briankoontz said:
I've frequented two messageboards - Quarter to Three and The Escapist and there's minimal analysis of gaming itself in either place - though plenty of analysis of games. Some very good novels have been written, including Masters of Doom, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, and Jacked: The Grand Theft Auto Story but they cover only a small part of gaming.
Again you aren't looking in the right places, on youtube you'll find plenty of videos discussing gaming/nerd culture, the cultural implications of games, gaming journalism etc
I partially agree with your point that Gamers lack introspection (there does need to be a lot more of it) but your claim that the most mature, intense or interesting criticism regarding the culture and cultural implications of video games come from outside is nonsense, I don't think I have ever seen a single person outside of gaming culture give an interesting or accurate comment or assessment of said culture.
Gaming has a long history of a lack of self-examination, which it makes worse by focusing on the worst possible external critiques. We all remember the "Dungeons and Dragons as Satanic" craze of the 1980s, and the reason we remember it is that gamers themselves want to trivialize and demonize all dissent, so they highlight and focus on the stupidest critique possible. A confident person highlights the BEST criticism of him, in order to improve himself and to show his own faults. A terrible person highlights the WORST criticism of him, because he's too scared to face the reality of who he is.
Except that's not true at all, it was the mainstream media who decided to make the demonization of Tabletop RPGs and Video Games the popular 'dissent', gamers had no choice in the matter and your claim it was they who established it as the main criticism because they are weak cowards who wanted to ignore legitimate dissent is laughable, they responded to it more than any other criticism simply because it was the most commonly used criticism by the mainstream press.
This began at the very dawn of modern gaming, with nerds demonizing their enemies the jocks for being "mindless brutes" who obviously aren't intellectually capable of criticizing the "more highly evolved" nerd.
What a stupid tired cliche that is, very few people held such views and your attempt to pigeon hole complex, abstract things like people or subcultures into a thought terminating cliche like they are one-dimensional characters in a cheap sitcom is boring and crude.
The "nerds" therefore established a clubhouse for members only (the D&D roundtable populated by daring rogues and noble knights) with everyone else looked down on for being "normal" by which the nerds meant "stupid and useless".
I don't know what D&D circles you played in but I don't recall any such prevailing attitude, I've found most people in the gaming community to be very open and non-judgemental, I do recall in highschool the odd person with the sort of bitter attitude to 'jocks' you describe but they where rare.
"Cultural reality" also examines the reasons why gamers play games. Are they trying to benefit themselves, or are they trying to be addicted?
What are games? Are games toys, drugs, art, and/or something else? What *should* games be, and why?
What is the significance of the plasticity of games, that games are so malleable, much more so than any other art form?
Again there are plenty of videos and articles discussing such things.
