17 thoughts on “Get Off My Lawn: A Rose By Any Other Name”

  1. As with movies before comics, they too got a bad rap (quite a bit from the performing arts).

    Only time can fix perceptions. As the older generations die, and new generations are born and exposed to video games, it becomes a normal acceptable thing.

    The thing that needs to happen though is with the games industry creating quality games and only labeling mature games that have mature story telling. This is very much evidenced by GameTrailers’ feature GT Mature that they put out every month showing off violence and gore. This just shows that everyone from developers, producers, journalists, bloggers and consumers need to adopt a more mature mind and not be so childish.

    Classifying gamers into casual and “hardcore” is just having a negative effect. You can’t bring in new people if you scare them off by saying “hardcore gamers only,” and the such. No one will want to play with you, and then that just makes things worse. This is evidenced by Live and on PC servers with people being elitist. Also people on forum boards can display this behavior.

    Give the industry another 10-15 years and public perception will be a lot better. There are art galleries that show off art inspired by games, the National Endowment for the Arts has given out money for people to create games, there are developer awards and I guess you could include the VGAs but that award show needs some serious restructuring.

    Oh, and concerning movie adaptations, there will always be hits and misses. DC comics have gotten decent adaptations with some being fantastic, while Marvel continues to have really good adaptations with some being substandard. Anime adaptations, well have a really long way to come when it comes to Hollywood produced movies (ones produced in Japan are good). Good news on the Uncharted film being that the new director will make the movie as close as possible to the first game, and none of this crap David O. Russel was trying to make with a family of art thieves.

    1. This is truth…

      As for me, dividing casual and hardcore gamers is similar to the generation gap, in that it seems mostly used as an excuse to make people feel elitist at the expense of others. Having more knowledge or passion about a subject doesn’t make you better, just more experienced.

      Making analogies to past targets of public scorn is key to the gradual acceptance of the video game medium. People often need to be reminded of things like this ever few years, if only to show that it’s all happened before. From books to movies to comic books to music to video games, maybe our passion can cut this debate short with just real maturity on the subject, and not what is simply deemed “mature” by the ratings industry.

      Lastly, what to name the medium is indeed a conundrum. Interactive entertainment almost sounds like something created to be political correct. I suggest something akin to vidies. After all, movies is just a colloquialism for motion pictures, and people seem fine with that (at least the term “talkies” didn’t take off after the end of silent films)

  3. Can’t say i agree with losing the term game (i might have a few years ago). I think the problem is simpler. There needs to be an increase in the number of non-dumb games. Things like Braid, Portal, Planescape: Torment, Shadow of the Colossus, even Metal Gear Solid when Kojima doesn’t get in his own way, those games are pretty game-like, but they’re mature, and are bold attempts to tap into the artistic side of the medium.

    The problem we have today is that the allegedly mature games are dumb as hell. Comicbooks made a lot of great contributions to the world (i don’t know this by fact, but friends have told me great things, though i couldn’t even finish Watchmen :P), without sacrificing what they are. Sure, the name change might’ve helped, but quality and maturity speaks loud, and that’s what i think matters. Otherwise, we might end up with “interactive novels” with scripts as inane as Heavy Rain’s.

    1. By the way, congrats on getting Gamersgate to sponsor these vids. I really like that site, they’ve got all my russian needs covered.

    2. With Heavy Rain I sometimes wonder if someone wrote the script with one killer in mind the entire time and then JUST before releasing the game they said “nah, let’s make it this guy. No one will guess him” even though that choice defied logic.

      But you’re right. We need less “dumb” games. Don’t get me wrong. Dumb games have their place, but if video games only have violence to offer to mature gamers, then they need to widen their range… by a LOT.

      1. Actually, i don’t mind there being so many dumb games but the the lack of not-dumb games. I’m not even asking for things like The Void (though games like it are way too hard to come by, and that’s a disservice to mankind :P), but games that take the narrative and the player seriously shouldn’t be so far and in between.

        The gaming industry has earned the “videogames are for children” mindset. Game developers need to grow up if they want to change that. I know i’m trying to 😀

        1. Perhaps, but I still maintain that labeling gaming as such was a concerted effort during the days of the NES to better market them as something different from that which caused the video game crash. Nintendo’s motives were understandable, but also hurt the industry for a long time. Wasn’t R.O.B’s gross evasion as meant as an entertainment system enough?

          During the early 1980’s, video games were played by everyone; even businessmen and women loved Pac-Man. Pretty much everyone attributed gaming as a fad after the Crash of 1983. The NES brought it back sure, but why did Nintendo feel the need to limit their audience as such. The earliest NES games were rarely more complex that the games that everyone had loved only 1-2 years earlier.

  4. I don’t have much to say besides this series is starting to become one my favorites, even with only 2 so far!

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