Apologies, power and chickens

It is not unusual for me to begin posts with apologies, but this time I have two. The first is for the lack of a post on Wednesday (I didn’t get home until past 10 and was too knackered to put one up), and the second is a pre-emptive one for making not much of a post today. Not (for a change) because I can’t think of material, but simply because I am not feeling especially chipper today and don’t really feel up to making a proper one.

However, I thought I might as well take this opportunities to inform anyone who might be reading this about two things. The first of these is Earth Hour, which takes place today. This is an initiative begun by various environmental groups to raise awareness and basically be a huge-scale publicity stunt to get people thinking about their power consumption. The plan is that, for one hour, everybody who takes part is to turn off every source of power consumption in their home. This means lights, TV’s, computers- even your central heating, if you want to go really hardcore about it. The extent to which you participate is entirely your own choice- the event isn’t designed to get us living like cavemen- just to make us aware of the electricity we could be using and wasting (tip: take  the plug out as well as switching any device off- up to 10% of home electricity usage is from devices which draw power even when switched on but left plugged in). The event runs from 8:30 to 9:30 pm (at whatever your local time zone is), and every person taking part makes the event that bit more significant. It’s only an hour, so why not?

The second thing is completely unrelated to the first, and will not be accompanied by any explanation- Wikipedia has one, but that just ruins the awesomeness: http://chickenonaraft.com/

Enjoy 🙂

Freedom Bridge

I must begin today with an apology- I’m going to go on about games today SORRY DON’T RUN AWAY IT’S DIFFERENT THIS TIME! Instead of looking into gaming as a whole today I want to focus on just one game.

Before I do, I should probably give you the rundown as to what I am getting at. The majority of the population, including (and quite possibly especially) the gaming population, generally views games as a pastime- a relaxation, a release, a chance to take out some of their surplus aggression and stress on an unassuming NPC. However, some people are willing to go further, and suggesting that games be considered something special on the mass-media scale- not just another tool for making money, but a tool of expression and delivery unmatched by even TV or film. In short, some people believe that games are a unique and special form of art.

This is the subject of quite some argument among both gamers, artists and (of course, since they are never ones to let a good contentious issue go to waste) journalists, but to explain both sides of the argument would be long, tedious and biased of me. So instead I thought I would present to you a case study, an example of just what the Games Are Art crowd are going on about. I give you Freedom Bridge.

Freedom Bridge is a free-to-play online Flash game (I’ll include a link to it at the bottom). It takes all of a minute or two to play (depending on how you play it), and it’s generally about as simple as games come. You play as a single black square on a white background, able to move up, down, left or right using the arrow keys. Your movement is somewhat restricted- you cannot move up or down beyond the dimensions of the playing screen you start with, and cannot move very far to your left either. Your only choice to progress involves moving right, towards a curly line that stretches across the screen in front of you. You cannot move to either side of it- your only choice is to go straight through. As you do so, your movement instantly slows- your block is struggling to move through, and when it finally does, it is leaving a thin, sparse trail of red spots behind it. The spots are blood, and that curly line is barbed wire.

Your direction is still limited to moving right, through a large expanse of white screen broken only by you and your trail. Stopping for a while causes the spots to build up into a bigger red mass- your blood piling up. As you continue to move right, another length of barbed wire appears in front of you, and you once again have no choice but to go through it. Once again, your motion becomes painfully slow, only this time, when you’re on the other side, some of your loss of speed remains, and the trail of blood is thicker and more obvious. You may turn back if you wish, but will not find anything new- your only real choice is to press on right. All the time the sound of rushing water, playing since the start, is getting slowly louder. Another length of barbed wire appears and, beyond it, the source of the sound is revealed- a fast-flowing river, with a bridge crossing it. Once again, your sole choice is to go through the wire, and once again you are slowed still further, and your bloody trail becomes still thicker. Your movement is laboured now- but the bridge awaits. You cannot travel up or down the river, so your only choice is to cross the bridge. As you do so, your movement now slow and bloody, a shot rings out, and you disappear into a splat of blood. That’s it. The game doesn’t even fade out (well, not for a while anyway). There’s just the sight of the blood, and the sound of the flowing water.

At first glance, this barely warrants its description as a game. This is a game that makes platforming look open-world, has no levels or sub-divisions- hell, there aren’t even any characters, or clearly defined plot for that matter. There are no options, no way to win. And that is the secret to its effectiveness.

The game does, in fact, have a plot, but it’s hidden amongst the detail. Think of the title, Freedom Bridge- that bridge is the embodied representative of freedom, of escape, of liberation, whilst the barbed wire and your side of the river in general is symbolic of restraint, or oppression. Think of the wire itself- used to guard borders by oppressive regimes who don’t want their citizens leaving. This bridge could be in Korea (where it is actually based on), cold war-era Germany, Zimbabwe, wherever- it represents them all. The white landscape itself is symbolic of the bleak emptiness of the borderlands, devoid of care and emotion. Think of the way it ends- the sound of the water very gently fades out to nothing, but for a long time the scene doesn’t change (and when it does, it’s onlt for some rather poignant context). Your death doesn’t change things, doesn’t make the world a different place. The world is uncaring, you appear immaterial, and all your sacrifice has done is coloured the earth red. And then, think of the game element itself. If you were to just hold down the right arrow key, you could replicate the experience almost exactly by watching a short video. But the effectiveness of that video? About zero. The important detail is that you have a choice of how to proceed. You can, if you want, go up, or left, or down, you can try to look for the thinnest points in the wire, you can try to see if there’s another way across the river- if you wanted to, you could draw pictures with your own bloodstained trail, or even (if you had rather too much time), turn every spot of white on the map red with it. The point is that you have all this choice, unavailable if this were simply a film, but it doesn’t make a scrap of difference. No matter what you do, the game is still going to end with you as a splat of blood on that bridge. This is a game about inevitability, and whatever you do in it, you are only delaying the inevitable. Death is inevitable. For the poor soul trying to escape their oppressive regime, there is no way out- only the icy grip of death awaits them.

