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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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?

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