Stealthy? 1995? Please. 100% of teenagers play games today (those who don’t are
a rounding error)–but I doubt the percentage in, say, 1990, during the
SNES/Genesis era, was all that different. And the game industry first made the
claim that it was bigger than the movies in 1980 or 81, if I remember
correctly–albeit revenues then were largely from the arcade cash-drop, not
software sales. The point being that games have been hugely important to our
culture–particularly youth culture–for two decades or more. If you want to
find the point at which sea-change began, you sure don’t start with 1995. You
can make an argument for 1972 (when both Bushnell’s Pong and Ralph Baer’s
Magnavox Odyssey appeared); 1962 (Steve Rusell’s Space War); 1958 (Willy
Higginbotham’s Tennis for Two, and also Charles Roberts’s Tactics); 1913 (H.G.
Wells’s Little
Wars); 1861 (Milton Bradley’s The Checkered Game of Life); or 1780 (The
King’s Game, by Helwig, Master of Pages to the Duke of Brunswick). 1972 is the
traditional date, although I’d argue that you can’t understand the digital games
revolution without understanding the wargaming, miniature, and kriegspiel
traditions that predate it–not to mention classic arcade amusements, of course. —Grek Costikyan —The Times on Games (Games * Design * Art * Culture)
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Bobby, the same can be said in reverse... a good movie or novel doesn't automatically translate into a good game, just as a good novel isn't automatically a good movie. Yes,
Mike, there are plenty of games that are boring to watch but fun to play. As a kid, I enjoyed going to video arcades to watch other people play; I very rarely spent anything. As a grad student, I had an undergraduate friend named Uzzo who would handle the keyboard (with its shields and all sorts of other intricate commands) while I handled the joystick and "fire" button in one of the "Wing Commander" games (I forget which). He had already played through the game multiple times, and by handling the complex keyboard codes, he freed up my concentration so that we both had more time to socialize with each other; otherwise, I would have had to learn all the complexities myself, which would have meant I wouldn't be as mentally available for chitchat.
I think a lot of the literary scholarship on games ignores the social component.
Games typically do not translate well to film and novels (such as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), but there are some successful exceptions. For example, Magic: The Gathering experiences a good following with its fantasy novels based on the card game, and the animated cartoon Yu-Gi-Oh! is also based on its own card game (or vice versa).
OK, John. I won't be able to respond right away, but as I blog I'll keep your request in mind.
Meanwhile, Matt Kirschenbaum (an English/digital media prof.) is also a fan of the cardoard cutouts and hex grid war games you mention. See his "I Was a Teenage Grognard."
I'm always fascinated by games and gaming culture -- they're just more texts, ultimately. And yet as texts they don't seem to translate very well to films or novels. I wonder why that is? It must have something to do with the differences between the role of "player" and "reader" (or "spectator"). However, the notion of "author" seems to remain the same across the board (as "game master" or "director" or "creator").
Also of interest is gaming as cultural resistance -- that there's a 'cultural power struggle' that's (literally) played out when one plays a game. Not sure how much power that player really has, though, when isolated from others in the culture.
John, my initial, somewhat flippant reaction is that the ideology of games teaches that for every problem one encounters, there is a solution; and that if there is no apparent solution, then a game is "unfair" and you might as well chuck it.
A related lesson (one which, as an educator, I'm not too keen on) is that for every truly difficult problem, there should be a "cheat code", and that skill in attaining (or creating) "cheats" is valued almost as much as the ability to solve a problem on one's own.
Whew.. that comment's probably flamebait. Will? :)
I was involved with war games (the kind that used cardboard rectangles for companies and artillery and elephants etc.). I find this pretty strange, now, because I rarely play games and just don't feel comfortable when I'd doing it. All games seems to make me equally anxious. But, watching TV generally has that effect, too, so I'm a complete fraud as a scholar of popular and mass culture. All of that to say, I take your word on this, Dr. Jerz. You've convinced me that games are important in the culture. I'd like to hear about the ways you see them providing new elements in though, behavior, and , whatever.
Yes, I will testify to being a video game addict who proudly owned a Super Nintendo and spat on Sega Genesis in 1995, but now I want to move on to a Sony PlayStation 2. The year 1994 is also a significant time in gaming because it marked the beginning of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games (trading card games).