Without the element of choice that the game offers, this message simply cannot be delivered with the same effectiveness. The experience of it cannot be replicated by a film, or even a piece of art- this is a an experience which, when thought about, can be immensely harrowing and poignant, and yet cannot be replicated in the same way by any classical art form- only the interactivity of games allows it to be quite so special. Some people argue that this kind of experience cannot really be called a game. But even so… if the experience that delivers isn’t art, then I don’t know what is.

To play Freedom Bridge, follow this link: http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/freedom-bridge/flash

Facebook was not designed for arguing

I spend far too much time on Facebook, as do several of my friends on it who happen to a) be the sorts of people who have very strong views on EVERYTHING and b) don’t mind letting the rest of the world know. This mixture, when added to liberal amounts of free time and internet access and left to simmer, is a potent cocktail, and one which has resulted, in the past, in some vicious arguments below (often rather innocuous) posts that seem to gravitate the loud and opinionated towards them. I have found, from experience, that it is all too easy to get drawn in to making a ‘Just to say …’ comment which will, several dozen notifications and a few hours later, result in me posting a 3-page essay denouncing Conservative ideology and ruing the moment that I even considered posting a comment in the first place. So, why exactly do such arguments tend to proliferate on facebook, of all places?

I mean, taken simply as a concept, the whole idea seems stupid. Facebook is a social utility, something to chat with your friends, organise events, and stalk people you have an unnatural obsession with (which I should point out does NOT come from personal experience). It’s a relaxed thing, all about making the sharing of information about people you know, with people you know, easy. If you want an argument over politics, crime or hipsters (all things that have been the subject of vehement facebook-based argument in the last couple of weeks among my friends), then that’s what forums are for. Or even, you know… real life?

So if Facebook is such an unsuitable platform for argument, why is it the source of so many? A few ideas spring to mind, beginning with the level of separation from the argument that the internet in general provides. Arguing in real life can be a stressful experience, especially if you’re up against a more confident experienced, or even physically intimidating opponent, and it’s easy to stumble over your facts and words. However, arguing online is a different case entirely- rather than being delivered real-time, points are delivered in chunks, each one of which can be individually prepared, edited and researched without the other party knowing. This allows one to take a more ‘armchair’ position on arguments, making them feel more in control and confident, and less likely to back down. Arguing online isn’t a full-on task either- you can be having multiple other conversations, reading something, playing a game, whatever, at the same time, which further decreases the stress and increases the relaxation and separation associated with arguing, making the participant even less likely to just back down.

Then there is the Facebook notification system. Unlike forums, where receipt of comments is generally achieved by refreshing the page, Facebook actively goes out of its way to tell you when someone has had the next word in an argument- a bright red flash in the top left hand corner, a notice flashing up in the bottom left- hell, it even gives you a little number in the name bar so you know something’s happened from another tab. There is no way to escape the knowledge that the argument has been proliferated, that someone has made a provocative comment that is just asking to be shouted down. And with that knowledge in mind, it becomes very hard to ignore  and leave well alone. Not only that, but because notifications don’t go away unless responded to, Facebook will allow you to keep an argument going several hours, or even days, after the last time you commented. In the real world, a topic of conversation is rarely brought up twice in any short space of time, but I have seen one argument on Facebook extend itself over 3 consecutive nights.

And of course there is the people Facebook connects you with. There is the fact that just about everyone capable of reading this will have a Facebook account, unlike the sparse population of some forums, and the fact that the people you will be connecting with are people you know (which makes the argument more compelling to stick with). Then there is the way that people tend to spend much of the time they spend online not doing very much, making them bored and very susceptible to distractions such as a long argument- there is similarly far less chance of them, if they are spending a large chunk of time on Facebook, suddenly having another engagement which will cut the argument short. Facebook is, in short, connecting lots of young (and therefore quite likely to have strong opinions), bored people to one another’s provocative comments- arguments are bound to proliferate from there.

I could go on here, but as you may be able to tell from my style of writing, I am not feeling altogether… well, all together this evening, so shall conclude here. Arguments on Facebook do happen, that much has been explained. But that doesn’t mean that they should- all they ever end up doing is pissing off everybody involved and quite a few people who aren’t. It’s just not worth the bloody effort.

Six Nations wrapped up

OK, you can come out from under the sofa all you rugby-haters- this will be my last post about the great game for a while now, I promise, as I deliver my last set of awards to the sides in this year’s Six Nations, this time for their performances over the tournament as a whole. For me, this year’s has been a bit of an inconsistent one- some matches have been epic to watch, and there have been some really great moments, but then again a few games (the second half of Scotland-Ireland immediately springs to mind) which have bored me out of my skull. Still, as an Englishman it was nice to see Stuart Lancaster’s side play such great rugby- I can only hope that he gets a chance at the full-time job.

