Analyzing Contributions towards Negative Video Game Culture

May 20th, 2008

devil may cry

Video game culture; I find this so awfully difficult to write about yet so compelled to submit to the keyboard every time. Culture, culture, what is culture? It is an issue that I have been grappling with in this blog a couple of times already, each time concluding with mixed results. This time around though I think that I have formed a better methodology to approach the topic so let’s see what happens.

So Why Culture?

My interest in video game culture recently received a jump start when I read an article from Write the Game’s Keira Peney which summarized the various opinions on video game culture among us bloggers. Unfortunately I can’t say that I have read much on how other bloggers feel about gamer culture, which is probably why this article has opened a whole new can of worms which I’d like to explore.

It interested me why so many other people were also interested in gaming culture, it kinda surprised me a little as well. Once I got to the end of the article though and continued on to read the other articles referenced in the paper it all became clear. We have all been looking at culture from the same mind set.

What you’ll notice if you read any of the articles (including this one by me) is that we are all concerned about the growing negative social behaviour growing within our industry. Be it video game fandom, the negative overtones in online play and/or juvenile behaviour converging around online discussion boards; these are all issues of concern. We are all concerned because such behaviour is devouring the reputation of our industry and is restraining the growth of our identity as people. So therefore, in order to better understand this situation we have turned to culture (on the whole) as the answer.

Now that I am conscious of this I would like to step back and provide my own ideas about what elements within video game culture has spurred on this epidemic. Culture is, of course a complex issue and cannot be defined simply by a list of trends and occurrences. I’d like to acknowledge that. I’d also like to point out that culture is messy and you might notice, it is something that cannot be defined hence why I have had trouble differentiating video game culture as a whole from this negative social activity (another facet of video game culture itself).

What I am posting though is what I see to me dominate contributors to these issues. If you have your own ideas then be sure to let me know below or via email.
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Posted in Culture | Comments (2)
Tags: co-operative play, competitive gaming, multiplayer

Are you a Betting Gamer?

October 7th, 2007

If you’ve noticed my latest MSN messenger screen name(don’t worry, its changed already) then you might be strangely curious as to what it may mean. Here’s the screen name:

dp- SFA3 Betting Record = Dan +4 Beers || Chris 0 Beers ^^UNBEATABLE!!^^

What this is refering to is the betting system that I have with my twin brother in Street Fighter Alpha 3. SFA3 is such a well balanced title with no bias, it requires skill and hard work to master hence making it an awesome choice for competition. akuma street fighter alpha 3

Competition by itself would be useless without something at stake. So to heighten the drama we place bets on our winnings. Most of our play time is spent practicing, we use this time to talk about how our day was and to just warm up. When we are ready, we will choose a match to play for and then thrash it out.

Short matches just aren’t worth playing, so we set the max round limit to 5 which is the highest we can go. First one to get to 3 rounds won wins the bet.

The way we tally the winnings is by the winner’s difference. So for example, I was on 4 wins(thats 4 straight wins ) and then just the other day that increased to 5. Now today we had two bets and unfortunately my winning streak was over, I lost both matches. So then the score went down to:

Dan +3 – Chris 0

This way its easy to balance out who is the leader. When we began this bet, I lost 3 bets in a row. Then over a month or so the tides turned and I got up to my 5+ winning steak. Overall we probably place about 2 bets a week.

My brother and I love placing bets because it brings out the best of our talent. And to be honest its the only game that I have been playing lately. I’ve been too busy with work and haven’t been bothered picking up anything else. I think that I’ll wait until my latest online purchases come through before I start anything else.

There is only one consequence for our betting, our poor thumbs. Week in an week out we are left with less skin on our thumbs than the week before. Its not healthy. So we have both mutually agreed to do our best to pick up a pair of arcade sticks to relieve the pain.

So what about you and your friends/family? Do you place bets in games and if so what for? For my brother and I beer is our betting currency. What games do you play competitively with?

Posted in Editorial | Comments (1)
Tags: competition, multiplayer, patriots, Street Fighter Alpha

Getting out and about::The Social Gamer

June 30th, 2007

If there’s one thing that I sometimes feel guilty about is not being social enough. This is normally a result of me focusing too much on one particular thing and whoring it out until I am satisfied. Now I must admit, for the last 2 weeks I have been doing this for my Chinese study. I guess its a good thing though as I have made some astounding progress and am very proud of it.

Fortunately for gamer nerds like me(and probably you) I can have a great social life and game at the same time. I wanted to bring this up as I am now officially on holidays an there are a slew of great gaming events going on that are going to keep me constantly busy. Plus I had one of our regular gatherings with the boys yesterday, so it reminded me to post this. Here’s a list of what is on this holidays:

Avcon Adelaide’s Anime and Video game Convention
LPC Lan Party Central(meant to be more consoles than PCs)
Nintendo Connection Tour
O-LAN Street Geek(prolly won’t go, but its likey that my brother + friends will)

Now add to this a few general gaming sessions with the usual friends as well as catching up and doing non gaming social stuff and you have a pretty packed 3 week holiday. Don’t even let me get started on the 60+ list of games that I need to finish or future blogging plans.

I decided to post this to prove that gaming can also help out in your social life, there are plenty of great gaming events going on in your community, so I strongly recomend getting some mates together and taking a look. Even if there isn’t something on in your area create something, its not too hard to organize this sorta set up.

If you need some ideas of what events go on then here are a few suggestions:

LAN Parties

There are piles of these on all the time, everywhere. They are definetly not too hard to find. If your into your PC games then this is the event for you. Personally I’m not really much of a PC gamer(just ain’t my vibe) so sometimes they have a few consoles set up for the softies like me.

Promotional Events

These are definetly more popular in large/important places in the world. And down here in South Australia we don’t get enough of these. But in America they do, basically these events are to plug games to the public. So stuff like the Nintendo Connection Tour, the Fusion Tour or the Final Fantasy party that I mentioned in the last entry. You can also get freebies, so go there!

Expo’s/Concerts

Expos are like promo events but much larger. There are a few down here in Australia, so if we have them then everywhere else in the world must have at least a few per country. I also added concerts here for game music concerts like Eminence.

Community Regulars

Basically like LANs, but they happen on a regular basis. Usually weekly/bi-weekly. These are pretty popular at places like Universities or community centres, so look around to see whats going on in your area.

Get your mates around

Probably my favourite as everyone that attends is your friend. All that you need to do is get some mates around(usually at least 3 + yourself), get the gear and game on. This is cool as you get to choose what systems you want to play, the food etc etc. Plus there’s no sponsers. You can also mix and match, have people playing some consoles while others are on the PCs in a LAN, have a Singstar/Guitar Hero/whatever themed party.

So there you have it, go out there are get socially active fellow gamers. And be sure to drop us a little comment to tell us how you use gaming as a tool for social activity. I’d be totally interested to hear what other people do.

Posted in Editorial | Comments (4)
Tags: gaming expos, lan, multiplayer