I know I'm a bit off topic with this, but reading through the comments here made me realize that I don't really get the whole "gamer" label. Gaming is mainstream and I wouldn't be surprised by anyone under 60 telling me that they play video games (and not very surprised by anyone over 60 either).
It just seems like a weird identity to worry about people knowing about, either as a pro or con. It would be like going around and telling people that I'm a Netflixer because I think I'm that rare person who enjoys watching media on there service.
I don't think it's quite all the way mainstream like that yet. As we can see from the subject of this strip, it's still a more acceptable target than other forms of media.
I agree with him. Everyone plays games, even my 80 year old parents, but "gamers" are a particular breed that position themselves a certain way. I used to call myself a "gamer" but don't anymore precisely because I saw what other gamers were doing with the label and wanting nothing to do with that.
Comparing it to "Netflixer" is a good analogy I think.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Not everyone plays games, though. My mom and my sister were both of the opinion that they're not a common enough interest that you could expect to talk to someone you meet in real life about them, for an anecdotal example. That's not something you could really expect someone to say about another medium. At least, not someone who's got all their marbles.
+1
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Not everyone plays games, though. My mom and my sister were both of the opinion that they're not a common enough interest that you could expect to talk to someone you meet in real life about them, for an anecdotal example. That's not something you could really expect someone to say about another medium. At least, not someone who's got all their marbles.
Talking about a medium in general is something almost no one ever does, though. Like people don't stand around and talk about "reading books", they talk about, "Have you read X?" And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Not everyone plays games, though. My mom and my sister were both of the opinion that they're not a common enough interest that you could expect to talk to someone you meet in real life about them, for an anecdotal example. That's not something you could really expect someone to say about another medium. At least, not someone who's got all their marbles.
Talking about a medium in general is something almost no one ever does, though. Like people don't stand around and talk about "reading books", they talk about, "Have you read X?"
That's what I meant by that, and you know that that's what I meant by that.
And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
And yet you'd never hear someone say that books aren't a thing you can talk to people about.
And I don't think I'd really count solitaire on your computer as a video game. You could maybe technically call it that? But like, its less a video game and more the card game solitaire but on your computer.
I don't think it's quite all the way mainstream like that yet. As we can see from the subject of this strip, it's still a more acceptable target than other forms of media.
I don't think video games are being picked on simply because they're supposedly not mainstream. Games get targeted because they're so visceral. Reading a book or watching a movie is a largely passive experience. In many video games however, you are actively involved in killing, and you have to think like a killer in order to be successful. The average dumbfuck old person can easily be tricked into seeing a link between virtual violence and real violence. The narrative is so perfect, and that's why politicians dip into that well again and again.
wednesday was about toxic masculinity.
friday criticized trump and gun violence.
i welcome Mike and Jerry's sudden SJW galaxy brain evolution. maybe they learned to listen after years of tone deafness.
Well apparently no matter what they do, they'll have atleast one side yelling at them. Remember the whole Dickwolves thing?
I was alluding to the dickwolves things as peak tone deafness. That was their worse, really: they reacted to the criticism so very badly. Mike in particular loved playing the mean girl in a flame war.
That was years ago. I suppose they've matured somewhat since then.
And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
And yet you'd never hear someone say that books aren't a thing you can talk to people about.
And I don't think I'd really count solitaire on your computer as a video game. You could maybe technically call it that? But like, its less a video game and more the card game solitaire but on your computer.
I mean, it still is a video game though. Just as bejeweled is a video game. This habit of saying, "well that's a video game technically, but I don't consider it one myself" is exactly the way "gamers" keep isolating themselves, being gatekeepers of people who would otherwise be thier allies, and ultimately putting a target on themselves.
Trivial games are still games. Everyone with regular computer access is a player of video games, because that's the world we've lived in since the advent of Windows.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I can only imagine that Gamergaters are outraged at Trump for his baseless attacks on their beloved artform. They must be vocally furious.
*cricket cricket*
And what baseless attacks are you referring to? He hasn't said anything about outright banning games, unlike people like Hillary R. Clinton or Jack Thompson.
All he did was invite over a bunch of game developers for a talk. Shaking in my boots here! OMG DRUMPF IS GOING TO BAN GAMES! Impeach now!
I wanted to wait a day or two before checking in on the comic thread to let page 1 or 2 or possibly 3 burn off the layer of vitriolic kerosene before joining the conversation.
But what to my wondrous eyes... mild-mannered, reasonable discourse with limited conjecture?
I love these forums.
Anyhow, I'm as entirely not surprised as anyone to see blame shifting in politics yet again. I wonder, a dozen years from now, who the new devil will be. Will it still be video games? Will Mike and Jerry be brainstorming a pre-lunch delivery of yet another .jpeg depicting some rabid lunatic sputtering bile and non sequitur about how video games create violent children?
