yet to see a fascinating game on the exploits of serial entrepeneurs. Strategy games first and foremost are an abstraction of war. Unfortunately it hurts his argument to describe the truth here. At least, with people who aren't convinced that games are beneficial. Even the study used a violent game: Medal of Honor. Another ww2 themed first person shooter.

    But generally, yea, games are social tools. Many people will discount games without a multiplayer option, and some even go so far as to say that single player games are more accurately labelled "puzzles".
    • As much as I like DDR and side or vertical-scrolling shooters, I'm not very good at them. I can't take in the entire screen of information. I end up focusing only on the arrows or bullets nearest me and not the periphery. While I've spent hours and hours training my brain to see and process all the information, it doesn't. But we've all seen insanely skilled DDR and scrolling-shooter players.
  • Here's the text:

    Civilization Watch First appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC By Orson Scott Card June 26, 2005

    Brain Training

    My wife gave me an arcade game for Christmas -- a new home version that looks just like the old video arcade unit but contains several dozen games.

    Our eleven-year-old has tried out all of them now, and has her favorites. But I zeroed in on Mr. Do and Millipede. In fact, my wife and I play Millipede together quite often, and we have noticeably improved

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