Jimquisition: Gamer Guys

[Goliath100]

My point remains the same - why does the priority need to be adaptation at all? If novels work better than movies as the basis for a video game, then shouldn't something designed with a video game in mind be a better fit than either? Rather than adapting books because they might work better, we should be coming up with new ideas that will work better because that's what they were written for.

In a ideal world all that would be true, but we don't leave in a ideal world.
1: There will always be adaptations from one medium to another.
2: Great adaptations demand creative thinking. It's a easy way for innovation too.

 

[RichardThompson]

I found this was quite good, but taking a juxtaposing scenario to bring light to the mediocrity of "dying nerd culture" and "hate to girl gamers" made it a little difficult to follow; I found myself getting a bit muddled up when you flipped from one topic to another at very short notice.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Jim could never fit in there. He's too.....Awesome! Yeah, awesome....
<__>

Anyway, xD Ya killed me again Jim! You really don't do thing half way, do you?

Thank God for you Jim. [sub](And I don't just say that because it makes me look like a Geek Boy. I also really mean it. ;D)[/sub]

Did we learn our lesson then?

I have no idea what your talking about.

Also, don't mean to kill your hopes, but Jim is already married. Or he was the last time I checked.

 

[Vegosiux]

But again I ask: is that any excuse to treat people who have done nothing wrong poorly? If you have psychological baggage, then you should either deal with it, or at least accept responsibility for what happens. If someone has a bad experience with a black person, that doesn't make them becoming a flaming racist "okay." They're still going to be responsible for what they say and do, and being racist is still not acceptable. If they can't bring themselves to treat people with respect, then the only responsible course of action is to get help and separate themselves from those situations as much as possible.

But that's just the thing. Where's the line between simply "being cautious around black people because of a prior bad experience" and "being a bigoted racist"? And remember, in this case, this is a case not of "being black" but "utilizing traits commonly attributed to black people". There's a difference and the people who know it can shamelessly take advantage of it.

A "gurrrl gamer" isn't necessarily female, they're simply someone who's utilizing female sex-appeal in order to get ahead. Guys do that too. Quite commonly, actually.

So if a person's baggage regarding women is really so great that it's preventing them from treating them with a certain level of respect and decorum, then they need to isolate themselves until they've got it under control.

Oh no. No no no no no. I'm sorry, but you're off the mark here. Isolation will only serve to make the confirmation bias worse. It's a vicious cycle, and isolation is not something you'd want to enforce unless the person in question is clearly and obviously a physical danger to themselves and people around them.

You can't just run around for your entire life being a total asshole and hiding behind "Oh, but I have issues with my past!" every time someone calls you out on it.

Agreed on this one. But, to go on with an analogy, as a rule of thumb if you meet such a person, write down a therapist number for them and hand it to them; and only go medieval on their ass if they refuse to see reason.

 

[SonicWaffle]

My point remains the same - why does the priority need to be adaptation at all? If novels work better than movies as the basis for a video game, then shouldn't something designed with a video game in mind be a better fit than either? Rather than adapting books because they might work better, we should be coming up with new ideas that will work better because that's what they were written for.

In a ideal world all that would be true, but we don't leave in a ideal world.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. We don't live in a perfect world, so we might as well content ourselves with adapted versions of proven stories rather than strive to create new stories that are a better fit for the medium? Great Expectations is a popular book with clear long-lasting appeal, but would you rather play the FPS adaptation or a totally new game I've just made about Bubbalicious, a levitating horse who can fire flaming daffodils out of his ears? One might be a great story, but that won't necessarily translate to a great game story, whereas the story for Bubba's Equine Quest was created to be a video game and therefore the narrative structure is designed to fit a game rather than the game having to be fit in around the narrative.

1: There will always be adaptations from one medium to another.

Correct. This does not mean those adaptations should take precedence over new IP.

2: Great adaptations demand creative thinking. It's a easy way for innovation too.

But great adaptations, as you pointed out earlier in this thread, are few and far between. What we get more often is an game being hampered to fit around the established story rather than being designed to work hand-in-hand with the medium of video games.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Gamer Guys

Jimquisition travels to another time and another place, examining a world taken over by gamer guys and their testosterone-addled inanity. Something must be done!

Watch Video

I hear you on the "gamer guys" the "bro gamers".

I know some of the video was suppose to be jokes, but the method of calling people out and saying they aren't gamers, isn't exactly a perfect one. Heck I had never even heard of the game you said that the guy on facebook didn't know about.