I'm bored with the discussion. I was old enough to pay attention the first time with Mortal Kombat. I was a bit more mature and politically aware when games like Resident Evil came under fire. Then the Jack Thompson era dawned and just as quickly faded into memory as the majority of sensible people revolving around the gaming industry recognized a madman trying desperately to be relevant in a world that has passed him by is not one to whom you grant any credence.
Now we're here.
I agree with Jerry. This isn't politics. It's an uneducated person attacking an industry that provides employment to artists, designers, writers, coders, animators, and engineers (to name a short list, leaving out the infinite number of associated professions that work either directly or indirectly with video game developers). The same industry that provides a hobby, a community, a refuge, and sometimes simply catharsis for millions upon millions of people all over the world.
Dungeons & Dragons was called the smoking latch that opened the gates to Lucifer's house by insecure "adults" decades ago because of a lack desire to educate themselves. Now you can watch celebrities play it live on the internet with tens of thousands of people in the audience. Or you can go to PAX and watch it performed before a packed auditorium. I know of a dozen shops in my city alone that either host game nights or at least sell the components to get you started playing your own game of D&D.
Dungeons & Dragons was officially published in 1974.
It's 2018.
I doubt anyone is planning on blaming D&D for gun violence in this day and age. But back in the 70's and early 80's it was blamed for all manner of unruly teenage behavior. People were convinced that teens were starting occult sex dungeons, which, to be fair, they probably were but that's because it was the 70's and early 80's. I have a feeling it had little to do with a game about elves and dragons and orcs n' shit. People have always gotten up to weird stuff. Don't kink-shame.
My point, which I never promised I'd get to, is that there will always be a punching bag for uneducated alarmists. If it's not heavy metal, it's rap. If it's not rap, it's video games. If it's not video games, it's ________.
It takes decades for people to get some damn sense and in more cases than any of us should find acceptable some people take their prejudices to the grave, no matter how many times they have their arguments unraveled like the loosely woven tapestry of bullshit that they are.
One of my closest friends growing up was all but disowned by his grandmother (who had practically raised him) because he started to do cosplay at conventions. She went to her deathbed not talking to him for almost five years. She thought he had lost his connection to God or some nonsense like that. Because the guy dressed as Sephiroth a few times.
Here's what's scary though. It's not the people set in their ways or guided by prejudices who can't accept or refuse to accept reality and reason. It's the people who take advantage of those weak-willed individuals who frighten me.
People like Donald Trump see the weakness all around them. They see a divided country full of fear and hatred and ignorance and they stab where the wounds are still healing. These are predatory people who know just the right buttons to press. Look! Worried parents whose kids are out of their hands for six to eight hours a day? Let's prey on them! Religious people desperately searching for an answer in a world that's changing all too fast? Oh, of course! Right this way! We've got a place for you! Bigots who group-think themselves into a lather whenever they see something that doesn't resemble the patriarchal, monochromatic society they've been accustomed to for generations? Oh yes. I've got your golden ticket.
These predators see a society where changes are happening every day and know that there are millions and millions of people who will do anything to find some kind of answer for why sometimes things are awful. And when we're as vulnerable as we are now it becomes easy to sell an agenda.
Video Games aren't under attack because any of these politicians think they're genuinely the cause of violence. They're under attack because they make a good scapegoat and it's easy to push an agenda (or keep one intact) when a society is full of fear and angst, oh say, I dunno, after a rash of violence and terror?
We had a wave of gun violence recently, before it was teenagers again, and it was terrorism and it was the immigrants oh they're tearing the country apart, etc., etc. No one mentions video games. It's these undocumented people! No, it's guns! Okay. Well, as long as the argument is tied up in knots between these two groups we can keep the status quo.
Now it's kids again. Well, we can't call a white teenager a terrorist, I guess, so whose fault is this? Who do we blame? Well obviously not the parents, because, as we all know parents are infallible. So it must be something else. Ut-oh. People are mad at the NRA. Those poor gun lobbyists!
Gun lobbyists paid for my campaign! Time to dust off the old "Video Games are The Downfall of Western Society" trope. Sorry, "Undocumented Immigrants". I'll see you next time a brown person shoots up a mall parking lot!
These tactics are so boring at this point that I'm astonished at how effective they still are. It's so out in the open it can't even be called a conspiracy theory anymore. People like Trump treat tragedy as a opportunity and misery as bargaining fuel. And he knows how to play the media. As long as he can stall us out arguing over bullshit for a month we'll have moved on to the next horrible thing that happened. Just long enough for the heat to die down on the NRA and just long enough to work those of us who care about video games into a feckless huff over nothing.
Am I saying don't get pissed? Am I saying ignore this bullshit because it's all smoke and mirrors?
Fuck no. Get mad. Tell Trump to get the fuck off our lawn. Because even though we all know this isn't going to amount to a damn thing the fact is the first time we let our guard down because "oh here we go again" is when the rug will get pulled out from under our feet.