Now, onto the awards, beginning with SCOTLAND, who claimed both the wooden spoon (in a disappointing 5-game whitewash) and the Potential Does Not Equal Results Award for Biggest Discrepancy Between Squad Quality and Results. Scotland’s side contains some real gems of world rugby, and a few players in this tournament shone especially brightly. David Denton was a revelation at No.8, his barrelling runs and general go-forward belying his inexperience, and was well backed up in this regard by his giant lock, 22 year-old Richie Gray, whose powerful running and dominance of the lineout look set to make him a giant of the game over the next few years. John Barclay has always been a flanker of great quality, but even he was outshone by his counterpart Ross Rennie in this year’s tournament- he seemed to be absolutely everywhere, in every game he played, and was my pick for player of the tournament. Behind the pack, Mike Blair and Chris Cusiter were back to their formidable bests as they fought over the no.9 shirt, and Greig Laidlaw proved a great catalyst in attack for the Scots- his almost try on debut will go down as one of the best touchdowns I have ever seen. Max Evans and Sean Lamont were useful as ever in the threequarters, and young back 3 players Lee Jones and (especially) Stuart Hogg provided some deadly incisive running and finishing that the Scots have lacked in the past- and they have been backed up by a coach in Andy Robinson who not only has one of the highest win ratios of any Scotland coach ever (the third-highest, at the start of the tournament), but has done much to try and drive this Scottish side out of their perpetual doldrums. I could go on. And despite all that quality, all that skill, Scotland finished… last. Lost everything. Even to Italy. How the *&$% did that happen?

Speaking of ITALY, their award is up next: the …Oh Yes, I Knew There Was SOMETHING Different Award for Most Understated Arrival of a new coach. After last year’s World Cup, the Italian authorities finally decided to dispense with the services of Nick Mallett, the charismatic and successful South African who had lead the Italians to some (for them at least) impressive results, and helped bring them closer to the pace of modern world rugby. In his placed stepped Jacques Brunel, whose lofty aims at the start of the tournament centred around being title contenders within three years. Generally throughout a coach’s first term in office, he is the subject of much media attention, as was England’s caretaker coach Stuart Lancaster. Brunel on the other hand… well, he got a bit of hype on the first weekend- lots of camera cuts to him in down moments looking pensieve, or elated, or… well it’s kind of hard to tell through his superb moustache. But after that, he sort of faded out of the spotlight, lacking Mallett’s sheer charisma and beaming smile in front of the camera, , and only being referred to as an impassive face whenever his defence leaked a try. Even in the Italian’s win over Scotland (which so far gives Brunel a 20% win rate), I only saw one camera cut of him. Or at least, that’s the picture I got from the British media, anyway.

On to IRELAND, clear winners of the Oh, Just Make Your Bloody Minds Up! Award for Biggest Selection Headaches. Coach Declan Kidney was not presented with an easy selection task- not only was his captain, leading try scorer and national talisman Brian O’Driscoll injured for the entire tournament, which only compounded the age-old battle at fly-half between Jonny Sexton and Ronan O’Gara by offering the possibility of playing them together, but vice-captain Paul O’Connell’s health was similarly in doubt, Donnacha Ryan was pushing for either his or Donncha O’Callaghan’s place in the second row, Sean Cronin and Tom Court were challenging up front, and media pressure was building to replace powerful ball-carrier Sean O’Brien with a more natural openside flanker. Kidney stuck to his guns with O’Brien, but elsewhere he was forced into lots of compromise and chopping & changing. He tried out several centre combinations involving a mixture of Sexton, Fergus McFadden and Keith Earls, and later on had to cover for a bad drop in form for long-term centre Gordon D’Arcy. Up front, he dithered over whether to play Ryan or O’Callaghan alongside the strength and imperious form of O’Connell, before O’Connell’s injury finally forced his hand into playing the athletic but slightly weaker second rows alongside one another- a move that backfired spectacularly when, forced to bring Court on early against England, his pack were shunted all over the pitch and completely demolished in an imperious English scrummaging performance. Kidney tried his best, but this year selection-wise, it was not to be.

Now we come to FRANCE, who take the Er, Aren’t You Supposed To Improve With Experience? Award for Progressively Deteriorating Performances. The third team with a new coach this season, France began with a performance against a determined Italian side that made the other teams sit up and take notice- a clinical showing  that some predicted would put them at the top of the pile come the business end of proceedings. This was followed up by an equally clinical display against a spirited Scotland side displaying some newfound invention and incisiveness… and then things began to get patchy. Next up against Ireland, they were two tries down by half-time and only some ground-out penalties and a now-familiarly devastating run from monotonous try machine Wesley Fofana helped them salvage a draw. Their next display was more… well, French (ie fluid and free-flowing), but it was rather forced to be after a blistering first 20 by England, and even another Fofana try couldn’t prevent a two-point loss. Finally, they hit their nadir against Wales- admittedly a quality side who won the Grand Slam that day, but their win was by a single try. For the first time in the tournament, Fofana didn’t cross the line, and the French side as a whole seemed rather lethargic for huge chunks of the game. Tense? Certainly. Compelling? Yes, especially considering that there was a Grand Slam (and possibly a championship) at stake. But a good performance? Er, no. Bear in mind that these guys, with almost exactly the same squad, got to A FRIKKIN’ WORLD CUP FINAL.

To the top two, where the impressive ENGLAND took the See Johnson, Experimentation DOES Work Award for Most Impressive New Squad Performance. A lot was made at the start of this tournament about the youth and inexperience of the England side- there were 5 new caps on the first game of the tournament, a 1-cap captain and a second row pairing whose collective caps total didn’t go above 10 until the Ireland game. The biggest unknown was, of course, Owen Farrell- the son of coach and dual-codes legend Andy and a rising star in the Saracens squad, having won the Premiership with an impressive kicking performance last season. His first two games were at inside centre, allowing old head Charlie Hodgson (‘Chargedown Charlie’) to take the bulk of the pressure off him at fly-half- but prior to the game against World Cup semi-finalists and later Grand Slam winners Wales, Hodgson was injured and Farrell, aged just 20 and with two caps to his name, had to step into the most pressurised position on the pitch, whilst still maintaining kicking duties. He has famously said that the Wigan U-11’s immunised him to boos whilst kicking, but his performance under so much pressure was frankly amazing- combined with another trademark kicking technique (this time involving a glare out of the post that seems to dare them to move out of the way), there are many (me included), who find it hard not to draw parallels between this young, blonde, northern fly-half cum centre with a wicked boot, resolute temperament and a great control of the game and the legend that is Jonny Wilkinson. He was by far the only impressive newbie- Ben Morgan’s running quickly became a bedrock of the side from No.8, Chris Robshaw (captaining from openside) proved a sublime cheat at the rocks, the new centre pairing of Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilagi look set to be a dominant set of bulldozers in the future, and new coach Stuart Lancaster has quickly made himself very popular with the rugby press- but of all of them, it is perhaps Farrell who best epitomises the meteoric rise of this young squad.