I've been gaming for 23 years of my 27 year life, and I've definitely haven't seen or heard it all. Plus, obscure Japanese games have never been my thing, not really from the lack of interest, but from lack of funds for collecting and brain space to remember all aspects of gaming I come into contact with. Heck I've read and watched tons of articles and videos on "retro games", and I still learn things and see games I hadn't heard of.

Gaming and games are just so large a medium that I think there really aren't many certain questions that can be asked that are truly fair to determine who is a gamer and who is leech along for the blood-sucking ride. I would think a quiz would be in order, though the problem would be that it has to be administered where the person can't look things up on the internet. Though I think that "friend" of yours on Facebook showed how much of a true "gamer" he is, by not even faking that he knew it by making a quick Google search, because some gamers can get embarrassed(not that they need to be) that they don't know something about their hobby, that they will search for the answer so they can give it to try and hide their ignorance of certain gaming minutia.

But again, I'm rambling and going to deep into this.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Also, don't mean to kill your hopes, but Jim is already married. Or he was the last time I checked.

J-Jim? Married? SAY IT ISN'T TRUUUUUEEEEEE!!

w/e. I'll just put him on the list of people to seduce from their husbands, right after George Takei. [sub]Mmmmmmm[/sub]

Wife actually. Got a kid too. Short of.

Also,

 

[thebakedpotato]

So am I... I go out and wear my company T Shirt to see if I can get a free drink. All that happens is I end up talking to the bartender about what games they like.

I did once have a barman compliment me on my Penny Arcade t-shirt!

Well, I say compliment, he told me he wasn't going to mock me for ordering cider because Penny Arcade is awesome. Same thing, right?

Which company, out of interest?

I can't really say... NDA and whathave ya.
I can say that I live in Austin though.

 

[Vhite]

At some point, sex just stops being relevant. However it works both ways Jim, so be careful not to attract too much of a crowd.

Also since things were reversed I expected to see something like this.

Spoiler

 

[Winnosh]

Here's the thing that I don't think people are talking about. Yes the whole Stigma of Fake Gamer Girls is Effing Stupid...

But there are fake Gamer girls. Just like there are Fake Gamer Guys! This is a thing that has always existed There will always be people trying to profit off of a fandom without being in said fandom. But who are we to be the gatekeepers.

If someone starts out as a fake fan and then likes it... Then they're a real fan.

 

[JarinArenos]

Is it really 40%+ of the gaming population that reacts in this way? If that's really the case, there really is no hope for it. As far as a valid solution, I'm really just leaning towards a more sociological approach, not simply getting into shouting wars that no one wins. I've seen such tactics applied, and the minority always just ends up oppressed, and feeling alienated from their own community. Sound familiar?

Not to be a bit too blunt or heavy-handed about it, but I'm sure that the holdout enclaves of the KKK and similar groups feel oppressed and alienated, too. (and yeah, I'm introducing a far bigger issue for comparison, dissimilarity of size doesn't mean there isn't a parallel.)

Talking about an issue helps change the popular acceptance of it. There's plenty of people who don't think there's a problem simply because they don't think about it. Typically because they're the ones being catered to. A bit of education can go a long way.

 

[Starik20X6]

I reckon it's just a sadder, more pathetic version of the hate placed on "casuals", as well as a heaping spoonful of virgin nerdrage.

When you can pretend that 'no girls are into your hobbies', you can twist logic hard enough to believe that is the reason no girls will go near you (and that it's not your overwhelming body odour, your half-formed, unkempt neckbeard or your completely unfounded superiority complex).

But when there are undeniably girls enjoying the thing you enjoy, you have to stretch logic well beyond the breaking point in order to keep that illusion going. So, clutching at straws, you come up with this insane narrative that it's some conspiracy carried out by girls in order to... do... something, what exactly the supposed end-game of this apparent nefarious plot is I've never been able to figure out.

Yes indeed Captcha, it is a 'no brainer'.

 

[JarinArenos]

But there are fake Gamer girls. Just like there are Fake Gamer Guys!

Reminded of this guy I saw on a "game news" snippet on some entertainment channel or something. Talking about "super mary-oh world" so very enthusiastically, when it was obvious he'd never heard of it, and kept blatantly mispronouncing things. And no, he didn't have any sort of accent otherwise.

 

[Nurb]

I'm getting sick of this forced gender debate. There have always been chicks into gaming, all guys knows that. They've been in our circles of friends for years and not treated any differently.

