142: Hero Worship

[edinflames]

Interesting article indeed.

I think 'Hero Worship' is more a symptom of the disease than the virus afflicting gaming itself.

Similarly, massive monetary investment into gaming isn't necessarily the root of gaming's problems.

The root of all gaming evil is, imho, the assumption on the part of the money-masters that games are 'just games' and don't have to (or can't) be anything more than mere spectacle. Then again, I'm probably just a 'games are art' hippie with too much time on my hands.

 

[FreelancerADP]

'Our Society' (the one that we all sort of belong to in the global sense) is an obsessive one. We love and we hate. LA no more has a monopoly on obsessive hero worship than any other arena, *cough* democratic primary *cough* but few obsessions have been portrayed as negatively as gaming.

Or maybe, as a gamer, I'm more sensitive to the negative portrayals.

But I digress.

Hero Worship is just one facet of the obsessions of an obsessive society. We know someone who plays WoW too much. If we have not ourselves seen the edge of 'The Pit', we know personally those who have.

I thought the article was articulate descriptive. I didn't identify with the hero worship, but I could see it.

 

[Papaya Melancholy]

On the topic of Heroes, I think they are necessary. In terms of learning to be better human beings, it's helpful and easy to look at people who do things wrong and say "I won't do that". But there are so many things to do wrong and it can be so hard to get things right that having a good example to look to is really important. A simple example of this: cooking. You have to be careful and conscientious of each thing you are preparing, but you have to prepare more than one thing at once, and there are many time restrictions for how long each thing has to be doing what where. Seeing someone who can beat an egg right while also keeping an eye on the roast and remebering to take the cake out of the fridge in twenty minutes is a lot more helpful than seeing someone burning the roast and thinking "mental note: don't overcook roast.
A more complex example would be compassion. It's easy to see someone give too much out of compassion and say "Don't give too much or you end up suffering." But if you can see someone who can truly feel compassion for other humans and help them without causing themselves harm, it is much more helpful in teaching you how to become a more compassionate person.
Hero worship is pretty bad though. The compassionate person could be a terrible cook. Obviously we don't care if the compassionate person is a terrible cook, but what about the video game designer who is a terrible leader? Or an insufferably arrogant snob? By elevating them we do ourselves no good.
I really write a lot. I guess I am just silly like that.

 

[lousyshot55]

I must say that I NEVER look at a game that is part of a series to have merit solely because it has the name of perhaps one of the best games I have ever played. As I see it, I look at Doom and then Doom 3 as two seperate entities and any merits they earn are because they individually have merit. I mean, just because the older brother of someone might be incredibly smart, sexy, funny, doesn't mean you should assume the younger brother is the same. Some of the biggest dissapointments in my life have come from sequels of popular games, Halo 2, 3, Turok, Super Mario Sunshine are some examples of games that I was dissapointed in. Same can be said for movies in a way, just because you loved Spiderman does not mean your little cup of joy will overflow when you see the Spiderman 3.
Heroes are important as models of what we should try to be but I say we should not follow to closely or else we will just be lackies and never trying to be someone else's hero for them to look up to.

 

[Sewblon]

The main problem is, as games become more expensive, time-consuming and difficult to make, and as the novelty of everything developers can add wears off, the standards for success become exponentially lower. We have reached the point where it is not worth the developers time to make something worth the players time.

 

[Donrad]

wow i feel bad knowing i am not going to be writing a wall of text like the posts before me, but that was an amazing article!!

im glad the picture caught my eye.

 

[tetron]

Congratulations on a wonderfully written article.

I tend to more idolize the game itself rather than the people who make it, sometimes even the producer for bringing the game to life. Personally anytime a sequel to one of my favorite games comes out I approach it with a "You have the name of a legend, I dare you to top it" mindset. Unfortunately with the way todays games are that has never been the case. So I play the new game and remember what gaming used to be. But in a way it makes the games I idolized before all the greater because when this mockery of my childhood legend is sour in my mouth I know that I can always go back, plug that snes in, and replay the legend that captured my heart before. Not just with a sense of nostalgia but with a sense of gratitude for what it gave me so many years ago and still does to this day. A game to give me hope for a better tomorrow in gaming.