I hate having to do this stupid dance very ten or fifteen years but at this point we know it so well we could do the steps in the dark. The thing is, I'm not worried about the future of video games. I'm worried about WHY we have to defend them again.
Jerry's last paragraph in his post illustrates this all far more eloquently. I ramble a lot. But he's right. It's a circus where the lions are loose in the audience but the spotlight is on the clowns.
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OctoberRavenPlays fighting games for the storySkyeline Hotel Apartment 4ARegistered Userregular
And what baseless attacks are you referring to? He hasn't said anything about outright banning games, unlike people like Hillary R. Clinton or Jack Thompson.
All he did was invite over a bunch of game developers for a talk. Shaking in my boots here! OMG DRUMPF IS GOING TO BAN GAMES! Impeach now!
Except he has been in league with Thompson's ilk.
"Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!"- Donald J Trump, 2012.
And more recently, he's talked about government-led regulatory commissions... in other words, things that lead to censorship and banning of video games in pretty much every country with government regulatory commissions.
Hilary was wrong about video games, but so is Trump, and he's the one who can make laws with comically, obviously-compensating-for-something-large signatures.
Currently Most Hype For: VTMB2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Alan Wake 2 (Wake Harder)Currently Playin: Guilty Gear XX AC+R, Gat Out Of Hell
+6
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Not to mention he's only bringing up videogames as a desperate attempt to get people to stop talking about the NRA and actual guns.
While I'm not exactly a Trump fan I feel that a rabies portayal feels kinda flat.
That doesn't parse as rabies to me. Rabies would be foam, whereas it just looks like spittle in the comic. It reads as slovenly and ignorant to me.
The comic feels like it's phoning it in a bit.
Mike is capable of some gloriously meanspirited and fun caricatures.
And there's nobody who deserves it more.
Trump is a terrible person. The emperor has no fucking clothes. This should not be a partisan issue, why in the fucking hells is that a partisan issue.
Trump is a terrible person. The emperor has no fucking clothes. This should not be a partisan issue, why in the fucking hells is that a partisan issue.
Because a really lot of people need their racism validated, no matter what it costs.
Not to mention he's only bringing up videogames as a desperate attempt to get people to stop talking about the NRA and actual guns.
And that's the point that needs to be emphasized - this "summit" was done purely to take heat off the NRA, which is for the first time facing social outcry that they didn't know how to manage.
And please don't tell me he's not siding with people who want to censor games when he invites L. Brent Bozell III to the table. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's the founder of the Parents Television Council (you know, the assholes who spam form letters to the FCC whenever something a bit racy appears on TV), and an individual who has been trying to push his religious views on our media. No, he didn't invite Jack Thompson - he invited the guy Thompson wants to be.
Not to mention he's only bringing up videogames as a desperate attempt to get people to stop talking about the NRA and actual guns.
And that's the point that needs to be emphasized - this "summit" was done purely to take heat off the NRA, which is for the first time facing social outcry that they didn't know how to manage.
And please don't tell me he's not siding with people who want to censor games when he invites L. Brent Bozell III to the table. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's the founder of the Parents Television Council (you know, the assholes who spam form letters to the FCC whenever something a bit racy appears on TV), and an individual who has been trying to push his religious views on our media. No, he didn't invite Jack Thompson - he invited the guy Thompson wants to be.
It's almost like he's actually afraid of the NRA.
Currently Most Hype For: VTMB2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Alan Wake 2 (Wake Harder)Currently Playin: Guilty Gear XX AC+R, Gat Out Of Hell
And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
And yet you'd never hear someone say that books aren't a thing you can talk to people about.
And I don't think I'd really count solitaire on your computer as a video game. You could maybe technically call it that? But like, its less a video game and more the card game solitaire but on your computer.
I mean, it still is a video game though. Just as bejeweled is a video game. This habit of saying, "well that's a video game technically, but I don't consider it one myself" is exactly the way "gamers" keep isolating themselves, being gatekeepers of people who would otherwise be thier allies, and ultimately putting a target on themselves.
Trivial games are still games. Everyone with regular computer access is a player of video games, because that's the world we've lived in since the advent of Windows.
Yeah, bejeweled is a videogame, but I don't think not calling solitaire a videogame is something you can ascribe to gatekeeping. It's not a narrative that gamers push because it's not something that there's any disagreement on. There's not really anyone who considers solitaire a videogame.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
And yet you'd never hear someone say that books aren't a thing you can talk to people about.
And I don't think I'd really count solitaire on your computer as a video game. You could maybe technically call it that? But like, its less a video game and more the card game solitaire but on your computer.
I mean, it still is a video game though. Just as bejeweled is a video game. This habit of saying, "well that's a video game technically, but I don't consider it one myself" is exactly the way "gamers" keep isolating themselves, being gatekeepers of people who would otherwise be thier allies, and ultimately putting a target on themselves.
Trivial games are still games. Everyone with regular computer access is a player of video games, because that's the world we've lived in since the advent of Windows.
