September 7, 2008
Gaming Culture, Does it really exist?
City wrote this at 11:30 am:
The strangest thing just happened: I had a debate with my PC gamer boyfriend, Paul, about whether or not gaming culture exists.
He’s decided it doesn’t, and I have decided it does.
The arguments being: unlike music or movies where you have gigs and cinema, it really is something that is primarily done in the privacy of your own home; the concept of gaming culture hasn’t been around that long in the grand scheme of things, G4 only started in 2002 and that’s no longer primarily about games.
Culture can be defined as “patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance”, but if you’re a gamer surely games have significance and importance to you purely for the amount of time and effort you put into them?
Take this site for example, written by gamers for gamers because ‘We Play Games’. It’s a typical example of how gaming culture is bringing us all together into one nice little bubble. Paul’s argument for this is that it’s more to do with internet culture, MMO’s may create a culture but they do so online, so what about everything else that’s come from games?
Games have started to have such a wide reaching influence, TV channels with dedicated shows, movies and music. The first film about games was made in 1982 (Wargames, which is now being re-made for the next generation to see in all its new shiny CGI glory) and the first movie based on a game was made in 1993.
I mean granted, these may not have done very well at the cinema, even the more recent ones such as Silent Hill and Tomb Raider, but maybe that’s because the target audiences haven’t been huge, but we are out there (and sometimes wearing t-shirts).
I should also mention why this discussion started in the first place. I have been bouncing around the house because I am very excited about the London Games Festival, and this will be the first year I can take the whole week off and go to everything that I can. Paul is also on half term for most of it too, but he’s not so excited about it all and doesn’t really fancy spending an entire week doing things that he believes are primarily dedicated to console gaming.
This then begs the question, does the type of gamer we are determine how involved we get in the culture, if a culture in fact exists? The world and all its shiny gaming glory is a world for consoles: PS3, Xbox, Wii, DS… everything, but what about PC gamers?
Instantly the PC gaming audience is at a disadvantage because to play the likes of Crysis you need a pretty hefty beast of a PC (something which both Paul and I are lucky to have, but they did cost us an arm and a leg). Then you have the problem with things that are console only or demand you have to wait an extra x number of months (GTA IV is a prime example, the PC is finally getting that in November).
So maybe because it’s not the most mainstream platform for gaming, PC gamers are getting a raw deal and because of this it makes them cynical about gaming culture; surely if it existed, they wouldn’t get such a bad deal from it all? But then that’s like saying Xbox 360 owners get a rough deal because the likes of Little Big Planet will only be on the PS3.
If you think of gaming culture as a pie, does it only exist if your portion is a big one, because you own more slices? Or is it more a belief, as it is for me, that being a gamer really is a huge part of your life so the culture is created by that passion and love for games which brings people together, like Lipzieg, E3 and LGF08.
I know how I feel about gaming culture: it exists. I’m blogging on a gaming site… but if a lifelong PC gamer doesn’t think that it does, then does it?
September 7th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
There wasnt all that much to get excited about the last London Games Festival…
Just lots of seminars open to the public about our favourite subject, a few gaming meetups in pubs and the odd video games related pub quiz.
not seen whats going on yet, but it wont be hard to better last years effort :)
September 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I think the fact that events not targetted purely to the press exist at all is enough reason to consider gaming culture a reality. PAX, for example, concurrently celebrates all forms of gaming (console, PC, tabletop) and brings together people in a social context who all share a mutual interest.
I understand that being a PC gamer it’s easy to become jaded with so much press exposure on the console side of things, but the PC holds perhaps the greatest example of gaming culture: MMOs. If World of Warcraft and its Blizzcons, endless in-references and generation of romantic relationships isn’t an argument for at least some form of gamer culture, then I don’t think one can exist!
September 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
You know it’s funny, I was only thinking about this the other day!! I’ve been feeling all out of the loop ever since I started spending a bit more time on the ol’ pooter as so many people play consoles.
I don’t blame them either, what with not having to upgrade to run certain games and all. I wish there was more of a cross-over between platforms when it comes to gaming but the sad truth is that there is somewhat of a divide between PC gamers and Console Gamers.
I know a lot of gamers on either side of the divide, and there is a surprising amount of hostility! From the PC side, most heavy PC gamers I know refer to console players as “console tards” and think they are somehow lesser gamers because they choose to play on a console.
From the console side I see very little hostility, and the little I do see is largely over the sheer cost of PC gaming.
