Videogames and Culture. slightly #GG related...

[blankslate]

but more about Videogames in general.

I recently looked up a youtube channel Extra Credits which I feel

MMO economies and that Uncanny Valley between more realistic and cartoony graphics for videogame characters.


As far as the #gamergate issue goes I don't pay too much attention to it because there have been instances of bad behavior directed people from various sides.

Doxxing (publishing in a public space the personal information of a "famous" or at least public person their personal information they would like unknown. home address as an example) is the one that I've seen which makes me not want to talk about it, even though the issue at the core is a valid concern.

It bothers me however, in the way that it came to media attention. Those few trolls and asshats who get the most attention from the media when there are reasonable people making valid points.

It does however, affect the gaming community as a whole whether you pay attention to it or not.

Even without the previously mentioned issue Videogames in general are misunderstood very often by non-gamers and it feels like there is a lot of considerations that avid gamers don't stop to consider either.

Being pretty much the newest kid the block compared to movies, music, comics and books, videogames are viewed with more suspicion.
It is easy to forget, however, that other mediums of entertainment went through their own growing pains. Congressional hearing on comics decades ago, explicit lyrics in music, and movie ratings controversies as examples.



Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg

^this is an excellent channel that covers a wide variety of subjects that are important to videogames and they have existed for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HXJLTtMIHU&index=1&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5D2JEqj_h7EtfXpq7UkbUqv

^the above video talks about gamers and non-gamers interact in general and touches upon videogame quality in general.

As mentioned in the video I do know of a gamer who tried to hide the fact that she played MMOs (my main genre I enjoy being primarily a PC gamer, I seriously got into games with fighting games) from her new boyfriend.


The following videos are thoughtful musings on harrassment and other forms of bad behavior in games that we as gamers should pay attention to because it is something that more often gets the attention of people who don't play video games and tends to give non-gamers a bad impression of the community

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9A8VJBh_Yc&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5D2JEqj_h7EtfXpq7UkbUqv&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9GwmOWoqo&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5D2JEqj_h7EtfXpq7UkbUqv&index=2


I feel that this channel is produces very well considered videos covering topics about gaming. We need less loud trolls and more medai attention paid to the actual individuals in the gaming community who are speaking out about important issues that affect gaming.



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*e2a* I had originally planned to put this in off topic but I do think it is worthy discussion club topic.

Consideration into how different "tribes" distinguish themselves from broader society might be touched upon. How people involved in movies, books and comics gained more credibility for their medium and how game developers and gamers might learn from those examples could be discussed as well.

It doesn't look like videogames are going away anytime soon short of some world catastrophe but in light of recent news it is obvious that growing pains are still happening. This is despite the fact that there have been controversies surrounding videogames since the 90's and even earlier.

My main question about videogames is can they become "respectable"?

Roger Ebert is known to have stated that videogames isn't art. Although I did like his reviews I vehemently disagree with that statement and I lost some respect for him over that as well. Is it possible to change the minds of people who hold the same opinion as Mr. Ebert?



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[DilipVasan]

Video games have nothing to do with culture I guess

 

[blankslate]

Video games have nothing to do with culture I guess

If they get news stories about them on national news outlets they may...

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/feels-gamergate-target-28238598

however shoddy the above reporting is... I think this is a rather good indication that has at least a bit to do with culture.

In any case I think that it may be a sign of more acceptance or acknowledgement of the medium by the wider public. Comic books went through similar growing pains with congressional hearing about them decades ago. Now comic books have been sources for some of the best (and worst), as well as profitable and not,movies in the past few decades

Every so often there is a film that generates controversy with the ratings board.

Video games also are having growing pains similar to the other mediums mentioned above and I think that indicates that videogames are becoming culturally more significant.

I think that Rami Ismail who is a developer has recently made statements that are accurate about the recent controversy...

It had was inevitable in his view. Because more people are starting to play video games. Not necessarily the established category of video games on traditional platforms (consoles or PCs). This probably caused friction and some small minority of people acted out about it in the worst ways possible.

Information about him and his statements below.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/21/gamergate-inevitable-rami-ismail-games-industry

Rami Ismail is something of a whirlwind. Co-founder of the dutch games studio Vlambeer, he is a constant traveller, darting between industry conferences all over the world.
~snip~
I’m desperate to catch him because Vlambeer is one of the most fascinating developers in the world right now. Founded in 2010, when Ismail and his friend Jan Willem “JW” Nijman dropped out of a university course in game design, the studio soon released Super Crate Box, a twitchy platform shooter praised for its lightning pace and uncompromising difficulty. Later came the crazed angling sim Ridiculous Fishing and 2D dogfighter, Luftrausers, both similarly lauded for their tight yet frenzied mechanics.

