In this blog, I’d like to talk about just three of the many things about gamer culture that perennially bother me. I’ll talk about them separately, but I think these three things are actually quite intimately related. Alas though I don’t think I have the space to engage in such a comparative study, so readers might try to connect the dots for themselves. I think I certainly allude to those connections, so it’s just a matter of picking up what I’m putting down, as they say. It also might be useful to read some of my other entries, since I think they all more or less feed into a central critique of the games industry and of gamer culture. Anyhow, onto point number one.
1. Gamer Entitlement
Why do people act so entitled? Especially gamers. I want to focus on gamers. All I ever hear is "I want this", and "I want that;" "Make me this," and "make me that." And there's so much anger too. I don't think I've ever seen a community quite as hostile as gamers at large. So why are these folks act so damn entitled and venomous? Well, first I'd like to talk about advertising.
Advertisement makes the consumer think that the company doing the advertising has got their best interests at heart. In order to guarantee sales, these companies make you think they're on your side and that you "deserve" this stuff they're selling. They advertise the stuff as life-changing and indispensible, and convince the consumer that they "deserve" this stuff because of its quality; or in words, they're saying "you deserve only the best". Of course what they're calling the "best" is advertisement speak. They conceal or ignore anything bad about the product in advertising it. They claim their product is the best, and make people believe it's indeed the best, but that's generally hyperbole or manufactured hype aimed directly at consumer's wallets. They don't care that they're deceiving us, they just want to turn a profit. Thus they cultivate an illusion of being pro-consumer, and having a "customer comes first" attitude; like they're looking out for us when in reality they're only looking out for themselves. And why wouldn't they? In this particular social order, we need money to survive. We don't even need food to survive, because we need money to buy it in the first place. Money is more essential and is prioritised. But, money isn't something that needs to exist. We've just been lead to think it is by those in power who sit atop this particular social order. Money serves as a way to conserve the power of that few. It is an illusory mechanism. We value it so highly and yet it means so little. It's in the interests at those who govern this social order to retain the system of money, for this system perpetuates their power. It is a momentous distraction from life itself. I've gone into this with much more depth in a personal blog of mine which I can link to anyone who is interested.
Nevertheless, the consumer feels themselves put on a pedestal by the illusions conjured up by advertising. They're made to feel "special" by advertising, when really they're subjects of an incessant and ubiquitous exploitation. They're made to feel powerful and possessing of agency, but in actuality, both these things they only possess to a small degree. They are elements of their selves that are violently wrested from them through the various practices of corporatism in a consumer society, although they barely realize it.
They think they're entitled to all this stuff also because material wealth and property is what is valued highest in this society. They "want" and "demand" this stuff because advertisement aggressively makes them think they need it, and videogame corporations and publishers are more than willing to oblige, for demand is indicative of an area in the market they can corner; confirmation that they're going to make a lot of money.
It's even worse because these are luxuries. Most of the shallow stuff that gets churned out is instantly forgettable and will change no-one's life. Yet there's a clamour to purchase it. These things provide nothing we "need," they're just ephemeral items of entertainment. Yet they're valued so highly. Shallow luxuries are the objects of everyone's desire alongside or perhaps concomitant with money itself. Everything else is beneath these things. They fervently scramble to pick up the latest trendy piece of tat and are barely done with it before they've forgotten it and want the next temporary distraction. Consumers are so pampered and spoiled, and yet it's in the interests of big businesses for them to be exactly that.
