Dead Pixels has 41 chronicles

1. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Video Games?
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Jan 26 2009

   Dead Pixels
   By Ryan M. Eft
   01/26/09
   
   Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Video Games?
   
   It occurs to me that the mainstream media’s tendency to treat video games like second-class citizens in the world of art and entertainment has been studied and commented on from a social perspective, from a business perspective, and from the perspective of angry gamers on Amazon. Every time some new slight against the form takes the stage and then sheepishly recedes, we go through the same motions. We get angry. The thing is, the barbs of the media have had little permanent effect on games one way or another. Earlier this year, when Cooper Lawrence went on FOX News to announce that Mass Effect was basically one big porno, the backlash was kind of incredible. Gamers hit Amazon.com in droves to give her book a rating of 1. Maybe it was the potential hit in her pocketbook, but Lawrence then did something absolutely illogical: she watched someone play the game. And changed her tone when it became obvious she was, in fact, wrong.
   
   The aftermath, as far as games were concerned? Virtually nothing, similar to what happened when Grand Theft Auto IV hit in April. With Jack Thompson, the principal agitator toward the series, removed by a lawsuit from opening his maw about it, the furor over the latest GTA game was…pretty much nothing. There was a little jaw-flapping here and there, but when the title obliterated entertainment sales records, what few detractors were left seemed to realize they’d lost. Funny how the universal language of approval is still in effect.
   
   And yet, while the outright vilification of gaming has receded into the distance, most non-gamer media outlets still treat the pastime with thinly veiled derision. Shortly before the release of Halo 3, TIME ran an article that essentially declared the game to have a much better storyline than games usually have. You could almost hear the sneer. It was pretty apparent that the writer (I’m unable to find the article, but I’ll link you all if and when I do) either did not care about the existence of Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness, The Legend of Zelda or any of the other series that had been weaving gameplay and story together for almost the existence of gaming itself, or didn’t bother to do his research. Halo hardly contained the best tale games had to offer. Whatever the reason for the derision, it was equally insulting. I almost preferred it when they were openly tearing our toys a new one.
   
   So why is this? Why, when games are proving themselves on multiple fronts, and standing up to everything detractors can possibly throw at them, do rags like TIME and “news” networks like FOX still insist on looking down their noses? They have to know by now it isn’t going to accomplish anything; it’s like howling into the wind. Maybe they’re uninformed. Maybe they’re just pricks. But I think it’s something else. Something psychological.
   
   Let’s say bears have taken over the planet. They have mutated and developed skills far beyond that of a human being. They’ve formed bear societies, bear schools, bear businesses, bear strip clubs, etc. They’re just about ready for humans to get lost, and they aren’t being too nice about it. Now let’s say you are huddled in a bunker, one of five humans left on earth. The bears are outside the door; in your heart of hearts you know the NBR (New Bear Race) has fixed many of the silly problems we inflicted on the place. Once we’re out of the way, they can fix ‘em all. It is clearly a better solution. Knowing this, do you accept it, and peaceably throw up your hands?
   
   Chances are, no. Chances are you grab a shotgun and take as many of the bastards down with you as you can. Deep down, you know the bears are right. But survival instinct is a bitch that way; you’d rather keep fighting. That’s what the media, generally and on balance, is doing. Ever since Mortal Kombat, they’ve been making with a concentrated, if misguided, effort to take video games out. Only recently has it become abundantly clear how badly they’ve failed. Ticket sales at the theater are dropping; you can always rent the DVD for a buck. Subscription fees are going belly up; why pay for what you can get free online? TV ratings are dropping. CD sales suck. People can’t afford to go to Disney World or Hawaii. And out of all the ways---magazines, movies, TV, books, music, etc.---that people can choose to get their entertainment, only one offers a type of experience that you can’t get anywhere else. Movies and television can show you entire new worlds, and the printed word can tell you about new worlds, but only video games can rip you from your mundane square of earth and take you to a new world. This is the reason that video game sales continue to rise while everything else suffers from the recession: because watching Al Pacino play a gangster doesn’t make you feel like you are a gangster.
   
   As illustrated by the New Bear Order, this is just the way evolution goes. I don’t believe books and movies and the like will vanish to make way for the New Video Game Race. I do believe something will have to give in the old mediums, but that’s another discussion. Traditional forms of passing the time are backed up against the wall, and the same video games that were dismissed as toys for the attention deficit kids a mere ten years ago are closing in, magical swords out and BFGs drawn. In the brains of the animal that is Old Entertainment, the FIGHT button has been pushed.
   
   Make no mistake: I don’t think most the purveyors of old entertainment are actively aware that this is why they lash out against games. Most people aren’t actively aware of the reasons they do a lot of the things they do, and since divining those things is the study of shrinks, I call what the media does to games psychological. Somewhere in there, they know games are winning the battle, not necessarily because they fought a better fight, but because their very existence was inexorably leading to this change. There isn’t anything they can do but hiss and spit, and so they frame it in niceties and then go on pretending they aren’t dinosaurs.
   
   We’ve been trying to achieve virtual reality ever since the invention of the computer (and probably longer). When a single decision in a post-nuclear wasteland completely alters the game world, or when you take your girlfriend out bowling in between jacking cars, we’ve got virtual reality, a living and breathing world into which you can step for a while to be something you are not. It’s the ultimate immersion, the ultimate goal of every work of art. But now that we have it, it’s only natural that the same outlets that once championed the growth of it all are now resisting recognition of it. The irony of championing the next step in evolution is that you inevitably get replaced by it.
   
   Naturally, there’s a better solution: we could all just hold hands and get along. Anyone who has played Guitar Hero knows that music and games have formed a mutually beneficial relationship. Why most other mediums haven’t learned to do this is anyone’s guess, but who among us wouldn’t be happier if the pissing contests stopped and we all just, you know, get along?

   
   

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Dead Pixels has 1 comment on this chronicle.

1. MrBigJeezy
   Posted On Feb 24 2009

   "magical swords out and BFGs drawn" Haha, I lol'd.