The current project is Nuclear Throne, a post-apocalyptic role-playing shooter, filled with heavily armed mutants, warring over control of a scorched landscape. It was originally created for a 48-hour game jam, but two years later, JW – a brilliant coder and designer with a genius for creating rat trap-like compulsion loops – is still perfecting it.
~snip~

“That’s fascinating. A lot of people think I go to different places to teach people about development, but I go to find out what’s happening. This is a beautiful medium and it’s expanding rapidly.”
A schism in gaming culture

The expansion hasn’t come without cost or trauma. The explosion of video games beyond their historic core of young males has brought in new voices and experiences, but also resistance. The Gamergate controversy, which kicked off last August, is a sort of leaderless online protest against suspected cronyism and corruption in games journalism, but its “enemies” are often progressive industry figures who are suspected of wanting to censor and re-shape the medium. This is not so much about “ethics in journalism”, the mantra of Gamergate; it is about sociocultural conflict.

Ismail has been regularly caught in the vociferous online debates. A well-known industry figure, he’s not afraid to wade in, and when he does, his responses get amplified around social media. He has been critical of Gamergate, but understands its impetus.

“Gamergate was inevitable – it’s not a thing we could have avoided,” he says. “These movements have been in motion since the early 2000s, and what has happened is fascinating from a sociological perspective – although tremendously depressing, personally. Very clearly, a group of people are completely disenfranchised with the direction games are going in, and they don’t know who to blame so they blame anyone who has any sort of say in the industry – but not the people they like. The developers who are still making the games they appreciate – they’re fine, but the people trying to make new stuff, or reporting on new stuff, or have any sympathy for new stuff, are all obviously part of a huge conspiracy.”

According to Ismail, maintaining that conspiracy is now a vital element of the movement. “When it started, they were in this really interesting position where they were both the weak and the strong party,” he says. “They were weak because this is a huge industry that they are just a small part of, but they also had to appear strong because you can’t attract people if you’re not potentially powerful. No one will join a hopeless cause. They had to balance that in a really specific way, and the people who ran the campaign at the start were good at it.

“But what eventually happened was, as Gamergate grew, they couldn’t remain the underdog, even though they had to. You can’t be a revolt against something that you’re as loud as. So every time they grew, they invented a new conspiracy that was slightly bigger so they could retain the underdog status. I don’t think that was intentional, it’s just how something like that grows.”

Ismail feels that Gamergate, or at least the frustrations that it embodies, will not be going away: the conservative viewpoint it seems to represent is fixed. It is part of the landscape. But this needn’t be a problem. “If the harassment and abuse stops, I think we could happily live as a medium where there’s a traditionalist conservative sector,” he says. “One of the people I most admire in this is Brandon Orselli who started a website called NicheGamer. I don’t agree with anything he writes, but I appreciate his approach: ‘There’s a problem so let’s fix it’, rather than, ‘There’s a problem, so let’s demonise our enemies.’ But I have the luxury of being able to give people the benefit of the doubt. Zoe Quinn can’t do that. That’s the worst thing.”

As another person stated...

And so... you can have these arguments; they are worth having.
What should our art look like?
Should our art include the category of things we traditionally call videogames?
I would argue that they should.
But if you want to disagree with Roger Ebert.
If you want to win the argument; that videogames should be considered art.
You necessarily have to let other artists into the mix
You necessarily have to let other kinds of criticism into the mix.

So when feminists critique Michael Bay movies you don't get gamergate...
What You get is people being like "ugh, it's happening again." and then lots of people watch Michael Bay movies.
When feminists critique videogames...
What you get is you get is GamerGate.

And that is the problem.
That's the whole circle of the problem is that the people who believe that this is their identity and these publications belong to them...
are refusing to understand and they're refusing to accept; that, that circle should get wider.

As more people start to play video games more categories of video games will come out... I don't think that these new categories of games will cause the older established categories to disappear.

When people criticize videogames I don't think there's any threat of censorship anymore... there is an established ratings system for games that works pretty well imo.

I think that as more people come to disagree with Roger Ebert (whom I think was an excellent reviewer aside from the issue of video games) and agree with me and others that video games can be art and some aren't just as with movies. There will be less and less controversy about them. Because there will be less and less attention seekers looking to take advantage of the (relatively) new entertainment medium on the block to stir crap up.


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[Craig234]

Of course video games can be art. Sometimes they are, sometimes not, like any other artistic medium.