squid5580 said:
Look I know games sometimes get a bad rap in the media. But holy crap gamers hypersensitive much? Seriously getting all nerdragey the moment a bit of justifiable negative light is shed on our hobby is only enforcing the stereotype.
godofallu said:
Wow Tyra is a total *****. Holy shit.
I would have slapped that whore of a girlfriend, called Tyra a jaded ***** and left.
If your girlfriend forces you to choose between your favorite hobby or her, she isn't the right girl.
Right how dare she ask for you to spend some time with her. How dare she ask for a little attention to tend to her needs? Or did you completely miss the part where everyone agreed that it is fine he plays games. But maybe he should step away from the controller once in a while? That maybe it isn't all that healthy to neglect real life because I R GAMER derp.
I'm gonna QFT this.
GAMING. IS. NOT. PERFECT. And the longer we, as gamers, fail to realize this, the harder it will be for people to take us seriously. Yes, most gamers out there know some self-control and can put down the controller whenever we want to. But that doesn't give us, who can do that, an excuse to blindly defend those who have lost that self-control and encourage them to continue a self-destructive habit. Just because YOU don't have a problem, doesn't mean it's impossible for it to be a problem. And I understand how the media can be misleading about games, gamers and gamer culture, and worry so much about problem gaming compared to other forms of media, but there is one bit of justification for that, that doesn't exist in other media: some games are designed to try to keep you playing for perhaps unhealthy lengths of time, if you don't have the willpower to step away from the computer or console. Perhaps we need a reminder of this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2487-The-Skinner-Box
And yeah, Webb really did do a good job of trying to defend the games guys play, and didn't just go lockstep with what Tyra really seemed to want her to say. Tyra seemed to have to stretch to try to spin what Webb was saying in her favor. But the point is, we really don't know how much this guy was really playing, and how little time he was spending with his girlfriend. Perhaps he really was spending ALL his free time outside work playing games to the point of shutting himself into his place, and didn't realize how much it was affecting others. This guy is 23, he is old enough to make his own decisions, sure. But if he has been with this woman since high school, and they were really considering getting really serious with their relationship or even perhaps getting married, sacrifices have to be made. And something that important can't be just written off just because, as the quoted post put it, "I R GAMER derp". And if we are seriously suggesting that that guy should just toss aside his girlfriend of at least 5 years to simply play more games, I think we might have to look more closely at the things we advocate for the sake of games. Sometimes, games DO cause problems, and we can't just blindly ignore them for the sake of defending the "gamer" title.
Here's another good Extra Credits on it:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2005-Gamer
So, as a friend of mine put it, "I firmly believe in calming the f**k down." All this knee-jerk reaction isn't helping the cause of bringing games into the mainstream. We've got to accept the fact that there is the bad that goes with the good of gaming, as there is with all media. Further denial of this will only set games back even further from growing into general acceptance as a good thing.