And finally, to winners of both the Grand Slam and the OMFG, That Is Never Going To Stop Being Epic Award for Single Best Moment Of The Tournament Award, WALES. Welsh fans would pick out several moments that I could here be referring to- perhaps any of Alex Cuthbert’s tries? No, although they were quite good. Then maybe some of Dan Lydiate’s barnstorming tackles? No, although he was by far the best defender of the tournament and the kind of guy who will make the life of selectors (and David Pocock, come to think of it), very difficult come next year’s Lions Tour. What about the moment of victory itself, the winning of the Grand Slam? Again, no- sure it was great for the Welsh fans, and it was wonderfully tense, but that moment is very much supporter-specific. No, the moment I refer to goes back to their very first game, against the Irish, and Wales’ other giant winger George North. Everyone who saw the moment knows exactly what I was talking about. It epitomised rugby- the speed of the step, the power of the hit, the grace of the offload, the sublimity of the move as a whole. For those who didn’t see it, and for those who, like me, just want to see it over and over again, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72CC9AaoNx0&feature=related

Enjoy 🙂

For the third time, bad time management has got the better of me…

… and as such, I will not be making a full awards ceremony for the last round of the Six Nations. There are three reasons for this:
1. Should be fairly self-evident from the title- it is now 7:15, and I have to be out by 8:00
2. Since it was the last weekend, and because Wales won the grand slam, this particular weekend’s action has been pored over in minute detail by every rugby journalist north of Rome, so anything I post will be even more of a waste of my time than usual
3. Despite some great results on Saturday, none of the games were particularly… alive. Both of the first two games were decided by a single try (in both cases the only one of the game), and while it was certainly rather entertaining for a purist to laugh at the scrums in the England-Ireland match (spontaneous joke interlude: I’m going over to Ireland tomorrow. Its the new home of the flat pack (badum-tish)), they didn’t exactly set the game alight. Really, the games were just a bit dull for me to comment on with any great enthusiasm.

However, never let it be said that I miss a duty when I can avoid it, so I will be doing a summary awards ceremony for the entire tournament on Wednesday (or Friday if my schedule catches up with me, as well it might). I also include, to conclude, a summary of the teams’ performances:

Scotland: Capitulating
Italy: Capitalising
France: Capricious
Wales: Clinical
Ireland: Crumbling
England: Captivating

 

Some things are just unforgettable

What makes an amazing moment? What it is that turns an ordinary or mundane event into something special, something great, something memorable, something that will stick in the mind long after countless other memories have faded, and which will be able to conjure up emotions that, for years and years to come, will send thrills of excitement shivering down your spine? What, precisely, is it that makes something unforgettable.

Is it the event itself? Sometimes, yes, that could be enough. Every so often there are moments so amazing, so surprising, so out of this world and different, that it is burned into one’s soul for evermore. The feat of athletic ability and genius, the trick or feat of skill that just seems completely impossible, the speech or book whose mere words can force themselves through the rigid exterior of the mind and imprint themselves permanently into the soft, pliable core of the soul itself. But… are these moments truly unforgettable? At the time, they may seem so, and for a while afterwards they may become something of a mini-obsession- telling all your mates about it, linking it on Facebook or Twitter, but will these moments continue to inspire and delight however many years from now? On their own… I don’t think so.

Is it the context? To take a favourite example, Jonny Wilkinson’s drop goal to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup for England. The clock was in the final seconds of the second half of extra time, Jonny was the nation’s golden boy, beloved by all, it was against old rivals Australia, in Australia, with the home media having slaughtered England in the previous few weeks. England had been building and building for this moment for four long, hard years, and it all came down to one kick (his speciality), by one man, with the hopes and fears of the entire rugby world on his shoulders… if that context wasn’t special, then I don’t know what was. This is but one example of a moment made by context- there are countless others. The young Chinese man who stood up to the tank in Tienanmen Square is one, the Live Aid concert another. But… is it everything? Is a moment being poignant on its own enough to make a moment affix itself in your memory? Or, to come at it from another direction, is a moment excluded from being special simply by virtue of not being worth anything major? Just because something is done for its own sake, does that mean it can’t be special? Once again, I don’t think so.

So… what is it then, this magic ingredient, what is needed to make a moment shine? For an answer, I am going to resort to a case study (aka, an anecdote). A few of my mates are in a band (genre-wise somewhere near the heavy end of Muse), and there is one particular gig that they have now done two years in a row. I should know- I was at both of them. Both times, the crowd was small (around 70 people), and the venue was the same. Last year, the event as a whole was a great laugh- a few of the bands were received a bit coolly, but several others had the crowd going mental- joke-moshing, pressing against the barrier, and generally getting really into the music. My mates’ band was one of the well-received ones, and their set would have been one of the highlights of the night, if the headline act hadn’t blown everyone else completely out of the water.
This year, however, things were a little different. I can personally attest that, in the intervening 12 months, they had improved massively as a band- singing was better and more coherent, music itself was flawless, and they had even gained in confidence and charisma on stage. The music itself was infinitely better, but the actual set… lacked something. Through no fault of the band, that moment just wasn’t as special as it had been a year ago, and the evening as a whole was actually pretty forgettable. And the difference between the two events? In a word: atmosphere.