Yeah, bejeweled is a videogame, but I don't think not calling solitaire a videogame is something you can ascribe to gatekeeping. It's not a narrative that gamers push because it's not something that there's any disagreement on. There's not really anyone who considers solitaire a videogame.
It is one, though.
Like going back to the "Netflixer" example, I'm right now watching "Forensic Files" which is a show from the early 2000's IIRC. It's not the kind of show I'm going to discuss with anyone about how cool and in-depth it is. It's just a show to watch while I'm knitting. That's solitaire, or any of a ton of phone apps that don't have any particular depth. Those are things that everyone plays. It's still a video game even if it lacks the depth of a story arc.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
Even people who play games like Solitaire or bejewled don't really consider them video games. Like the older coworkers I have at my job still chomp on my ass about playing games regularly play facebook whatever the fucks and don't consider what we do similar at all.
When most people think of "gaming" they think of consoles, poop socks, and stereotypical nerds no matter how much none of that is true outside of consoles.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
"People don't call it that" is a really bad argument for why it doesn't fit into a genre. Some people may not call a bound graphic novel a book, but it's still a book. Some people don't think rap should be considered music, but it still is music.
A video game is a video game is a video game, and trying to make "feels" arguments why it's not is dumb and counter-productive. This is the whole problem I'm pointing out: by making "video game" a thing that means only one very specific type of video game, the type of video game that appeals to the, for lack of a better word, connoisseur and is inaccessible to the average population, it makes the public think of "video games" as something incomprehensible and therefore scary. Whereas if you helped people understand the mindset that actually, everyone plays video games, your doing the community a greater service.
I'm not really getting how you can argue what you're trying to argue. While there are some controversial titles that get argued as to whether they really "count" because (for example) they don't include win conditions, those controversies simply don't apply to solitaire. Any argument you can make against solitaire, you'd also have to make against something like Poker Night at the Inventory. Or for that matter, Madden games, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour, or any other video game that's based on a real-world game. Your "feels" are irrelevant.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
If Solitaire isn't a video game, neither is Pokemon the Trading Card Game for Game Boy Color or Magic for PC/Xbox. Your argument is nonsense.
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
"People don't call it that" is a really bad argument for why it doesn't fit into a genre. Some people may not call a bound graphic novel a book, but it's still a book. Some people don't think rap should be considered music, but it still is music.
A video game is a video game is a video game, and trying to make "feels" arguments why it's not is dumb and counter-productive. This is the whole problem I'm pointing out: by making "video game" a thing that means only one very specific type of video game, the type of video game that appeals to the, for lack of a better word, connoisseur and is inaccessible to the average population, it makes the public think of "video games" as something incomprehensible and therefore scary. Whereas if you helped people understand the mindset that actually, everyone plays video games, your doing the community a greater service.
I'm not really getting how you can argue what you're trying to argue. While there are some controversial titles that get argued as to whether they really "count" because (for example) they don't include win conditions, those controversies simply don't apply to solitaire. Any argument you can make against solitaire, you'd also have to make against something like Poker Night at the Inventory. Or for that matter, Madden games, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour, or any other video game that's based on a real-world game. Your "feels" are irrelevant.
This sounds like a really aggressive argument over what boils down to semantics...
+1
OctoberRavenPlays fighting games for the storySkyeline Hotel Apartment 4ARegistered Userregular
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
"People don't call it that" is a really bad argument for why it doesn't fit into a genre. Some people may not call a bound graphic novel a book, but it's still a book. Some people don't think rap should be considered music, but it still is music.
A video game is a video game is a video game, and trying to make "feels" arguments why it's not is dumb and counter-productive. This is the whole problem I'm pointing out: by making "video game" a thing that means only one very specific type of video game, the type of video game that appeals to the, for lack of a better word, connoisseur and is inaccessible to the average population, it makes the public think of "video games" as something incomprehensible and therefore scary. Whereas if you helped people understand the mindset that actually, everyone plays video games, your doing the community a greater service.
I'm not really getting how you can argue what you're trying to argue. While there are some controversial titles that get argued as to whether they really "count" because (for example) they don't include win conditions, those controversies simply don't apply to solitaire. Any argument you can make against solitaire, you'd also have to make against something like Poker Night at the Inventory. Or for that matter, Madden games, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour, or any other video game that's based on a real-world game. Your "feels" are irrelevant.
This sounds like a really aggressive argument over what boils down to semantics...
It's not semantics, it's gatekeeping.
Step 1: (Game I want to push out) is not a game.
Step 2: People who like that game therefore don't like games.
Step 3: Therefore, they can be disregarded when we're having a discussion/meeting/club/party for gamers.
This is the thought that eventually leads to people being cruel to "non-gamers" who... spend a lot of their time playing games... but not the "right" ones.
