Found a very cool article about games

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm a big fan of Richard Linklater, and I badly want to see this movie. I tripped over this article when a friend posted it on my Facebook feed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/boyhood-is-the-first-movie-to-ever-get-videogames-totally-ri#3yy26ut

An excerpt:

In several scenes, we see Mason playing games in the midst of extraordinary emotional upheaval. Right after Mason?s mother marries for the second time, blending two families, Mason and his new stepbrother play split-screen Halo on the original Xbox. It?s a bonding activity, sure, but its also a competition, a fight, and a socially acceptable one at that. Later, immediately after Mason?s mother leaves the same man for physically abusing her, we see Mason absorbed in a motion-controlled game of Wii Sports Boxing, literally punching the air. The suggestion in each case is that games are a safe place for children to re-enact, and perhaps come to terms with, the emotional and physical trauma they see in their lives. Games are often figured as a way for children to avoid reality, or worse, an echo chamber of aggression. Far from depicting games as a way children escape from the pain of life, Boyhood shows games as a method for children to deal with and make sense of it.

What?s even more impressive than the sophistication with which Boyhood treats games is that this nuance happens in a movie at all. While the broader culture will generally pay lip service to the notion of games as a worthwhile medium, most movies ? perhaps to reassure themselves of their own seriousness ? treat gaming as a shorthand for regression/a lack of ambition, or as the illicit pastime of the irredeemably nerdy. Think of Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen calling each other gay while playing Mortal Kombat in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Notably the movie isn't remotely about gaming at all, but upon reading this I reflected upon the sentiment of how rarely gaming is portrayed as anything even remotely positive in other media, and came up pretty short. Even "love letters" to gaming and game culture, like "Ready Player One", tend to culminate in hectoring screeds about the perils of over-investment in the hobby and the relative superiority of less abstract activities.

It will be interesting to see if, as younger novelists and filmmakers who grew up with gaming come of age, these portrayals will shift and become less negative, or if the cultural narrative of gaming as an adolescent infatuation that hinders or limits a character's growth will continue.

DISCUSSION VALUE FOR BONUS POINTS: Can you think of a novel, television episode, film or even a song that was not SPECIFICALLY about gaming that portrayed gaming in a positive light?

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Spaced is the best example I can think of when it comes to a show or a movie where the characters play video games. I'll include a clip to show what I mean.
It's from the late 90s early 2000s, so it's Playstation Era. But he's actually playing Resident Evil 2, holds and uses the controller normally, has the actual sounds and visuals from the game and even pauses it when he turns to talk to his room-mate. Better than the usual smash all the buttons with a turned off controller that doesn't work for that console with tonnes of bleeps and bloops that you usually get. Playing games is just something these people in their 20s do.

 

[TheRiddler]

I think House of Cards had Kevin Spacey playing videogames, and it's basically treated as normal.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I think House of Cards had Kevin Spacey playing videogames, and it's basically treated as normal.

That's true I thought of House of Cards too.

Good show.