Jimquisition: Taking Videogames Seriously

[plainlake]

I dont realy take this guy seriously..

 

[Frostbite3789]

Couldn't agree more man. It's infuriating to hear "You know, one day you're going to be older, and you won't have time for video games". Well fuck, if that's the case, I hope I die young. I never want to be at a point in my life when I need to work work and work some more. Who's business is it what I do in my free time? I guess my future wife.....but if she's not cool with me playing video games, she's probably not my wife.

My go to response that I've found rather effective is, "When are you going to grow out of books, music and movies? I mean, who has time for entertainment, right?"

 

[LookingGlass]

Wow, I didn't know that anyone liked Alien Resurrection. Alien 3, sure. I've only seen the director's cut (apparently a lot better than the original release), and that was OK. But people like Alien Resurrection too? Interesting.

 

[Aprilgold]

Who do we want to take games seriously?
The people in governments who might ban them otherwise, and perhaps influential people who has a reputation of being able to sway peoples opinion about them and yes that includes Fox News?
It's more that as gamers we don't want laws that will inhibit us from playing video games.

No, we want them to stop being considered a fucking toy. Man there are colleges dedicated to making films and writing novels while we can't get the funding and were pushed into something of toy making with fucking hasbro.

While the law has something to do with it, if the perception of games being for kids and a toy for kids changes to a thing for everyone, then the laws will stop. Its not like those people who put up laws to try and ban X thing, people will believe the person spewing it because no one else wants to explain what X thing is.

You made it sound like only gamers want their hobby to get taken seriously but people in pretty much all forms of media want that.
Movies and books are taken more serious because they're much older then games so it seems to many like most people look down on games, whether that matters or not is debatable of course but it's normal human behaviour wanting others to acknowledge things you like, so I don't see the problem.

So true, its like going home and showing Mommy Film and Daddy Book your brand new thing called Games, they look down on you because of age, despite the true matter of how serious you are.

I don'...

well mabye this "taken seriously" thing is less about what other people think and more about us wanting games that arnt targeted toward 14 year old boys

That is exactly what I was going to make a rant about, thank you.

 

[Akimoto]

It's kinda funny when people take games too seriously i.e ME, Tanuki Mario.... It's the developers and publishers that should be taken seriously me thinks.

Captcha:ntberte lausanne) - someone's been listening to The Police. Really? Lausanne?

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Why the hell should I care if Jim likes Alien 3 or not? He's a fucking VIDEO GAME CRITIC.

...

thatsthejoke.jpg

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Taking Videogames Seriously

When will games be taken seriously? Why isn't anybody taking videogames seriously? How many times can Jim say the word "seriously" in a single video? Does any of it matter? No. None of it. Ever.

Watch Video

When? Why, we're talking about a billion-dollar industry... but making Roger Ebert play videogames seems just as questionable to me as the notion of having Jim Sterling tearing Jane Fonda a new one by releasing his own workout videos. At least the latter would be somewhat fun.

People seeking Roger Ebert's four thumbs up on videogames or car engine pimping generally can be considered as being somewhat confused and, as our local holy preacher guruman Jim the Exalted put it, insecure.

Maybe, though, it's a sign of our chaotic and diversified times.

Consider John Doe, who studied history and learned speaking Mandarin while being bored at high school, suddenly talking about nuclear power, cold fusion and other things that are mostly none of his melon farming business. He once read a book about it by someone who also happens to believe in aliens. Oh, and he discussed it with his vegan friends, many times.

He should be hit on the head with a frying pan and sent to some Gulag where the only power is the one you get from burning wood, or the one his muscles get from stale bread and a warm cup of boiled snow. Yet a lot of people find their own insignificance, ignorance and fear so important they elevate John Doe to be their leader, spokesperson and general Mr. Knowitall, which usually leads to centuries of shenanigans and asshattery. But that's how we the sheeple roll. We're so much more intelluhgnt than animals, yet we hardly ever elevate ourselves above our instincts.

Then again, I sometimes wonder... was it consumers, escapists that first went to Roger Ebert for his blessing, or was it marketing parasites trying to cash in on He Who is Roger Ebert??

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

As for Alien 3 and Resurrection...I haven't seen either all the way through. I should fix that, especially since they're both apparently better than AvP.

...and that's why Bob handles the movies and Jim preaches about video games (and everything else). Hah. Gotcha.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

I like this point, it's a very legitimate point and it was well made. I haven't, however, faced this problem. Maybe because I live in the UK? I don't know, games aren't important over here but I've not seen them vilified either, not like I see from the States.

Regardless I completely agree, especially when it comes to groups like Fox and the Daily Mail, if they take you seriously then odds are you're doing it wrong anyway, their endorsement is a BAD sign.
Oh and I wasn't a fan of Resurrection, 3 was okay but 1 and 2 were the best. AvP was terrible unfortunately, the second one more so. Had promise too, which sucks.

 

[TJC]

Usually, I tend to agree with Jim with a resounding HALLELUJA FOR JIM but he's quite wrong on this one... or rather, he simplifies the issue to a ridiculous level.

Yeah, I get it: whining nerds who desperately crave for attention and validation are annoying but those are just idiots. People who actually want video games to be taken seriously do this because they want games like "Six Days in Fallujah" become reality.
Why is it that there can be movies or books about certain subjects but a game "ridicules" or "disrespects" it? That's the thing that annoys the hell out of me. That's what I mean by "being taken seriously" not getting approval from What's-His-Face McMovie-critic (I mean... who was that guy?)