You just get the image of a gamer reclining in his chair, on his computer or laptop mouthing off on a forum having a tantrum about something that wasn't in a game or demanding that something be in a game that he wants. Seriously, just shut up. First of all you're not "owed" these luxuries, and second of all you're only contributing to creative stagnation and general conservatism. That is to say for the most part, not only do gamers demand things be in games, but they also demand more of the same, over and over. Rarely are they exposed to "the new" in their hobby. Companies only market what generates profit. If an advertising campaign was successful, any old crap can be made to seem or appear good. Gamers internalise the messages advertisement sends out; they believe what the advertisement says: "you need this in your life, you deserve only the best." Thus a "standard of quality" is established. Gamers think they judged this themselves, but it's been put in their heads from without. They furiously defend it thereafter, deeming it as something enduring and universal despite the fact most the content they consume that follows such rules they forget about quickly (as mentioned above). I mean, it’s textbook brainwashing (for want of a less “red-pill, blue-pill” kind of word). Companies are delighted, for now they have a stable platform on which to generate consistent profit. A "standard" has been manufactured and it can be milked complacently for years. Gamers do the work of advertisement in a lot of cases after this; rabidly defending that standard and regarding with hostility anything that defies it. When it does come to pass that something finally shows itself to be stagnant, it's rinse, dry, repeat.
It's pernicious to creativity and to the broadening of a peoples' minds. Cultural artefacts do the work of promoting both of these things, and they can only be finally critiqued on these grounds. How these games are formative of culture and what they contribute to culture; that is what you are entitled to criticise. Having a temper tantrum because some game you want has been delayed or because it takes risks or because it's not being made are all just symptomatic of this superficial pro-consumer discourse that pervades this society. Like children throwing their toys out of the pram or a fat king on his throne sending tonight’s entertainment to the guillotine, these people have their values all mixed up, and it's not even entirely their fault as I've discussed. It's all part of this pathologically and cyclically narcissistic social order. They criticise all the wrong things. Their criticisms are anticipated by the companies they rail against. Their criticisms only serve in the long run to oil the fiscal plans of these companies; to contribute to the construction of a perfect and locked-in "standard".
Cultural criticisms get to the crux of the issue; they attack these greedy companies where it hurts, because it demands that they break out of stagnant trends and take risks. Such risks aren't at all conducive to profit because they aren't predictable; they aren't stable and established and traditional; but they do something more important than turn profits: they broaden minds, and they realize new possibilities and potentialities. Most of the AAA games we play might be "modern" graphically, but in every other aspect they may as well be 2 decades old. This is perhaps why games are so juvenile and hard to take seriously, because they rely on "standards" set a very long time ago. So many gamers violently defend them from INSIDE the dialectical logic of consumer-advertisement; from within their own brainwashed subjectivity. They react and merely spout the logic of the systems that structured how they think from without. They have no perspective outside of the "logic of the industry."
This sense of entitlement and "specialness" implanted in gamers also serves to make them think they have a "stake" in a company, or an "investment". They think they're owed quality entertainment (which is in fact, as mentioned not really "good quality"). Thus you get fierce brand loyalties and fury at companies who opt for an alternate path. I think Motomu Toriyama, for all his perceived failures as an artist evident in the Lightning Trilogy for many, but perhaps more concentrated in The Third Birthday, is a person whom I still believe had their heart in the right place. He wanted to shake up an industry which needed a damn good shaking up. People were hostile to that though, not to mention the development process of XIII was dogged by all kinds of communication breakdowns and bureaucracy. XIII isn't the best game ever by any stretch of the imagination, but you can see just barely in it the impulse to creativity and newness and pushing boundaries in a real, consequential way. I'm of the opinion that the pureness of the XIII vision has been diluted somewhat in the successive games. XIII-2 was a solid game, with a lot of positive things going on in it but it felt like it caved to gamer conservatism and videogame typicalities too much in a lot of areas. Lightning Returns again seems to cave to gamer conservatism in some areas (the whole “Lightning's boob-job” debacle) and not in others (the quite radically implemented time lapse mechanic). There's nothing that delights a company more than when gamers feel emotionally connected to a brand to a tribal degree. This "stake" they feel they have in a company is the logical and near-maximum evolution of the "specialness" and "importance" they've been endowed with by the advertisement practices of these companies. Gamers think their money is an investment, but really it's just a once off transaction that goes to a giant singular entity called profit. Profit as a whole is the only thing that is considered by these companies. They really care or have time for the individual's contribution, but it nevertheless serves a function to "big-up" that individual consumer, for this ensures that they will buy.
