5 Reasons It's Still Not Cool to Admit You're a Gamer

[Abyssalstudios1]

http://www.cracked.com/article_18571_5-reasons-its-still-not-cool-to-admit-youre-gamer.html

It's saddening how much this article is correct. Numbers 2 and 4 seem to be the most true, but all five points hit the nail on the head.

[pavera]

I tell everyone I know about how I play video games a lot. I'm the coolest cat on the block.

[Rohit_N]

God damn, I just knew David Wong would write that.

[Technician]

I'm not a "Gamer". I play video games. I don't treat it like a social movement or statement.

[Snakes]

That God of War video made my head feel like it was about to explode... And I forgot why I stopped caring about those types of releases. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within tried to pull that "edgy" shit, but they backed down and Two Thrones was infinitely better for it.

[bytor]

Gamer. For a long time now I've hosted social gatherings based on gaming. Started around the early 80's with 'mastering' a D&D group. I'm married and have a house to maintain.

[Csonicgo]

Reading the comments of that article proves Wong... Right! Amazing.

I will admit I'm guilty of some of these ;_;

[esselfortium]

I can agree with him on some points, but I subscribe to the John Carmack school of videogame storytelling. ;)

[phi108]

esselfortium said:

I can agree with him on some points, but I subscribe to the John Carmack school of videogame storytelling. ;)

I don't really know what to think about storytelling in a good game. Commander Keen had slightly more story and character development than Doom, and then early Doom plans (in Tom Hall's bible, I think), involved more characters, plot, and storytelling. I am interested to know what might have come of Doom if it had both these planned ideas as well as the final fun gameplay.

After enjoying a good story like in the Half Life series, I always end up thinking "Now if only the gameplay was faster, more fun, etc".

The point he made about "early motion pictures vs Wizard of OZ decades later" interested me. Further in the furture, what will the top videogames incorporate? The perfect combination of immersive plot AND immersive gameplay/action? Recently, Bioshock 2 designer Jean-Paul LeBreton said that it's hard for outsiders to consider videogames an art form when you shoot things, so will guns eventually become the "early gimmick" of videogames?

EDIT: Or was the early gimmick a pixel bouncing between two rectangle paddles, or more tetris/pacman type games? Or is the evolution of any medium just one gimmick after another, as more becomes possible?

[exp(x)]

He conveniently forgot Deus Ex - a first person shooter that you can beat without killing a single person. That said, I agree with pretty much everything.

[SyntherAugustus]

Games don't need story!

[Abyssalstudios1]

Go die.

[40oz]

I always have to admit I play doom when people see my tattoo. It hasn't really worked against me yet. Though I usually don't tell people that I make maps and dehacked patches and post on doom forums all the time though.

[Mr. T]

Dude, GOW 3 looks awesome! DO WANT

[AndrewB]

Stories require linearity. More sophisticated stories require higher levels of linearity. Linear games offer less control to the game player. The less control a player has over his progression, the less fun he has. Ergo, stories in games are negatively correlated with fun.

[Mr. T]

AndrewB said:

Stories require linearity. More sophisticated stories require higher levels of linearity. Linear games offer less control to the game player. The less control a player has over his progression, the less fun he has. Ergo, stories in games are negatively correlated with fun.

I dunno, the MGS series is pretty good at doing linear gameplay without it seeming boring (probably because of sidequests like collecting dog tags, finding secrets, etc.)

[Steeveeo]

I feel that there's enough of us around these days that it doesn't really matter if we're "cool" or not with the original populous; we're quickly becoming a majority.

[Aliotroph?]

What makes me wonder is the games that play like Japanese games (linear and all video), but still have terrible stories. In my mind, this is also most Japanese games. I don't get it. If you're going to wreck the gameplay so you can show movies all the time then why is the story still written like a bad movie?

It certainly seems true that most games advertising their story either have a crap story, crap gameplay or both. I don't see why people would play a game for its story or design one for that anyway. Games are for gameplay. Movies, books and plays are for stories. A lot of game genres are better if they have at least enough lore to hold them together, but expecting the story telling of a tightly-edited TV show is ludicrous.

It's really fun when games have a lot of lore to discover as you play. The Elders Scrolls games do a nice job of this. You can just play the main quest, which is fun, or you can wander aimlessly and learn all kinds of neat weirdness about the world. Those things aren't "the story,", but they have a similar effect, they tell their own stories, and they enhance the game rather than break it.

As for the rest of that stuff, it's sad that business people and developers who make even less competent business decisions somtimes have decided to define a while industry, its customers and fans by a culture of teenage losers. Perhaps that happened because game devs have a large overlap with that crowd. That happens with music, movies and TV too, but those things naturally lend themselves to polished independent work, unlike games.