+7
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Noone has ever thought "I feel like playing a video game" and decided to play solitaire. It's considered just the digital version of a normal card game, which I'm pretty sure is how it works for other physical card games that have digital versions. Arguing that solitaire is a video game is being way too definitionally literal.
"People don't call it that" is a really bad argument for why it doesn't fit into a genre. Some people may not call a bound graphic novel a book, but it's still a book. Some people don't think rap should be considered music, but it still is music.
A video game is a video game is a video game, and trying to make "feels" arguments why it's not is dumb and counter-productive. This is the whole problem I'm pointing out: by making "video game" a thing that means only one very specific type of video game, the type of video game that appeals to the, for lack of a better word, connoisseur and is inaccessible to the average population, it makes the public think of "video games" as something incomprehensible and therefore scary. Whereas if you helped people understand the mindset that actually, everyone plays video games, your doing the community a greater service.
I'm not really getting how you can argue what you're trying to argue. While there are some controversial titles that get argued as to whether they really "count" because (for example) they don't include win conditions, those controversies simply don't apply to solitaire. Any argument you can make against solitaire, you'd also have to make against something like Poker Night at the Inventory. Or for that matter, Madden games, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour, or any other video game that's based on a real-world game. Your "feels" are irrelevant.
This sounds like a really aggressive argument over what boils down to semantics...
I mean, it is a really irritating argument to have, especially when the rebuttal is nothing more than "nuh-uh" with nothing even attempted to back it up.
It also is gatekeeping, and not just semantics, which is another reason it annoys. I've seen the same thing throughout my life, sometimes as a way to keep me out of a thing I like, sometimes just as a way to belittle. When I first started enjoying comic strips and comic books, there was this artificial divide between a 3 panel comic and a full page comic, like only the full page version could be art (despite the fact that Bill Waterson exists). The cry that Rap is not music is another one of those things that's entirely there to belittle: Rap is decried for not being music only because some people wish to negate it's value and impact, not because it actually isn't music.
People only ever make those kinds of stands as a show of arrogance, there's never a logical or a worthwhile reason for it.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I think it kind of is, but only in the tangential, illustrative sense - that humans in general (and myself specifically included) are actually pretty bad at being rational, managing risk, etc etc.
There are a lot of problems in the real world that simply do not have simple, easily imaginable, explainable and/or implementable solutions. These problems often involve trade-offs and value judgments which require that some things be given more importance than others, an obvious potential source of disagreement; one person's "acceptable" or "optimal" is another's "intolerable". Even if we were capable of calmly adding up numbers on a board, that would first require us all to agree on what the numbers should be... and that, IMO, is not happening.
Complicating things further, it's often very difficult to determine (especially from the inside!) whether an argument which others perceive as flawed and weak is so because the debater is not sufficiently skilled to convey and argue convincingly for a complex solution; whether the argument is actually based on flawed premises that the advocate has not logically examined, but deeply feels/believes; or because the audience is unwilling to consider any argument, no matter how good, which would require them to consider or alter their own opinions. This, itself, may be a literally unsolvable question, an evaluation that can only be made by perfectly knowledgeable and completely unbiased theoretical beings - I don't know enough about philosophy, etc to say what the current consensus is.
tl;dr unfortunately, there's probably fuck-all that we can do to come up with any 'right' answer or convince anyone else that it is.
News post is about where I'd imagine it should be. They don't consider this political, and like a lot of people thought; that video games were in the conversation instead of literally any other thing just shows how little the current american leadership wants to do about this issue.
I don't really consider it political either. If Obama had said the same thing I could see them doing pretty much the same comic with him.
The fact that Trump is already widely mocked for incompetence is hardly their fault.
I want to say Obama did kind of get shit for his at the very least video game ignorant view on things. But the worst he said of them was that you should put them down every once in a while.
And like in a sane world we could look into more if violent media and games and such contribute to a violent attitude in society or are a factor. But that would be if we had already dealt with clear fucking indicators that lead to shooters like hate groups and domestic abusers and the ridiculously open way our gun laws are currently written nationally.
Like I'm sure Gabe and Tycho wouldn't haven an issue about violent games being a topic if like it were harder to buy an AR-15 than it is to buy Doom 2016.
tbf, Obama did the same thing Trump is doing with video game industry essentially back during the Sandy Hook shooting.... and frankly it IS harder to buy an AR-15 than it is. Not much harder but it IS harder. Not against this comic though because quite frankly politicians keep jumping on this ball like the jackasses they are but I wouldn't agree that Obama would have gotten the same treatment had he been in the same situation as he was and he didn't. But I WILL be fair and say this was like 4, 5 years ago and annoyance with this kind of bullshit has only grown.
The funniest part of this is people who see it as political point scoring rather than knowing in an alternate universe, it was written with an equally out of touch Hillary.
News post is about where I'd imagine it should be. They don't consider this political, and like a lot of people thought; that video games were in the conversation instead of literally any other thing just shows how little the current american leadership wants to do about this issue.
