You’re Twisting my Arm Here Sony
September 1st, 2008
NB: As it stands the Australian dollar stands at about $0.98 American dollars, so almost equivalent, keep this in mind when reading. Of course this article was also written a while ago too.
Despite my enthusiasm for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, there was a lot of friction involved in balancing up whether a Playstation 3, at this stage in the game, was worth the $AUD750 purchase. Truth is, I am a very cautious buyer and I never like to plonk down the cash on a big investment unless I am certain that the investment with more than cater towards my needs.
Another personality trait of mine is that I hold no shame in playing games that are a few years past their used by date. So the bright lights of next gen didn’t really woo me to a great extent. Therefore if I was going to buy a PS3, I needed a real sufficient reason to do so. Fortunately for the big wigs at Sony, MGS4 was more than sufficient but it didn’t mean that the choice was an easy one by any lengths.
How Does it Feel to Play a Video Game?
August 6th, 2008
Since I first picked up a controller and pressed the buttons, to see visual confirmation on the screen, I became fascinated by games. As a child, I played them for hours on end when I could, discussed, defended and debated them in the playground, drew pictures of them during free time and art classes, read about them and wrote stories about them. Despite my interest in the medium there was and has always been resistance. By my parents who restricted play time, from classmates who stigmatized me and my friends as social inadequates, in the media whom link video games to negative social behaviour.
Throughout all of the hard times though there was something to keep me going. Something that I have faith in. Allow me to try and explain to you what it is:
When we play games there is a psychology deeply rooted between us and the experience. With the experience being feedback generated from gameplay. The interlocking of player and experience builds up an affinity within us, creating an obvious affection towards this medium. We receive visual confirmation on screen and hence relate to that, even in the slightest form. It is this affinity that I’m attempting to describe that is the core of the playing experience.
When discussing the social difficulty of being a gaming enthusiast it is easy for me to lay the blame on those outside of our collected group. This is not the case. The reason why our parents, friends, media feel this way towards us is because we have a disconnect created through misunderstanding. They have never been hit by the same impact from games that we have and no one has ever sat them down and tried to explain to them how it feels to have that impact. In a nutshell: they fail to understand and we fail at explaining it to them.
Deep down within all of us enthusiast there is an utmost love and respect for the games we play and overall we only want the best for our industry. This is, of course, very much influenced by the ‘experience of play’ which I tried to describe.
Our problem is that we fail to correctly inform our peers of the impact that games have on us. We fail to technically justify what it it exactly, within the game and all its mechanics that send endorphins rushing through our head. Infact, worse than that we still fail to justify this to ourselves. In which case how can we possibly describe it to others.
Communicative Clarity - Nintendo And Its E3 Fans
July 23rd, 2008
This morning my brother suggested that I head over to the MTV Multiplayer blog and check out an article titled: Nintendo And Its E3 Fans: A Failure To Communicate by Stephen Totilo. It was pleasingly odd that my brother recommended this article to me after my suggestion for him to check out this blog some weeks ago. The article highlights the misunderstandings among Nintendo and its “hardcore” fanbase using last week’s E3 presentation as the case in point.
To be honest, I was expecting another off the shelf smear article on the conference despite my great admiration for Stephen and his gang of writers over at MTV. What he posted was actually something that I myself was planning to write in this time slot; a clear outline of the misunderstandings between Nintendo and the “hardcore” audience that follow them. This issue has been something that I’ve been struggling to write about for a few months now and with the dismay over the conference still relevant, I figured that this was the perfect opportunity to give it another shot. Fortunately for me, Stephen summarized my thoughts much clearer than I could do myself. I strongly recommend that you read this article as it’s one of my favourite articles that I have read so far this year.
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