The previous year, the headline act had been a… well I don’t know enough about music to genre them but suffice it to say it was on the heavier end of the spectrum, and as such the crowd were fairly wired up generally, and especially for anything involving heavy guitar-playing. This year however, the headliners were acoustic in nature- while their music was far from bad, it didn’t exactly inspire surges of emotion, especially to such a small crowd, and this was reflected in the crowd and their preferences. Thus, the whole night just did not have the same atmosphere to it, and just didn’t feel as special (there were other reasons as well, but the point still stands- the lack of atmosphere prevented the moment being special).

This, to me, is evidence of my point- that, to make a moment special, all that is required is for the atmosphere surrounding it, wherever you are experiencing it, to be special, because it is the atmosphere of a moment that enables it to bypass the mind and hit home straight at the emotional core. There are countless ways of giving a moment the required atmosphere- appropriate music can often do the trick, as can the context of the build-up to it (hence why context itself can have such a big impact), or simply the stakes and tension that the moment inspires. However it is inspired though, what it means is simple- to make the most out of a moment, go out of one’s way to make sure the atmosphere you experience it in is the best it possibly can be.

Gaming Concluded

And so I return, wiping off my smirk and trying not to laugh at anything that sounds French, back into the foray of my regular blogging experience, in an effort to conclude the topic on gaming. So far I have considered the two main complaints that non-gaming people tend to have with gamers and games themselves- today I want to get more into the guts of exactly why gaming, over so many other things, appears to be a target for particular dislike from large sections of the mainstream.

In case anyone reading is in any doubt that games ARE as much of a target as I am painting them to be, I refer you to a situation a while ago in which the American Supreme Court agreed to hear a proposed Californian state law restricting the sale of games to minors, especially ‘violent content’ Please bear in mind that these laws pop up all over the US from time to time and are always shot down for violating the First Amendment- but in this case the Supreme Court, the ultimate last line of appeal, the highest court in the most powerful nation on earth, was willing to give voice to an argument claiming, based on claims made from rather spurious studies that ‘games harm U18’s’, that games do not offer sufficient value to the world as a whole to warrant First Amendment protection. Anyone could see the law was unconstitutional- but the political voice was loud enough to get the Supreme Court to have a listen. Can anyone imagine them hearing a case proposing the restriction of film content in this way? Or TV? Or music. Of course not- but games? Whole other kettle of fish apparently.

(I could spend all day shooting this law down, but since I only know about this from an Extra Credits episode and they are going to do a far better job of it than me, I suggest you hit PATV and watch their take on it: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/free-speech)

So yeah- people and politicians don’t like games, but why? What is it that what’s basically giving a film a joystick and controls suddenly turns that film into something that everyone thinks just doesn’t matter? The reasons are, as with all such widespread emotions, many and varied, and I have certainly not thought of all of them, but here are just 3 that especially spring to mind:

1) The Social Gap

It’s no secret that gamers are a fairly predictable group of people in terms of who they are- young, often middle-class, men aged between 14 and 28 ish probably comprise at least 70% of the game-playing population (my own guesstimate, so shoot me down if you know any better figures). But, for starters, half the world’s population are female and the majority are outside the ‘game-playing’ age bracket- especially in the western world where advances in living conditions and healthcare have meant that seemingly everyone is middle-aged. Thus, gamers are something of a group unto themselves- in my social circle, for instance, just about everyone will be a gamer to some extent, but in, say, my mum’s, none of them would know the difference between Final Fantasy and Battlefield. So games become less of an all-encompassing medium, and more of a seemingly ‘niche’ product that just doesn’t seem very important to large sects of the population- particularly the small rich, white, middle aged, upper middle-class sect that dominates the western political and (to a large extent) cultural landscape. This is compounded by the fact that, unlike TV or film which have been around for years, gaming in its current, industry level, world-dominating form is really a creation of the last 15-20 years or so, so there has been little generational ‘trickle-down’- ie the more elderly sects of society will NEVER have played a game, much less grown out of them, so are even less inclined to be sympathetic towards them.

 

2) Internet Connections

As I’ve just said, modern gaming is really an invention that began gathering speed around the mid-to-late 90’s- almost exactly the same time that the internet was first invented. As such, with gaming and the web growing up to becoming the fully-fledged entities they are now almost in parallel, they have since developed a close bond. For example, a lot of internet memes, such as the whole ‘arrow to the knee’ thing, are gaming-based, and while gaming may only be relegated to a small back page every fortnight in the paper, online it has entire sites and communities dedicated to it in a way even films can’t match on the web. Unfortunately, this internet link, and especially the tie-ins the web also has to the same middle-class young men group who make up the core gaming stereotype means that a lot of the ‘bad boy’ parts of the internet that disgust big corporations and governments seem to have an inherent link to gaming- and thus gaming gets tarred with the same ‘we don’t like you’ brush. Not only that, it also gets landed with all the active dislikes people have of those sectors of the web- its juvenile and rather crude sense of humour, the potential for hacking dangers, and the generalised sexism and borderline-offensive ‘banter’. It is this, in part, which turns mere indifference to the gaming population into genuine dislike and mistrust of the medium.