As someone who frequently switches from console to PC (PC at present XD Dang warcraft!) I would like to see more of a union between gamers. We all love the same thing, after all! =D
I wish there was a way to add all of my XBL friends to xfire =( boo!
September 8th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Wargames, 1983. Tron, 1982. I’m just saying…
The cake is a lie/We don’t go to Ravenholm are good examples, not necessarily of gaming culture, but something maybe just gamers would, y’know, get. Also, Penny Arcade and that kind of thing. Maybe.
As for real life - ie not internet culture - there’s things like Video Games Live (covering the music) and the Game On exhibition (covering the history).
September 8th, 2008 at 11:06 am
WarGames Redux?! :O
Matthew Broderick could play Professor Falken this time. :)
Culture, like pretty much anything else, doesn’t require belief in order to exist (maybe Tinkerbell?). It exists (or doesn’t exist) irrespective of belief.
So if you have witnessed people being moved by gaming enough to, let’s say, have this discussion; then gaming culture exists and your boyfriend is wrong whether he believes it or not. Poor guy.
I also refer you to the front cover of EDGE magazine where it says “Videogame Culture” right above the logo, and has for as long as I’ve been reading it. :)
September 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am
What Michael said, I agree with, y’know the stuff that only we would get but I do feel some of us do tend to make a bit of a big deal out of things like that when we get together like we’re sort of struggling or forcing it maybe but I suppose we have to try harder than others cause we haven’t been around as long.
Maybe if we all hung out at arcades and all wore the same sorts of clothes and had organised gang fights between 360 and PS3 fanpeople we’d have more of a culture. :D
September 8th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Is that what happens with movies or books or music?
The Scorsese fans beat up the Coppola fans, and everybody beats up the Ron Howard fans?
And of course all Spielberg fans wear identical red baseball caps, whereas Eastwood fans hang around chewing unlit cigar stubs and resisting the urge to shave.
I have a t-shirt from penny arcade that says Shoryuken; right,down,down-right,punch. Does that count?
September 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I can see it now, Laura… guitars and Wiimotes as weapons! DDR dance-offs too! *laughs*
It doesn’t need belief to exist, Skill? Hmm… at least one person has to believe in it for it to exist. Wouldn’t you say?
God, I hope they don’t turn WarGames into some thinly veiled satire on American foreign policy… that only works when there’s giant insects or militant kind-of-mole-but-not-really people involved!
September 8th, 2008 at 11:59 am
@ Michael;
Nobody believed in a spherical planet before it was thought up by some very clever people with too much time on their hands.
You would need to be a very particular kind of philosopher (called a muppet) to believe that it didn’t exist before the first person believed it did.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Culture is an idea; a planet is tangible. Meh.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
LOL Liked the “Meh”. Nice touch.
3 guys are arguing over whether to hunt wooly mammoths in the south plains, or fish for plesiosaur in the nearby sea.
Two say “We sick of mammoth. Umm fur hard to get out of teeth.”, whereas the other one likes his roast pachyderm.
“Ug outnumbered,” says one of the would-be fishermen, “you come with us, or we use Ug skull for fishing bait.”.
My point is this.
Politics is an idea.
Democracy is an idea.
The threat of intimidation is an idea.
Yet these ideas don’t need Ug and co. to believe in them (or to even understand the concepts) in order to exist.
So, double meh.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Yeah, that was a (sort of) afterthought before hitting “submit”! :D
As soon as the idea of using force is out there, it’s real - it may not have been known as that but they came up with it, believed in it (and the effectiveness of it). So did Ug. Obviously they all understood it.
It’s sometimes called coercion as a means of power or political tool.
So, anyway, I do think there is such a thing as gaming culture. I believe it. ;)
September 8th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I believe in gaming culture too. But my (earlier) point was that we could be wrong (we’re not), or City’s boyfriend could be wrong (he is), but that neither our belief, nor his disbelief actually determines whether or not there is (gaming culture).
I think. My head hurts. ;)
Ok, serious for a split second.
Evidence is the route to knowledge.
So is there any evidence that gaming produces culture or not?
Ofcourse there is. Any amount of it. Magazines, tv shows, websites, newspaper articles, conventions, an entire industry, and this conversation all show that gaming culture is alive and well.
So City’s boyfriend is wrong, and City, you should now delight in telling him so. Or invite him to provide compelling evidence to the contrary.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I can see Pauls point about it all which is why i tired to be balanced about it, but at the same time its like any other debatable subject there is always a counter argument to every opinion.
(and im sorry i forgot Tron, its because i didnt see it).