I don't really consider it political either. If Obama had said the same thing I could see them doing pretty much the same comic with him.
The fact that Trump is already widely mocked for incompetence is hardly their fault.
I want to say Obama did kind of get shit for his at the very least video game ignorant view on things. But the worst he said of them was that you should put them down every once in a while.
And like in a sane world we could look into more if violent media and games and such contribute to a violent attitude in society or are a factor. But that would be if we had already dealt with clear fucking indicators that lead to shooters like hate groups and domestic abusers and the ridiculously open way our gun laws are currently written nationally.
Like I'm sure Gabe and Tycho wouldn't haven an issue about violent games being a topic if like it were harder to buy an AR-15 than it is to buy Doom 2016.
tbf, Obama did the same thing Trump is doing with video game industry essentially back during the Sandy Hook shooting.... and frankly it IS harder to buy an AR-15 than it is. Not much harder but it IS harder. Not against this comic though because quite frankly politicians keep jumping on this ball like the jackasses they are but I wouldn't agree that Obama would have gotten the same treatment had he been in the same situation as he was and he didn't. But I WILL be fair and say this was like 4, 5 years ago and annoyance with this kind of bullshit has only grown.
Would you happen to have a source for that? Genuinely curious, as I don't recall that.
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I agree with him. Everyone plays games, even my 80 year old parents, but "gamers" are a particular breed that position themselves a certain way. I used to call myself a "gamer" but don't anymore precisely because I saw what other gamers were doing with the label and wanting nothing to do with that.
Comparing it to "Netflixer" is a good analogy I think.
Talking about a medium in general is something almost no one ever does, though. Like people don't stand around and talk about "reading books", they talk about, "Have you read X?" And most if not all literate people have read a book of some kind in their life, if only for school, but I still think reading books is less ubiquitous than video games. Has anyone in the world who owns a PC not played Solitaire on it? Like book readers, though, most people don't talk about a video game unless a) they know their circle is into it and b) a particular game has captured their imagination.
And yet you'd never hear someone say that books aren't a thing you can talk to people about.
And I don't think I'd really count solitaire on your computer as a video game. You could maybe technically call it that? But like, its less a video game and more the card game solitaire but on your computer.
That was years ago. I suppose they've matured somewhat since then.
I mean, it still is a video game though. Just as bejeweled is a video game. This habit of saying, "well that's a video game technically, but I don't consider it one myself" is exactly the way "gamers" keep isolating themselves, being gatekeepers of people who would otherwise be thier allies, and ultimately putting a target on themselves.
Trivial games are still games. Everyone with regular computer access is a player of video games, because that's the world we've lived in since the advent of Windows.
And what baseless attacks are you referring to? He hasn't said anything about outright banning games, unlike people like Hillary R. Clinton or Jack Thompson.
All he did was invite over a bunch of game developers for a talk. Shaking in my boots here! OMG DRUMPF IS GOING TO BAN GAMES! Impeach now!
But what to my wondrous eyes... mild-mannered, reasonable discourse with limited conjecture?
I love these forums.
Anyhow, I'm as entirely not surprised as anyone to see blame shifting in politics yet again. I wonder, a dozen years from now, who the new devil will be. Will it still be video games? Will Mike and Jerry be brainstorming a pre-lunch delivery of yet another .jpeg depicting some rabid lunatic sputtering bile and non sequitur about how video games create violent children?
I'm bored with the discussion. I was old enough to pay attention the first time with Mortal Kombat. I was a bit more mature and politically aware when games like Resident Evil came under fire. Then the Jack Thompson era dawned and just as quickly faded into memory as the majority of sensible people revolving around the gaming industry recognized a madman trying desperately to be relevant in a world that has passed him by is not one to whom you grant any credence.
Now we're here.
I agree with Jerry. This isn't politics. It's an uneducated person attacking an industry that provides employment to artists, designers, writers, coders, animators, and engineers (to name a short list, leaving out the infinite number of associated professions that work either directly or indirectly with video game developers). The same industry that provides a hobby, a community, a refuge, and sometimes simply catharsis for millions upon millions of people all over the world.
Dungeons & Dragons was called the smoking latch that opened the gates to Lucifer's house by insecure "adults" decades ago because of a lack desire to educate themselves. Now you can watch celebrities play it live on the internet with tens of thousands of people in the audience. Or you can go to PAX and watch it performed before a packed auditorium. I know of a dozen shops in my city alone that either host game nights or at least sell the components to get you started playing your own game of D&D.
Dungeons & Dragons was officially published in 1974.
It's 2018.
I doubt anyone is planning on blaming D&D for gun violence in this day and age. But back in the 70's and early 80's it was blamed for all manner of unruly teenage behavior. People were convinced that teens were starting occult sex dungeons, which, to be fair, they probably were but that's because it was the 70's and early 80's. I have a feeling it had little to do with a game about elves and dragons and orcs n' shit. People have always gotten up to weird stuff. Don't kink-shame.