But then again, it's not really the mainstream (FUCK YOU FOX NEWS) or other people I ask for srsns but the game industry itself. You can beg and cry and whine all you want and people will still not view your favourite pass time the way you do. And that's okay. But when I see what EA and Activision do to ("advertise") their games... that's just shameful. How Konami backed out of publishing Six Days of Fallujah... that was just FUCKING shameful. It shows that the game industry itself oftentime considers video games to be nothing more than mere toys.

 

[Thamian]

Honestly, Jim's mostly right but not totally, atleast from where I'm standing. Roger Ebert and so on, yeah, seeking validation from them, complete waste of time effort and energy. About the absolute limit to responding to their bigotry is to ask them if they've ever played the games that they're lambasting, and proclaiming their opinions to be invalid when they finally admit that they haven't. And let's be honest, when it comes to Fox News, nothing's going to change their tune short of nuclear holocaust or hell freezing over, so once again, a complete waste of time.

However, politicians and high level jurists not taking them seriously as an art form, that has the potential to be massively damaging to the industry. Take for example that US Supreme Court decision last year/earlier this year. If they'd decided against games and gaming, that it was not a legitimate art form, the results could have been diabolical.

The problem we have as a community, is that due to idiots like Murdoch, Ebert and the rest, the impression that we get of the people making the laws that can have a massive impact on us, is that those people don't take us seriously. That they view the industry (as someone else said earlier in the thread) as 'toy makers gone mad'. Yes ok, we are getting more and more of an impression via their actions that they do, but still...

 

[Carnagath]

Ok, Alien 3 was watchable, but it had the... worst... CGI... I have ever seen. Period. And I don't mean in Hollywood. Fucking Angry Video Game Nerd has better CGI than Alien 3. From a point on it became impossible to watch the movie for me because of all the giggling and facepalming.

 

[For.I.Am.Mad]

I think this shadowy group is composed of a lot of dads.

 

[Chadling]

In my case, what bothers me is not that videogames aren't taken "seriously", but rather that the current stereotype of videogamers seems to only have shifted from mouth-breathing man-children who live in their parents' basement to idiot fratboys who only buy the latest map-pack in their favorite shooter. Idiot fratboys with a strange, homoerotic love for teabagging, and all the social graces of an overgrown two year old.

It's not much of an improvement.

 

[Dhatz]

All bronies know what he means.

 

[team star pug]

Great episode. That ending was strangely uplifting.

 

[mad825]

Come on Jim, Why should I take this episode seriously when I already take gaming seriously? *shrug*

 

[veloper]

well mabye this "taken seriously" thing is less about what other people think and more about us wanting games that arnt targeted toward 14 year old boys

That is exactly what I was going to make a rant about, thank you.

Yup, we want the game publishers to take videogames seriously. They do matter.

 

[SageRuffin]

I didn't really like Alien Resurrection, but I never understood the hate that Alien 3 received, I thought it was pretty damn good.

Both could've been better, but they weren't terrible I think. To my understanding the producers of 3 didn't like the original script and kinda made shit up as they went along, and Resurrection suffered from extreme script changes itself (and I've read that it was originally penned by Joss Whedon). Alas... meddling.

This subject kinda works into the shit that's going down with MLG and the FGC. MLG wants the rowdy world of fighting games to go to a more professional stance so the FGC can get more money and be more taken seriously. To me I don't care if the community isn't TV or family friendly.

A frequenter of SRK I see. And one that is not choking on their own sexual fluids at that. A rare combination indeed. I commend you sir/madam.

And the crazy thing about that argument is how some people are saying that apparently both players and commentators alike need to, say, dress in suits and whatnot. For a fucking video game. I can agree with keeping the language PG-13 since you may get the odd kid or young teen or some such (e.g. Noah the Prodigy), but having to dress up for a tournament is just overkill and unnecessary.

Does this mean people are finally gonna shut up about the whole "Games as an artform" thing too? And yes, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection were pretty damn good. You can't not like a movie featuring Ron Pearlman and Xenomorphs.

Agreed on both counts. I still think video games are more an amalgam of various artistic mediums than a medium in and of themselves, but I won't get into that right now.

And you forgot about him making out with another dude right before the end credits.

I don't cry out about how games are being dumbed down or simplified "for the console kiddies" (which is a massive insult, because how many current-day gamers can honestly say they only grew up with a Commodore 64 or Amiga or something and never had an NES? And this very website has plenty of people who got into gaming because of Nintendo or Sega, or even Sony) and I don't get insulted when the likes of Blizzard tries to appeal to a wider demographic with WoW.

I could kiss you for these two sentences alone. Of course basic simplification isn't the problem - sometimes it works (Skyrim, the control scheme for Marvel vs Capcom 3), and sometimes it doesn't (some of the more recent BioWare games, arguably). I think the "PC Master Race" (I'm generalizing here, I know not all PC gamers are like this) tend to think that all the ultimately unneeded complexity is supposed to be a status symbol or something. I'm not even gonna pretend I understand it all.

Aside: One argument/debate I've always wanted to have but never got the chance to indulge in is someone saying that RPGs are more complex than fighting games. Shame really... I'd love to compare and contrast.