I am so gratified to read this from Gratuitous Space Battles' dev, Cliff Harris:
http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/201...ng-journalism/
QuoteI'm 45 years old. I have a bald spot, own slippers and have a pension. I play games, and so do a LOT of people my age, and a bit younger. Pretty much everywhere, everyone treats me like an adult. When I read a book or magazine, it treats me like an adult, ditto for most websites I visit, or events I go to. Except when any of those involve games. When it's games related, suddenly I am targeted as though I'm a horny and stupid 13 year old boy who wants to shout a lot and say '****' because mom isn't watching. This hasn't been something that appeals to me for about THIRTY YEARS.
...
Lets face facts, gaming will NEVER be taken seriously until it sheds this infantile image. Tax-breaks for the gaming industry? how do you make that argument to a politician my age (or older) when a quick search online for interviews with game developers shows them being quizzed by embarrassing kidults in bandanas holding skateboards saying DUDE and **** at every opportunity? You think that appeals to anyone who is in their forties? It's not just journalists. even the head people at gaming divisions for Microsoft and Sony have the tendency to start saying stupid dumb things and doing high fives on stage the minute they talk about games.
Some games are deliberately immature and silly and aimed at kids. Some aren't. All of them get reviewed by people who think they are making adverts for nerf guns. Please grow up, it is acutely EMBARRASSING to see 30+, or 40+ men pretending to be 'down with tha kidz'. The next time you are posting a video review of a game, see if you can manage it without adopting a stupid voice, and without swearing. If people can review books and movies in a normal voice without screaming and making knob jokes, I theorize the same can be done for games.
Amen, brother! With the exception of the fine company here and a few other places, sometimes I feel like the only mature guy still involved with the hobby! This is an issue that has been stuck in my craw for so long that I actually built my blog around the idea!
Come on guys! Grow up already! ;D
Link that works (http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2014/07/28/the-infantilisation-of-gaming-journalism/) ;)
It's an amusing blog entry but I can't say I've really noticed what Cliff's talking about - very possibly because I only read a select few gaming-related websites to begin with. I'm also so utterly immune to swearing that I don't notice that, either.
Can anyone post some particularly egregious examples? Which websites are the main offenders?
huw, as Rome II neared completion there were some embarassing conversations on online between developer and interviewer with 'woooohooooos', 'dude thats frikking awesome' and high 5s
lots of footage from E3 show overly-tartazined journalists talking to developers like its a who can be the most annoying c*** competition
ill try and find actual footage
Quote from: undercovergeek on July 29, 2014, 03:40:07 AM
huw, as Rome II neared completion there were some embarassing conversations on online between developer and interviewer with 'woooohooooos', 'dude thats frikking awesome' and high 5s
lots of footage from E3 show overly-tartazined journalists talking to developers like its a who can be the most annoying c*** competition
ill try and find actual footage
I've definitely seen some of this goofy shit and thought it was rather stupid in what otherwise should've been a professional interview or show.
However, I still say "****" and enjoy a good "knob joke" on occasion. It's the Peter Pan Syndrome.
no MP session is complete without a knob joke, but thats between the gamers
under the public eye id like to see it treated with a bit more gravitas but it has been the same way sice i was a kid - we had a programme over here in the 80s called Gamesmaster that had to include a wacky presenter in flowery shirt
Since then any footage ive ever seen has, as Rooks mentioned, had to allude to the skate board bandanna crowd - but then again thats where the money is i suppose. Us old gits buy one game and play it for 10 years where the console kiddies want a new one every 2 weeks (im excluding JD, greybriar, Gus and Jarhead here obviously :P)
Quote from: undercovergeek on July 29, 2014, 04:18:12 AM
Us old gits buy one game and play it for 10 years where the console kiddies want a new one every 2 weeks (im excluding JD, greybriar, Gus and Jarhead here obviously :P)
I dunno. There are many more of us here who fit that description. ^-^
I don't think the infant issue is that bad, probably for the same reason posted above...I ignore that sort of thing mostly. That said, my knob jokes are premium quality.
Quote from: Gusington on July 29, 2014, 07:21:57 AM
I don't think the infant issue is that bad, probably for the same reason posted above...I ignore that sort of thing mostly. That said, my knob jokes are premium quality.
Freud of course long ago covered this territory and summed it up with, "Real Pleasures are always infantile." Certainly a big part of my gaming experience is exactly a quest in search of infantile gratifications of various kinds: shiny things, strange noises, horribly funny old relatives to outwit :-\ (that would be the Confederate Army). Sure, I try to maintain some kind of ironic distance from my compulsive savoring of various forms of infantile folly, but a good laugh is what I usually end up with. :-\
Like knob jokes.
I think a lot of people are afraid to have fun just because they don't want to be considered child-like and consequently miss much in life and aren't fun to be around. As long as we are able to act a little like children, I think it'll keep a lot of the Real Rectums away from us. Remember your Mr. Spock, "The more complex the mind, the greater the need for play". Having said that I always try to generally act like an adult except in the presence of great Boobs. My Kryptonite. What can I say?
10 posts from OP to boobs
good or bad?
You guys can do better than that.
I think the average is 6:1. Six posts to one pair of bewbs.
l
Quote from: Sir Slash on July 29, 2014, 10:13:32 AM
I think a lot of people are afraid to have fun just because they don't want to be considered child-like and consequently miss much in life and aren't fun to be around. As long as we are able to act a little like children, I think it'll keep a lot of the Real Rectums away from us. Remember your Mr. Spock, "The more complex the mind, the greater the need for play". Having said that I always try to generally act like an adult except in the presence of great Boobs. My Kryptonite. What can I say?