 

3) Content & Style

The very nature of gaming and gameplay itself demands an action-driven plot & content style- even in the more cinematic or narrative games, what keeps the plot ticking over is you as the player actively doin’ stuff. If we make a quick comparison to films for a minute, this does happen in the film industry- action flicks for example often go for plots almost entirely driven by the protagonist’s actions over the course of the film. However, this is not the only way for a film to go- different genres, be they romances, ‘arthouse’ films, even horror movies, can push the film forward via other means, such as dialogue or even acting expression. This variety is one of the reason films are so accessible- there is something for every taste. However, the action-driven nature of games inherently limits the variety of experience delivery they can offer, which isolates large sects of the non-game playing public from giving them a chance. Basically, to a non-gamer, all games would, if they were films, have Jason Statham in the lead. Now, people not naturally inclined towards that sort of thing don’t find it so much of a problem with films because there is still space for the sort of delivery they prefer- but the image of gaming as ALL being like this makes it all seem a bit juvenile and not worth all the bother. This is a problem unfortunately compounded by the fact that the popularity of games like Call of Duty, where action is so central it seems to hide all else. This makes it seem like all modern games are about KILLING EVERYBODY- not the image that best portrays the emotion and general awesomeness that really good games can inspire. Thus, once again, an image of a medium that’s ‘just not for me’, is turned into one that is juvenile, grotesque, occasionally obscene and thus not worth the same merits as other forms of media.

This list is far from exhaustive but to me it covers the main points as I see it that make gaming a seemingly exclusive and disliked medium. What can be done about it? Well, a little just being more grown up about stuff and sharing quality gaming experiences with the rest of the world wouldn’t go amiss, as would not taking the piss constantly out of the Nintendo Wii- while it may not be a serious gaming platform, it has done more for gaming’s image than the PlayStation 50 ever could. As for any less ‘woolly’ ways out… well, do you want me to make this a four parter, cos I don’t?

Weekend=Rugby. Rugby=Blogging

Yes, it’s Monday again, and another excuse for me to relive the weekend’s Six Nations action (don’t worry, the tournament finishes next Saturday, so you don’t have to put up with me for much longer). As always, scores are at the bottom, and I refer you to iPlayer for highlights of the weekend’s matches.

We begin with ITALY‘s game against the high-flying Welsh, a game which I was unfortunately unable to watch and so have  had to cobble together a picture of from the highlights and my brother’s opinions on the game. From what I can pick up, I hardly missed much- despite Wales scoring two tries, both were uninteresting and the half-time score of 9-3 tells a more realistic picture of the game than the final score does. Italy themselves pick up the Deja Vu Award for Eerily Familiar Defensive Responses, referring specifically to Wales’ tries. Both were scored from out wide, the first by Jamie Roberts, who cut straight through the defence like a hot knife through butter and forcing Italian winger Luke McLean to turn and hare after him on the outside- not that it made any difference, with that much space in front of him. Then, half an hour later, Alex Cuthbert got Wales’ second try, smashing through the Italian line to go over in the corner, causing, once again, Luke McLean to turn, on Cuthbert’s outside, and sprint after him, in almost mirrored fashion to his run after Roberts. At least, that’s what stood out for me about the tries.

As for WALES, they can only be awarded, from what I have heard of them, the My Imagination Is Clearly On The Wane Award for Least Award-Worthy Performance. Wales were undoubtedly clinical and efficient in their dispatching of Italy, only conceding 3 points to what was, admittedly, a weak Italian kicking side. They were also clearly incisive enough (when it suited them) to score twice- and yet this week, for the first time in this tournament, I have yet to read a single match report concerning their game containing the words ‘spectacular’, ‘nerve-wracking’ or ‘breathtaking’. Efficient, they may well have been, but inspiring? Entertaining? Creative of anything to really stick in the memory? No.

On to SCOTLAND, who not only won the Are We Done Yet? Award for Most Tedious Second Half (after a fast, competitive first half capped by a superb try, the second saw a grand total of 10 points scored, all Irish, and Scotland being about as proactive as a disabled hippo), but also the But He Was Your Man! Award for Most Baffling Defensive Moment. I refer, of course, to Ireland’s second try- with the Scots holding their line strongly, the pressing Irish won a ruck near the corner. Somehow (no camera seemed able of picking up how, in any case), the ball shot out of the back of it, surprising everyone concerned and allowing several delighted Scotland defenders to leap towards it with relish. However, Irish scrum-half Eoin Reddan was there first and, in a single instant the Scots lost the plot, the ball, and quite possibly the match. All three of the defenders going for Reddan appeared to be expecting him to drop it, and all seemed to dive for the space behind him rather than the man himself. As such, all of their ‘tackles’, simply bounced straight off him, leaving a presumably both bemused and delighted scrum half the wrong side of the defensive line, allowing him to dart over for a score. Oh Scotland, what will we ever do with you?

IRELAND follow Scotland’s lead by claiming a defensive award, this time for the Biggest Schoolboy Error. As every coach will tell you, the cardinal sin for any player, and particularly a full-back, is to follow a pass rather than the man, for thus are dummies sold and tries conceded- a lesson Rob Kearney learned with painful clarity on Saturday. Scotland had strung together another attacking move when their blonde second row giant, Richie Gray, suddenly made a break down the right and was bearing down on Kearney, running a very slight angle to the outside. Whether it was this angle, the fact that the ‘slow forward’ Gray had a winger unmarked outside him, or simply fear of getting crushed under the 6’10” giant we may never know, but either way Kearney made a fatal error. Instead of simply smashing into Gray’s legs and trusting in a mixture of defenders and blind faith, he ran straight in front of Gray towards the winger, leaving clear space for the lock to sell an almost apologetic dummy and crash in for Scotland’s first and, as it transpired, only try of the game. Ah well, chalk it down to karma I suppose.

And now to what was undoubtedly the weekend’s most interesting game- England v. FRANCE. Both sides played some brilliant rugby, and it is with a little sadness that what most sticks out to me about France’s game wins them the Ah, We’ll Get Over Eventually Award for Least Clinical Finishing. England blitzed the first 20 minutes, but France managed to wrest control back for about the next half-hour, and in the minutes before half-time they looked especially dangerous. They made several clean line breaks, not least through everyone’s new favourite centre Wesley Fofana, but all they ever seemed to gain from them was field position. This can partly be attributed to a splendid defensive performance from England full-back Ben Foden, but to concede as many opportunities as they did, especially for a team who, on the opening weekend, I thought were by far the most clinical side, almost flirts with carelessness. The most obvious example came from a Fofana break in the second half. For a moment, Fofana had a perfect window of opportunity- about five metres away from both Foden and the chasing defenders, he was short on space, especially to the outside, but inside him scrum-half Morgan Parra must have been screaming for the ball. One pass, and France were a try up with an easy conversion under the posts. As it was, Fofana swerved left, was hammered by Foden, and the chance went begging. On such margins are famous victories won and lost.