Such emotional attachment to a company at its best is truly disturbing; consumers think they have power and influence, but really they're just focus-testers for whatever standard the industry wants to impose for the sake of consistent profit. With that illusory power, they tell the companies what they want to hear, they unwittingly help them to construct a standard that will eventually be perfected as a means of generating profit. There's is not a power to change, it is a power that is converted into the exact opposite of change, which is stasis. They do this under the illusion that they want difference, not more of the same. But these companies have anticipated that; they implanted the desire for "more of the same" in your heads long before you could even cognise it. With advertisement, they spellbound you and made you put your faith in a standard that was illusory in its universality and immortality, and from then on, you demanded more of that same thing over and over. Your power means nothing and has no effect other than to perpetuate an illusion and a deeply exploitative practice. The more attached you are to these companies, the more you contribute towards the very antithesis of change.
Strangely enough though, Gamers always talking about "backlogs they have to get through," like it's some sort of chore. They should be grateful for being privileged enough to have a damn "backlog." They talk about "finishing up" certain games so they can move onto the next. Are they even enjoying them? It's like they just want to play them so they can say they've played them. It allows them to accessorise the games they've finished - to contribute to a persona or image of themselves. "I've played game series x and game series y": This gives them credibility or something. They just want to play all the latest big releases so they can "fit in" or something. The big releases are the "must plays" for some reason; largely just because some big company made them and advertised them relentlessly. The rich companies are the ones who are regarded as the best because money is valued the highest in this social order. Anyone who has it is an example of how to do it right in this system, and so their output must also be "right" and of high quality. Their wealth is a virtue, and anything with tons of money behind it must be as good as that expenditure was massive. Because money is so central and so valued, people assume that more expenses towards such projects must afford it more quality, but all this money goes towards is technology to make realistic physics and graphics, as well as known voice actors. Games almost invariably have dreadful writing, overwrought dialogue, juvenile treatment of themes.
Videogame awards, although obviously completely farcical, have the effect of exacerbating the above mentality. The "best" games are given awards. To the public this reinforces the idea that these types of games are actually good, which means games that are the same type as these "best" ones can be milked for profit. You've got people thinking they're good, so people will continue to buy them thinking that. The industry's direction is validated or awarded by an entity that is strongly involved with it and which is essentially "in cahoots" with it. (continued in comments)
"The Spain-based indie games publisher Firenut Games and Granada-based (Spain) indie games developer Trigger the Monster, today announced with great joy and thrill that their dark fantasy adventure/management game “Search of Light” (AKA SOL), is now available for PC (via Steam) and consoles (PS5, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch)." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Game Rant Writes "Balancing brutality and comfort is tough for any game, let alone a Soulslike, but Another Crab’s Treasure proves capable of supporting both."
Game Rant participates in the Megaton Musashi World Cup, checking out the game a little bit beforehand and winning the first round match.
It's a giant advertising ceremony whose purpose is not to present any meaningful awards for creativity or art, but to present awards in order to boost sales. Thus these award ceremonies are basically just the media telling you what to like, telling you what's cool, and what you should buy. By collectively buying these things then, you stimulate the economy, and perpetuate a system of money, as well as enrich a corporation. Fitting in socially, as I've discussed before, really means to buy the products that the corporations which run this world put down in front of you.
Such award shows then are merely just corporate backslapping at best. It's a prominent videogame media outlet getting in the good books of a publisher. Maybe it can ensure them good scoops and the money generated from that- make them insiders-, maybe it can ensure them some sort of mutually enriching arrangement between them and that publisher. Not only that, but it's SUPER high profile advertisement of a game to give it an award, so there's no doubt that they're paid A LOT to put on such a ceremony, not to mention the level of sponsorship. Advertising Mountain Dew and Doritos in exchange for the money to fund the show which then itself generates profit from those who attend, but primarily from the advances on advertisement paid by the publishers. It's a total farce, and yet it all functions to fuel the culture of entitlement as well as an industry that churns out polished turds regularly.