[Jodwin]

AndrewB said:

Stories require linearity. More sophisticated stories require higher levels of linearity. Linear games offer less control to the game player. The less control a player has over his progression, the less fun he has. Ergo, stories in games are negatively correlated with fun.

Uhh, have you ever played Deus Ex? Also, a game can be non-linear in many ways: Not just by level progression, but also the choice of means to go through the levels affects linearity. So you can have a strong railroad plot and keep the gameplay non-linear as long as there are different ways to overcome all the challenges during gameplay.

[DoomUK]

Technician said:

I'm not a "Gamer". I play video games. I don't treat it like a social movement or statement.

[Maes]

Meh.... in my neck of the woods things are clear cut: videogames in the pre-PSX era were considered arcade nerd shit, and also borderline illegal. Some people just didn't get the whole idea behind the "game" part (e.g. I once was "caught" playing by my school's principal, and his puzzled question was "what was in it for me", aka he assumed it was some form of illegal gambling. I was playing Zzyzzyxx or somesuch.

The fact that there was an (unenforced) law that theoretically banned those under 17 yo from entering arcade rooms didn't help in building a positive mainstream image. Yeah, all kids went to the arcades but it was a "bad" place to go (usually the same rooms had other undercover things going on such as illegal gambling, so there was some truth in that).

Later on...well...consoles such as SNES and Mega Drive were mostly rich kids' stuff. PC and home computer gaming was restricted to a closely-knit enthusiast community (also because the options for buying stuff legally were very limited/nonexistent, so to find games you either had to exchange stuff with other people or use the services of the many "software clubs", as pirate were euphemistically called). And of course it was an almost complete sausage fest. I can't imagine a girl of my generation scheduling appointments with the neighborhood's pirate to buy a bunch of Doom II floppies...

Only with the explosion of web-based casual gaming (flash games, and later facebook games) did I see any appreciable percentage of verifiable -or suspected- female gamers. There was of course an explosion in what I call "Joe sixpack" gaming: aka PES on PS2 or football management games. These somehow appeal even to totally non-nerdy thugs and blue collar types, who otherwise would shove a game box up yo ass.

[Use]

Mr. T said:

Dude, GOW 3 looks awesome! DO WANT

I like everyone's big metal bras. What a bold fashion statement. Also someone needs to tell the graphic designers that there are more colors than gray and brown.

[Mr. T]

Use3D said:

I like everyone's big metal bras. What a bold fashion statement. Also someone needs to tell the graphic designers that there are more colors than gray and brown.

I have no idea what GOW is... but it has boobs! Boobs=automatic rental

[Nightmare Doom]

Maes said:

I can't imagine a girl of my generation scheduling appointments with the neighborhood's pirate to buy a bunch of Doom II floppies...

Well there might have been rare numbers of women who actually did as you never know. It's best to keep a open mind into consideration.

[kristus]

esselfortium said:

I can agree with him on some points, but I subscribe to the John Carmack school of videogame storytelling. ;)

Agreed. A game should be about the game play before anything else. If he don't want to kill bad guys, then he shouldn't play that sort of game. There are games for people who value stories more than action/game play. And many of them are really good.

[dannebubinga]

I really can't see why it's so necessary to make points to people that you are involved in some kind of social movement. I don't walk around telling everyone that i used to play hockey when I was younger or that I play drums nowadays.

I don't understand why you have to call a person who play videogames alot a "gamer" either. I guess people who call themselves "gamers" do that to truly feel part of the videogames cultural field.

As for the hockey in my life... I study culture leadership (arts, movies and music) and sports isn't that popular in a cultural context. But whenever people have comments about my past sports activities, I couldn't really care less.

[Maes]

Nightmare Doom said:

Well there might have been rare numbers of women who actually did as you never know. It's best to keep a open mind into consideration.

Dude, we're talking about Greece in the late 80s/early 90s. The chances of that happening were practically nil. As I said, I was talking about my neck of the woods.

[Udderdude]

This article sucks.

[dew]

kristus said:

Agreed. A game should be about the game play before anything else. If he don't want to kill bad guys, then he shouldn't play that sort of game. There are games for people who value stories more than action/game play. And many of them are really good.

yeah, the article is sorta nice and thought provoking, but also too generalizing. he cries about immaturity and bad plots, but only gives mainstream examples that fit his points. sure, nowaday games gravitated towards a common tasteless standard, but he could always choose niche games or oldies from when developers experimented more. but that'd make the article obscure and less successful with the mainstream readers that want to feel above the masses. :p

oh, and indiana jones 4: the fate of atlantis >>> indiana jones 4: the crystal skull fiasco. there, a game/movie comparison.

[SYS]

Technician said:

I'm not a "Gamer". I play video games. I don't treat it like a social movement or statement.

That's why the article is so silly. Oh noes! If I tell someone I've played a video game they will automatically associate me with socially inept, fidgeting, spastic, drooling retards that scream profanities into their headsets.