My point, which I never promised I'd get to, is that there will always be a punching bag for uneducated alarmists. If it's not heavy metal, it's rap. If it's not rap, it's video games. If it's not video games, it's ________.
It takes decades for people to get some damn sense and in more cases than any of us should find acceptable some people take their prejudices to the grave, no matter how many times they have their arguments unraveled like the loosely woven tapestry of bullshit that they are.
One of my closest friends growing up was all but disowned by his grandmother (who had practically raised him) because he started to do cosplay at conventions. She went to her deathbed not talking to him for almost five years. She thought he had lost his connection to God or some nonsense like that. Because the guy dressed as Sephiroth a few times.
Here's what's scary though. It's not the people set in their ways or guided by prejudices who can't accept or refuse to accept reality and reason. It's the people who take advantage of those weak-willed individuals who frighten me.
People like Donald Trump see the weakness all around them. They see a divided country full of fear and hatred and ignorance and they stab where the wounds are still healing. These are predatory people who know just the right buttons to press. Look! Worried parents whose kids are out of their hands for six to eight hours a day? Let's prey on them! Religious people desperately searching for an answer in a world that's changing all too fast? Oh, of course! Right this way! We've got a place for you! Bigots who group-think themselves into a lather whenever they see something that doesn't resemble the patriarchal, monochromatic society they've been accustomed to for generations? Oh yes. I've got your golden ticket.
These predators see a society where changes are happening every day and know that there are millions and millions of people who will do anything to find some kind of answer for why sometimes things are awful. And when we're as vulnerable as we are now it becomes easy to sell an agenda.
Video Games aren't under attack because any of these politicians think they're genuinely the cause of violence. They're under attack because they make a good scapegoat and it's easy to push an agenda (or keep one intact) when a society is full of fear and angst, oh say, I dunno, after a rash of violence and terror?
We had a wave of gun violence recently, before it was teenagers again, and it was terrorism and it was the immigrants oh they're tearing the country apart, etc., etc. No one mentions video games. It's these undocumented people! No, it's guns! Okay. Well, as long as the argument is tied up in knots between these two groups we can keep the status quo.
Now it's kids again. Well, we can't call a white teenager a terrorist, I guess, so whose fault is this? Who do we blame? Well obviously not the parents, because, as we all know parents are infallible. So it must be something else. Ut-oh. People are mad at the NRA. Those poor gun lobbyists!
Gun lobbyists paid for my campaign! Time to dust off the old "Video Games are The Downfall of Western Society" trope. Sorry, "Undocumented Immigrants". I'll see you next time a brown person shoots up a mall parking lot!
These tactics are so boring at this point that I'm astonished at how effective they still are. It's so out in the open it can't even be called a conspiracy theory anymore. People like Trump treat tragedy as a opportunity and misery as bargaining fuel. And he knows how to play the media. As long as he can stall us out arguing over bullshit for a month we'll have moved on to the next horrible thing that happened. Just long enough for the heat to die down on the NRA and just long enough to work those of us who care about video games into a feckless huff over nothing.
Am I saying don't get pissed? Am I saying ignore this bullshit because it's all smoke and mirrors?
Fuck no. Get mad. Tell Trump to get the fuck off our lawn. Because even though we all know this isn't going to amount to a damn thing the fact is the first time we let our guard down because "oh here we go again" is when the rug will get pulled out from under our feet.
I hate having to do this stupid dance very ten or fifteen years but at this point we know it so well we could do the steps in the dark. The thing is, I'm not worried about the future of video games. I'm worried about WHY we have to defend them again.
Jerry's last paragraph in his post illustrates this all far more eloquently. I ramble a lot. But he's right. It's a circus where the lions are loose in the audience but the spotlight is on the clowns.
Except he has been in league with Thompson's ilk.
"Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!"- Donald J Trump, 2012.
And more recently, he's talked about government-led regulatory commissions... in other words, things that lead to censorship and banning of video games in pretty much every country with government regulatory commissions.
Hilary was wrong about video games, but so is Trump, and he's the one who can make laws with comically, obviously-compensating-for-something-large signatures.
The comic feels like it's phoning it in a bit.
Mike is capable of some gloriously meanspirited and fun caricatures.
And there's nobody who deserves it more.
Trump is a terrible person. The emperor has no fucking clothes. This should not be a partisan issue, why in the fucking hells is that a partisan issue.
Because a really lot of people need their racism validated, no matter what it costs.
And that's the point that needs to be emphasized - this "summit" was done purely to take heat off the NRA, which is for the first time facing social outcry that they didn't know how to manage.
And please don't tell me he's not siding with people who want to censor games when he invites L. Brent Bozell III to the table. For those of you who don't know who he is, he's the founder of the Parents Television Council (you know, the assholes who spam form letters to the FCC whenever something a bit racy appears on TV), and an individual who has been trying to push his religious views on our media. No, he didn't invite Jack Thompson - he invited the guy Thompson wants to be.