What people seem to be angry about but unable to put into words is that:
-Video gaming has been traditionally a "nerd thing"
-The "nerds" have usually used video games or comic books as fantasy escapism because of some sort of social damage
-The "nerds" includes girls who've been in our circles of friends for since ever.
-Starting around 2007ish mainstream culture started liking bits of nerd culutre
-This gets more people interested in traditionally "nerd things". This includes gaming.
-These new people suddenly start trying to make the sub-culture change to suit them, and paint the nerds as "bad people" if they disagree.

In the case of gaming and gender, a very small, very vocal minority who says they speak for all women and all feminists decides nerds are conspiring to keep women out of games and using games to oppress them, label anyone who disagrees as "misogynists", "Women Haters", and potential rapists. This is what started all the "nice guy" hate that labled socially awkward nerds users of women and has groveling on forums about how "I don't want to be one!".

All this with the help of the gaming media, so fearful of being called any one of those things, suddenly starts shaming gamers with finger waggling articles and videos about how awful we all are without questioning the reasoning or rationality behind it all. Did women not exist in gaming for the past 10-35 years? Were the nerd girls made silent by big bad nerd boys? Is there not an increasing number of women in game development?

And as for the newbies having their "nerd-cred" questioned by vets... how do you think sub-culture works? It's always been like that no matter WHAT it is.

Seriously, what's your first reaction to a suburban teen white boy who says he's a hardcore rap fan?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Jim, stop betraying me with your enormous penis and manly charisma! It's very distracting.

 

[JarinArenos]

And as for the newbies having their "nerd-cred" questioned by vets... how do you think sub-culture works? It's always been like that no matter WHAT it is.

And if the reactions were the same, you would be right. But they're not. I've not seen or heard of a single example of a male cosplayer getting randomly quizzed on his character to "prove he isn't a fake geek". Meanwhile, this happens to female cosplayers all over the place.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

In the case of gaming and gender, a very small, very vocal minority who says they speak for all women and all feminists decides nerds are conspiring to keep women out of games and using games to oppress them...

I think they're just speaking for themselves. Where does Jim or anyone else say they are speaking for all women? You do know it is possible for men to have opinions about gender, right?

This is what started all the "nice guy" hate that labled socially awkward nerds users of women and has groveling on forums about how "I don't want to be one!".

WTF are you talking about?

Were the nerd girls made silent by big bad nerd boys?

Pretty much. Not just nerd girls, but also nerd boys with different ideas about sexuality, etc.

And as for the newbies having their "nerd-cred" questioned by vets... how do you think sub-culture works? It's always been like that no matter WHAT it is.

Gaming is no longer a subculture. In any case, subcultures mostly suck for these reasons. People shouldn't be treating each other this way, regardless of the context.

Seriously, what's your first reaction to a suburban teen white boy who says he's a hardcore rap fan?

That it's a completely normal thing?

I haven't looked up the statistics lately, but I believe that young, white suburban males are by far the largest consumers of rap music. So, it would be completely unsurprising for such a person to be a fan of it.

 

[spiffleh]

You're kind of my hero Jim. Thank god for you indeed.

Also: Never been called a "fake gamer girl" yet. Here's hoping it'll never happen.

 

[Goliath100]

We don't live in a perfect world, so we might as well content ourselves with adapted versions of proven stories rather than strive to create new stories that are a better fit for the medium? Great Expectations is a popular book with clear long-lasting appeal, but would you rather play the FPS adaptation or a totally new game I've just made about Bubbalicious, a levitating horse who can fire flaming daffodils out of his ears? One might be a great story, but that won't necessarily translate to a great game story, whereas the story for Bubba's Equine Quest was created to be a video game and therefore the narrative structure is designed to fit a game rather than the game having to be fit in around the narrative.

But great adaptations, as you pointed out earlier in this thread, are few and far between. What we get more often is an game being hampered to fit around the established story rather than being designed to work hand-in-hand with the medium of video games.

My point with the ideal world thing is that you are working off an idealist logic where people will be creative for the sake of creativity. Which isn't the case. And yes, choose source material is important, therefore nobody suggests to make an FPS out of Great Expectations. Here is the thing: In the translation from one medium to another things will be changed, and figure out how to make something work in a medium it wasn't designed in is a challange that pushes the envelope. If you are just using established formeulas you will not think creatively, and you will just end up stagnating.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

I'm a bit lost here. Are "gamer girls" really such an issue? I've actually never met any of these caricature gamer girlz that some people seem to be complaining about. What year is this?

Oh, oh, sir I know this one. Its 2013.

Anyways, I have no problem with girls ciaming to be gamers as long as they're not on about facebook games.
Hell my sis plays ff games and fire... it begins with an e but i cant spell it.
I forgot the point i was trying to make.