[link]http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article07151001.aspx[/link]
This is a bloody weird article. A friend of mine sent it to me as part of our ongoing debate about whether games can be called art (I'm for, he's against, for the record). I was following it perfectly well (and it was making some good points about how a game can immerse you and affect your emotions) up until the point it stopped being about art and started being a lecture on the addictive properties of gaming and how it can divorce you from reality. According to the below quote, this guy eventually got to a point where he was snorting coke to stay awake and play more video games! At that point I had to scroll back up to check whether this Tom Bissell is a fictional character, but no, it seems that this guy really is that crazy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that video game addiction exists, but in just about every case I've read about the addict is hooked on a certain game; WoW, Modern Warfare, Starcraft etc. They don't seem to be addicted to video games as a medium because that is not how addiction works! A drug addict is addicted to a drug, not all drugs. Give a heroin addict some hayfever medication and see if he enjoys that as much as his smack. Sure, they'll get high on something different when they can't find their drug of choice, but it isn't what they're craving. These game addicts fixate on a certain game and play it to death, in some cases their own literal death, but the addiction is to the game rather than video games in general.
Even if you only apply his words to single-player games, then the problem seems to lie with him rather than the games. I don't feel lonely playing a game unless the game (I'm looking at you here, Fallout 3) is specifically attempting to create the sensation of being small and alone in a big empty world. Earlier in the article he's quoted as saying that gaming can be so immersive that "you lose track of your manipulation of it, and its manipulation of you, and instead feel inserted so deeply inside the game that your mind, and your feelings, become as essentially crucial to its operation as its many millions of lines of code". How does that stack up? If you're so immersed that the world feels real and you find yourself caring what happens to the characters, what keeps it from being a "real experience"? You still feel the same emotions, you still react to new information, you still care about what happens within this virtual world. That, to me, is a real experience; something that makes me feel.
Oh, and one more thing; when the fuck did a video game promise "a rich and meaningful connection to the world"?! Video games are escapism, the same as books and movies and, of course, drugs are. They are a distraction from the real world, a way to get away into a story that is not your own, not a way to enhance your own life. If you want a rich and meaningful connection to the world, go get laid or get pissed with your mates, but if you just want to spend a few hours having fun and forgetting your problems, play a game.
Am I just crazy, or is this article a big pile of crazy gibbering?
This is a bloody weird article. A friend of mine sent it to me as part of our ongoing debate about whether games can be called art (I'm for, he's against, for the record). I was following it perfectly well (and it was making some good points about how a game can immerse you and affect your emotions) up until the point it stopped being about art and started being a lecture on the addictive properties of gaming and how it can divorce you from reality. According to the below quote, this guy eventually got to a point where he was snorting coke to stay awake and play more video games! At that point I had to scroll back up to check whether this Tom Bissell is a fictional character, but no, it seems that this guy really is that crazy.
OK buddy, you know what? You feel cut off from life and as if video games are the only way you can feel anything? I'm going to guess that's the SODDING COCAINE! I've known a fair few gamers in my time, and even the most hardcore of them never took drugs so they could keep playing. To enjoy playing while fucked up, sure, or just happened to be playing games while high, but they never tried to pretend that the games were the root cause of the drug use. It sounds to me like this guy is trying to avoid saying "I'm a drug addict" by blaming his other "addiction". I personally don't believe that his gaming habit is an addiction.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that video game addiction exists, but in just about every case I've read about the addict is hooked on a certain game; WoW, Modern Warfare, Starcraft etc. They don't seem to be addicted to video games as a medium because that is not how addiction works! A drug addict is addicted to a drug, not all drugs. Give a heroin addict some hayfever medication and see if he enjoys that as much as his smack. Sure, they'll get high on something different when they can't find their drug of choice, but it isn't what they're craving. These game addicts fixate on a certain game and play it to death, in some cases their own literal death, but the addiction is to the game rather than video games in general.
There's such a strong emphasis in this book/article on gaming being something lonely, something to replace human interaction with simulated characters. This attitude totally ignores online gaming and MMOs, not to mention the sheer number of - very busy - forums and comments sections (hi guys!) where people go to talk about video games. I'm not quite sure how he's managed to miss this stuff; he claims to have been gaming for a long time, and to spend most of his time playing games, but has apparently remained ignorant of the massive social networks that exist within the gaming culture.
Even if you only apply his words to single-player games, then the problem seems to lie with him rather than the games. I don't feel lonely playing a game unless the game (I'm looking at you here, Fallout 3) is specifically attempting to create the sensation of being small and alone in a big empty world. Earlier in the article he's quoted as saying that gaming can be so immersive that "you lose track of your manipulation of it, and its manipulation of you, and instead feel inserted so deeply inside the game that your mind, and your feelings, become as essentially crucial to its operation as its many millions of lines of code". How does that stack up? If you're so immersed that the world feels real and you find yourself caring what happens to the characters, what keeps it from being a "real experience"? You still feel the same emotions, you still react to new information, you still care about what happens within this virtual world. That, to me, is a real experience; something that makes me feel.
Oh, and one more thing; when the fuck did a video game promise "a rich and meaningful connection to the world"?! Video games are escapism, the same as books and movies and, of course, drugs are. They are a distraction from the real world, a way to get away into a story that is not your own, not a way to enhance your own life. If you want a rich and meaningful connection to the world, go get laid or get pissed with your mates, but if you just want to spend a few hours having fun and forgetting your problems, play a game.
Am I just crazy, or is this article a big pile of crazy gibbering?
which is a lot) but i dont need either of them