It's almost like he's actually afraid of the NRA.
It is one, though.
Like going back to the "Netflixer" example, I'm right now watching "Forensic Files" which is a show from the early 2000's IIRC. It's not the kind of show I'm going to discuss with anyone about how cool and in-depth it is. It's just a show to watch while I'm knitting. That's solitaire, or any of a ton of phone apps that don't have any particular depth. Those are things that everyone plays. It's still a video game even if it lacks the depth of a story arc.
I could not be more delighted that you are finally realising this.
Guess that means it's a good caricature?
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Even people who play games like Solitaire or bejewled don't really consider them video games. Like the older coworkers I have at my job still chomp on my ass about playing games regularly play facebook whatever the fucks and don't consider what we do similar at all.
When most people think of "gaming" they think of consoles, poop socks, and stereotypical nerds no matter how much none of that is true outside of consoles.
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"People don't call it that" is a really bad argument for why it doesn't fit into a genre. Some people may not call a bound graphic novel a book, but it's still a book. Some people don't think rap should be considered music, but it still is music.
A video game is a video game is a video game, and trying to make "feels" arguments why it's not is dumb and counter-productive. This is the whole problem I'm pointing out: by making "video game" a thing that means only one very specific type of video game, the type of video game that appeals to the, for lack of a better word, connoisseur and is inaccessible to the average population, it makes the public think of "video games" as something incomprehensible and therefore scary. Whereas if you helped people understand the mindset that actually, everyone plays video games, your doing the community a greater service.
I'm not really getting how you can argue what you're trying to argue. While there are some controversial titles that get argued as to whether they really "count" because (for example) they don't include win conditions, those controversies simply don't apply to solitaire. Any argument you can make against solitaire, you'd also have to make against something like Poker Night at the Inventory. Or for that matter, Madden games, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour, or any other video game that's based on a real-world game. Your "feels" are irrelevant.
If Solitaire isn't a video game, neither is Pokemon the Trading Card Game for Game Boy Color or Magic for PC/Xbox. Your argument is nonsense.
This sounds like a really aggressive argument over what boils down to semantics...
I have.
It's not semantics, it's gatekeeping.
Step 1: (Game I want to push out) is not a game.
Step 2: People who like that game therefore don't like games.
Step 3: Therefore, they can be disregarded when we're having a discussion/meeting/club/party for gamers.
This is the thought that eventually leads to people being cruel to "non-gamers" who... spend a lot of their time playing games... but not the "right" ones.
I mean, it is a really irritating argument to have, especially when the rebuttal is nothing more than "nuh-uh" with nothing even attempted to back it up.
It also is gatekeeping, and not just semantics, which is another reason it annoys. I've seen the same thing throughout my life, sometimes as a way to keep me out of a thing I like, sometimes just as a way to belittle. When I first started enjoying comic strips and comic books, there was this artificial divide between a 3 panel comic and a full page comic, like only the full page version could be art (despite the fact that Bill Waterson exists). The cry that Rap is not music is another one of those things that's entirely there to belittle: Rap is decried for not being music only because some people wish to negate it's value and impact, not because it actually isn't music.
People only ever make those kinds of stands as a show of arrogance, there's never a logical or a worthwhile reason for it.
There are a lot of problems in the real world that simply do not have simple, easily imaginable, explainable and/or implementable solutions. These problems often involve trade-offs and value judgments which require that some things be given more importance than others, an obvious potential source of disagreement; one person's "acceptable" or "optimal" is another's "intolerable". Even if we were capable of calmly adding up numbers on a board, that would first require us all to agree on what the numbers should be... and that, IMO, is not happening.
Complicating things further, it's often very difficult to determine (especially from the inside!) whether an argument which others perceive as flawed and weak is so because the debater is not sufficiently skilled to convey and argue convincingly for a complex solution; whether the argument is actually based on flawed premises that the advocate has not logically examined, but deeply feels/believes; or because the audience is unwilling to consider any argument, no matter how good, which would require them to consider or alter their own opinions. This, itself, may be a literally unsolvable question, an evaluation that can only be made by perfectly knowledgeable and completely unbiased theoretical beings - I don't know enough about philosophy, etc to say what the current consensus is.
tl;dr unfortunately, there's probably fuck-all that we can do to come up with any 'right' answer or convince anyone else that it is.
tbf, Obama did the same thing Trump is doing with video game industry essentially back during the Sandy Hook shooting.... and frankly it IS harder to buy an AR-15 than it is. Not much harder but it IS harder. Not against this comic though because quite frankly politicians keep jumping on this ball like the jackasses they are but I wouldn't agree that Obama would have gotten the same treatment had he been in the same situation as he was and he didn't. But I WILL be fair and say this was like 4, 5 years ago and annoyance with this kind of bullshit has only grown.
Would you happen to have a source for that? Genuinely curious, as I don't recall that.
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