As for ENGLAND, it’s hard to think of an award that best sums up what was a great day for the side- fast, fluid and full of ambition. But, in a weekend of some superb hard-running action, No. 8 Ben Morgan has to take the Wrecking Balls Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me Award for Most Devastating Break. Early in the first half, with England already a try ahead, the French put a kick up to Morgan. Much was made in the analysis afterwards of the staggered nature of the French line, and how spread out it was, but this does not detract from the fact that, with next to no time to gather himself, Morgan pouched the ball perfectly, before setting off on a devastating run in which he beat four defenders without so much as breaking stride, before clattering into a fifth and delivering an outside offload to Foden that would have made Sonny Bill Williams start making embarrassing noises. In that one move, Ben Morgan made the try that set the platform for a famous English victory. I may even forgive him for being Welsh.

Final Scores:
Wales 24 – 3 Italy
Ireland 32 – 14 Scotland
England 24 – 22 France

Gaming continued…

Okay, gaming again (I have got to get a LOT better at writing only one post per topic). Last time I did my own analysis of the ‘games make people violent’ accusation so often levelled at them. My plan was to devote this post to expounding upon a number of other issues that people tend to take with gaming, but part way through writing it I realised that the only ones typically levelled at gaming by non-gamers could all be basically grouped under one heading, so you instead are getting another in-depth analysis of a single complaint about gaming

So, without further ado…

2) ‘Games are a waste of time/are antisocial/make you fat’
The one my parents always used to take serious issue with, and if I’m honest it’s a perfectly valid concern. Games tie you to a computer or TV screen for hours upon end, seemingly endlessly shooting bad guys, running through cities or conquering vast swathes of human civilisation. Not only that, but this time there is PLENTY of evidence showing how this can get out of hand- game addiction can get to be a serious problem for some people, to the extent that it starts to have a seriously debilitating effect on the rest of their life (For a good example, check out this: http://extra-credits.net/episodes/game-addiction-part-1/ and then move onto part two. I would also recommend checking out some more of Extra Credits if you get a chance- they do some really great video lectures on the subject of gaming, which can be kind of nerdy but really good to watch). I’ve never been sufficiently in to games to get properly addicted to them, and even the most game-obsessed of my friends only fit into the ‘hardcore-but-still-casual-gamers’ bracket (for most of them, gaming is just the main thing they do outside of the day-to-day, and as such the hours tend to rack up a bit. This might also explain why so many of them are single). However, everyone knows the stories of the addicts, the people who’ll complete the latest Call of Duty within a few hours of release, the people who spend 10 hours a day on World of Warcraft and refer to everyone as a noob, the people who somehow allow Starcraft II to be the national sport of South Korea and whose actions per minute rate make a concert pianist look lazy and sluggish. Then there is the stereotypical image that gets lambasted and piss-taken by the internet generally, and that has entered web culture as the very picture of the stereotypical hardcore nerd gamer- the obese mid-twenties guy, living in his parents’ basement fuelled by energy drinks and fast food and dedicating his life to Star Wars, being angry on the internet, and gaming. Lots of gaming. This image may be largely fanciful, but its very existence shows that there is a world of game addicts to point and laugh at, and the fact that they are there points to the existence of game addiction as a large-scale problem.

Clearly, addiction to games, just as with nicotine, alcohol or adrenaline, can be a very dangerous thing, and I am not even going to begin to defend the indefensible by denying that fact. But what about the rest of us? What about the casual gamers, the people who like a few hours of Skyrim of a weekend or whatever? What about the few hours we like to kill- does that qualify as ‘wasting time’?

It is quite easy to say yes to that idea- I mean, lets face it, games are not something you do to demonstrate your superlative contribution to the human race. Think of people like Ranulph Fiennes, Ellen MacArthur, Nelson Mandela or any other inspiring figure who springs to mind as an example of the pinnacle of human achievement in their field. Now, ask yourself- can you picture any of them spending 3 hours on a sofa playing Battlefield? Chances are the answer’s no.

However, there is one thing in this argument that I take issue with, and which leads me to reject the whole ‘waste of time’ idea- the very concept of a ‘waste of time’. Yes, whilst gaming you are not in any way being productive- but neither are you doing so if you are watching TV, playing in the garden, going to a film, chatting with friends, reading a book- I could go on. Even the most amazing people on earth need their down time occasionally, when they can stop being special and just be themselves- just be happy in the state of absorbed flow a good film, book or game, both digital and real-life, can inspire. People play games as a release, a way to relax and enjoy themselves. Different emotions may make you want to play different games (you would not, for instance, play a dark survival horror game to chill after a long day), but the point stands- one plays games to take your mind off the day-to-day, to compel oneself, and to enjoy oneself. Your brain needs that down time, that time left to its own devices, where the pressures of work and school aren’t constantly chipping away at it. Productive? Of course not. Waste of time? Not a chance

Way more punctuation than is probably strictly necessary*

I am not a ‘gamer’. Well, certainly not one by the popular, semi-obsessive, definition- I like computer games, sure, and I spend a reasonable amount of my time playing them, but they’re not a predominant weekend pastime, and they are far from being a focal point of my existence.