2. The Narrow Notions Gamers have of what Constitutes “fun.”
If games want to be taken seriously, they need to become more mature, and they need to treat their themes with the complexity, sophistication, and reverence they deserve.
So as not to glorify bad things, the game should punish those things if they are committed. That or make them as hard as they are in real life. The Last of Us, owing to the fact that the main character was an aging man, made the aiming for the guns shaky and awkward - all in the name of narrative and immersion, not to mention a certain realism. The game also made the violence pretty disturbing; a lot of people found they weren't relishing the violence like they typically would in a violent videogame.
An issue arises: Games, of all the mediums of entertainment, are probably the most "escapist." They are totally divorced and abstracted from reality in a way similar to films, but they also allow interaction with, and participation within, that abstracted space. Thus games become geared towards providing vicarious experiences which to date offer the most tactility and in many cases, immersion. However, games are supposed to be "fun." The level of escapism the medium provides has engendered a sort of recklessness in game developers - everything is fair game to represented in a videogame. Videogames provide vicarious experiences that are unparalleled because of their interactivity, and people have been quick to jump on that feature, making games that run the gamut of experience. What they're not allowed to do they create simulations of in videogames. What's more, so much of this stuff is made "fun." When people recreate or simulate these things that are socially forbidden, they don't actually know the reality of them first hand, and so in creating and developing them as games, they necessarily create representations of those things that are wanting, simplified, distortive, or all three.
People will complain if videogames lose their "fun factor" to narrative focus and all the impact this could have on gameplay. The Last of Us examples are just the tip of the iceberg. The reason for this is that games have sort of been solidified throughout their history as "fun" and as "pure escapism." People won't allow them to have any other definition and they carry the assumption that games can't be anything else but these things. But who decided that? It is an arbitrary assumption. Games can really be anything. The only reason they're not is because historically they've been sedimented into a kind of "type" or "kind" by the practices of big videogame companies. Their definition has been manufactured and relentless marketed such that people have been misled into thinking they can be no other way.
They've also had a certain idea of what constitutes "fun" ingrained into their heads. This is only because they haven't been shown any alternatives. Ideas and preconceptions about what games can be have been ground into their minds such that the alternatives don't even need to be created or developed - a stable platform for profit exists because a stable, fixed, idea of what a game should be exists. There's no real exposure to alternative ideas. This is certainly changing these days, but a lot more work needs to be done. Games have nearly three decades worth of ingrained cultural assumptions built into them. Undoing them and exploding the potentialities of games will certainly require more work.
The fact of the matter is that a good narrative and a game tailored carefully to that narrative's requirements IS fun in its own way. It's like reading a good book or watching a good film. You become immersed in a full realized world with fleshed out characters and a carefully constructed internal logic. Games rarely do any of these things right. If they do one of them right, they do the other two wrong. There is something immensely satisfying in being able to appreciate the artistry of a piece of creative work. Discovering what it all represents and means and what its trying to communicate greatly enhances the experience and is far more enriching than graphics alone. These things aren't seen as fun because quite frankly, and forgive me if this sounds pompous, the majority of gamers have terrible taste. They're content with the explosions and violence and all that other meaningless nonsense they're spoonfed.
This dilemma is pretty much manifest in Bioshock Infinite. The game has so much pretense to being arty and serious and intellectual. There's lots of big themes, cryptic dialogue, significant nomenclature and symbolism. And yet, not long after the games intro, it kicks into "videogame mode." Cue the hoards of dehumanised, faceless enemies to be mowed down artlessly by some ridiculously fetishised firearm that looks like a super soaker. Cue the relentless ultraviolence that has no reason to exist in the narrative. From that moment onwards, the games credibility is shot. Any pretenses it had to intellectualism become disingenuous and, well, pretentious. It is a weak attempt to infuse videogames with a kind of sophistication, and for players, this makes them feel intelligent and justified in their hobby. It's like their saying "See?! There's smart stuff in my games, look! Now can I please get back to killing loads of people please??" The "videogame" elements of Bioshock Infinite reflect badly on the whole project. All the "serious," "intellectual" stuff becomes dubious and suspect. Not that its message is necessarily wrong, but that actual artistic commitment and conviction behind that message is compromised and thrown into doubt. It becomes a blatant pretense.