However, part of the reason I am wary to get into games is because I have an annoying habit of never wanting to let an argument die, and given the number of arguments I see online and elsewhere on the subject of gaming, its probably best for all concerned if I give in to my better judgement and give myself no reason to join in (I could spend an entire post talking about arguing online, but that’s for another time). Gaming is a topic that causes far more argument and controversy than it appears to warrant, both within the gaming community (which is normal for any modern mass media- film and TV fans argue among themselves too) and, more interestingly, between the gamers and the ‘rest of the world’. For such a rich and massive medium, this, frankly seems odd. Why such argument? Why so much worry from parents and politicians? Why are gamers always thought of as seemingly laughable, the stereotype being an overweight nerd cocooned in his basement at 3am fuelled by Mountain Dew and chips? Why, basically, do people not like gamers?

I should pause at this point to say two things- firstly that the image I portray here of the prevailing attitude towards gamers is just what I have picked up from my (actually pretty limited) interactions with the non-gaming community, and second, that this is probably going to have to be a two parter. The first will aim to lay out the complaints lain at gaming’s feet by the main protagonists (and a few other things besides while I have the opportunity), and the second will go into my favourite question: why?

So, what exactly is it that people seem to dislike about gaming? The list is quite substantial, but can basically be broken down to (in no particular order)…

1) Modern gaming encourages violence/desensitises people to it
This is probably the biggest one, and the one to which politicians and such make the biggest deal over, and it’s not hard to see why. The hypothesis seems perfectly reasonable- modern games such as Battlefield and Call of Duty are violent (true), and the general lives of everyday people aren’t (true). Thus, the only exposure gamers have to this level of violence is through these games (basically true), and since this violence doesn’t hurt anyone real (true), they subconsciously think that violence isn’t actually that harmful and this desensitises them to its effects (okay, here we’re getting into speculation…)
There is some evidence to support this idea- watching people playing FPS’s and similar can be a quite revealing experience (next time you’re watching someone else play, watch them rather than the screen). Sometimes there are smiles and gentle laughs as they’re playing for fun (evidence point 1- the violent acts they are performing onscreen are not really registering with them), sometimes there is a quite alarming sense of detachment from the actions they are performing on screen (evidence point 2- the sign of conscious realisation that what they’re doing doesn’t really matter), and sometimes people will get seriously aggressive, gritting teeth, shouting and swearing as they bite the dust once again (third, and most compelling, point of evidence- people have gone from being ambivalent about the consequences in a scenario in which, let’s face it, there are no consequences, to getting genuinely aggressive and yet simultaneously compelled to play by such action sequences)
The fundamental flaws in this idea are twofold- firstly there is the simple “Well, DUH! Of course they’re lackadaisical about all the violence- THEY KNOW IT’S NOT REAL, SO THEY DON’T CARE!”. Plonk the average person, even a game-hater, in front of an FPS, and their prevailing emotion will not be the writhing under the chair screaming in abject terror that they would most likely demonstrate if they were really suddenly transported to a gunfight in Afghanistan or somewhere. The second flaw is based more upon the fundamentals of human psychology-  people and animals, at a fundamental level, respond well to action and violence. It’s in our nature- in the distant past it was necessary for us to prompt us to go out and hunt for food, or to make us run rather than go rabbit-in-headlights when the lion appeared in the path ahead. Plus… well even before games, guns and swords were just damn cool. Thus, you cannot complain at a person getting really into a violent game (which, by the way, has had millions poured into it to MAKE it compelling), to the point where they start to feel it is semi-real enough to make them slightly aggressive over it. With a world that is nowadays largely devoid of violence, this is about their only chance to make contact with their inner hunter, and unleash the adrenaline that entails. This is why a soldier, who gets plenty of action in his everyday life, will not relax by playing CoD after his patrol, but a suburban child will. People are not, from my point of view, getting aggressive from playing the game too much, but merely during the experience the game provides.
The case study that always gets quoted by supporters of this argument is inevitably ‘The Manhunt Murder’, referring to an incident in 2004 when a 14 year-old boy (Stefan Pakeerah) in Leicester was stabbed to death by a 17 year-old friend (Warren LeBlanc). While the authorities put the motive down to attempted theft, the victim’s parents insisted that their son’s murderer was obsessed by the game Manhunt. The game itself is undoubtedly bloody and violent, rewarding particularly savage kills, and so too was the murder- Stefan was repeatedly stabbed and beaten with a claw hammer, a method of execution the game features. The event has since be seized upon by those worried by the the violence in modern gaming and has been held up repeatedly as an example of ‘what can happen’.
However, the link is, according to many, a completely invalid one. The only copy of the game found at any point of the investigation was found in Pakeerah’s bedroom (his parents claim it was given to him by LeBlanc two days prior to his death), so if his murderer was ‘obsessed’ by the game, he didn’t play it for at least 48 hours previously. Perhaps more importantly however, only two people involved in the scenario blamed the game itself- Stefan’s parents. His father described the game as: “a video instruction on how to murder somebody, it just shows how you kill people and what weapons you use”. However, the police and legal authorities, at all stages of the investigation, said that LeBlanc’s aim and motive was robbery- gaming did not come into it.
This ties into the results of several research studies that have been made into the possible link between virtual and real-world violence, all of which have been unable to come to any conclusions (although this may partly be due to lack of data). My thoughts on the matter? Well, I am not learned enough in this field to comment on the in-depth psychology of it all, but I like to remember this: as of 2009 (according to Wikipedia, anyway), 55 million copies of Call of Duty had been sold, and I have yet to hear of anyone getting killed over it.

Okay onto part two… actually, 1200 words? Already? Ach, dammit, this is looking like it’s going to be a three-parter at least then. Saturday I will try and wrap up the complaints levelled at the games industry, the Six Nations series will continue on Monday, and Wednesday I’ll try and go into whys and wherefores. See you then

*Now let’s see who can get the gaming reference I’ve made in the title…