Gamers need to snap out of it and realize that fun can take many forms. Not just the forms that have been spoonfed to them by big game companies.
3. Tech-fetishism
Now, I understand the desire people have to see their game running well. Framerates, major visual indiscrepancies and glitches- these can all detract from how a particular game was meant to be experienced. However, for many, it seems like that experience in itself is kind of throw-away-kind of secondary and unimportant. Rather, it seems PC gamers and even some console gamers see their games as a means to the end of demonstrating the power of their PCs. The games then, serve as testaments to the power of their PCs- their PCs a testament to their fetishistic knowledge and even their financial status.
It's a culture of games as benchmarks. If games companies were to continue to pander to this audience, games wouldn't really get anywhere as a medium creatively or artistically (or rather, they AREN'T getting anywhere)- they'd be too preoccupied with giving happy endings to the PC crowd with their adolescent tech-boners, for this is where the money would be. The Crysis series of games are a good example of this- the developers themselves internalised and took seriously on-board the question "will it be able to run Crysis?", which ultimately sets the creative and development processes down the road of superficiality.
It doesn't stop there. You see it manifested in the fascination with minor, near imperceptible graphical qualities. Anti-aliasing, screen tearing, "jaggies," volumetric lighting, and on and on. Now I understand that such graphical "deficiencies" can detract from the overall experience, but this rarely seems to be the priority for gamers. Instead, they invariably focus on the features themselves, rather than what they contribute to the experience. They isolate those graphical features and look at them ONLY as good or bad examples of those features. But these things don't really matter. Deadly Premonition is known to be host to pretty much the full gamut of perceived graphical "no-nos," but it's still one of the greatest games I, and many others, have played this generation. Sure if a game is just churned out carelessly and cynically and such graphical shortcomings are evidence of this, then THAT's bad, but only in relation to the entire experience that the game is supposed to be. These fetishized graphical features then also seem to play into gamer fixation with realism in games. Maybe if we're trying to render reality then, "jaggies" and whatnot are not to be desired, but it's totally conceivable that they could serve an artistic purpose in a more graphically stylized game. They're not intrinsically a bad thing, but they're percieved that way because there's an implicit directive underpinning games and game culture that games are marching towards some kind of maximum realism. It's a kind of artistic totalitarian regime, not to mention games are ONLY growing in the graphics department. They're lobotomised in nearly every other department, and although of course there are exceptions, most popular mainstream games are utterly moronic.
In general, such fetishism is a means to control and to materialistic compensation for a lack of power. You have knowledge of a very specialised and specific, closed hobby, and compensate for your lack of power by obsessing over the power of your machine. Games become mere challenges for your "rig" rather than enriching, artistic experiences. You play them merely to see your PC in action- that PC of which has become an illusory extension of yourself from which you derive and illusory sense of power.
Technology should only ever be a means to an end- in this case that end being art and creativity. For those things are what shake the status quo and broaden and enrich our minds- the humanistic possibilities and potentialities are enormous and shouldn't be stifled; we can't be distracted from them. Of course enjoyment is important too, but even this is made subordinate to PC power fantasies.
Of course I don't mean to tar everyone who's ever built their own PC with this brush. I know there are those who genuinely do prioritise the games over the tech, but it's nonetheless a pretty prevalent thing I've noticed. Just "puttin' it out there" as they say.
Anyway, that’ll be all. With what few characters I have left then I’ll conclude abruptly by saying thanks for reading, and feel free to sound off in the comments below. Ciao.