Or the Cat in the Hat: "Look at me, look at me now! It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how!"
Or Arthur C. Clark: "The more like the Cat in the Hat an advanced technology is, the more Boobs will appear at the last minute in any narrative. I have revised all of my fiction -- now that I am in Heaven -- to include more Boobs."
Or Thomas Jefferson ( Rawlick, Oklahoma, July 21st, 1818 AD ) : "A Boob big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take all you've got."
I'm with Clarke. 8)
I know I am asking for it, but what is a "knob joke?"
Quote from: Johnnie on July 29, 2014, 11:51:11 AMI know I am asking for it, but what is a "knob joke?"
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Knob
Okay, I get it. For use as in: "How many knobs does it take to screw in a light bulb?" or "Two knobs and an Irishman walk into a bar . . ."
it's illuminating that in a thread about the infantilisation of gaming, we're not even 20 posts in and we're already talking about boobs and citing Urban Dictionary
Quote from: undercovergeek on July 29, 2014, 04:18:12 AM
Since then any footage ive ever seen has, as Rooks mentioned, had to allude to the skate board bandanna crowd - but then again thats where the money is i suppose. Us old gits buy one game and play it for 10 years where the console kiddies want a new one every 2 weeks (im excluding JD, greybriar, Gus and Jarhead here obviously :P)
The interesting thing is that while that is the common perception, the truth is that the average gamer is not a kid. According the the most recent survey I read, the average age of a video gamer is now 31. And if you dig into the statistics deeper, the numbers are even more interesting:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf
29% are under 18
32% are 18-35
39% are 36+
Really, the "kidz crowd" is a minority in gaming. Yet the industry doesn't reflect that at all. I think the only time I have seen gaming presented as a non-kid thing was when Walmart ran some BlackOps ads which featured what appears to be 35-40 somethings (this is still a very funny ad):
Interestingly, Pope Francis kinda endorsed video games today in his list of how to be happy (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1403144.htm):
Quote4. "A healthy sense of leisure." The pleasures of art, literature and playing together with children have been lost, he said.
;D
I have to say, the video reviewers I like the most swear like drunken sailors and tend to be rather hyper. And I kind of wish they wouldn't, as they are perfectly capable of making salient points without the colorful language. But, the colorful language does get them lots of attention. But they also strike me as people who talk that way in real life. So... I'm sure there's a chicken and an egg in here somewhere... :-\
Print reviewers however, including my favorite ones, are vastly much more professional in their approaches.
Gaming for adults = gambling.
I went to a Game convention and a middle aged woman asked me which Casinos are present.
Before I ever got into writing reviews, I of course enjoyed the hell out of reading them. I was a huge fan of Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer well back in the day before the late 90s hit. They were very well-spoken and communicated clearly, unlike today. But, I think that's just because there's tons of gaming websites now with thousands of self-proclaimed authors and reviewers (of course, thanks to Teh Internets, every asshole has an opinion now, including me).
I remember writing a letters to a PC Gamer author once, inquiring as to what it took to become a reviewer (this was pre-Internet) and he started his reply with "Wow, that was a well-written missive." So they've always had morons writing them, which honestly then was something of a surprise. Once the Internet hit in full force, that filter died a painful death. Those that are contributing for better or worse to the pool of reviews out there - those that are more aware, anyway - realized this and that they need some kind of shtick to stand out among the chaff. Some incorrectly interpret that to mean "if I get louder and more obnoxious, that'll get me more attention."
I can remember Computer Gaming World back in the Russell Sipe days, when it was written by adults, for adults.
As to boobs, I'll rely on the words of noted philosopher F. Zappa: Anything over a mouthful is wasted.
Quote from: tgb on July 30, 2014, 08:53:53 AMI'll rely on the words of noted philosopher F. Zappa: Anything over a mouthful is wasted.
You sure that wasn't Ron Jeremy?
I thought it was Linda Lovelace. What do I know? How about infantilisation of forums?
^ That's pretty much every thread. :D
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on July 30, 2014, 11:22:14 AM
^ That's pretty much every thread. :D
There's actually a better and more ancient term for all of this stuff: puerile (ie school-boy humor) -- it's not particularly
infantile (sorry Freud), but it does cover boobology and so on.
Quote from: tgb on July 30, 2014, 08:53:53 AM
As to boobs, I'll rely on the words of noted philosopher F. Zappa: Anything over a mouthful is wasted.
I'm sure that sentiment is definitively Freudian
Okay. I am just slightly drunk on red wine but I am going to rant at you f##kers all the same. Here's what I don't get: when some site like polygon gets all political and socially relevant, you guys are all "wtf...I don't need this sh*t...I just want to blow sh*t up". but then when some other sites just focus on blowing sh*t up, then you are all "why must you be so Immature? ".
FWIW...gaming is what we make it. some of us are drawn to it because of an interest in history or sci-fi or fantasy or whatever. Others like gaming because it's competitive, and still others may like it because it is a social experience even when played solo and shared publicly. In my personal experience, I always try to keep to the high road. If some goof posts about how lame steel beasts is because there are no power-ups, I'll explain that it's a sim and not a game. And if someone else complains that the rate of fire for the mg 34 is too high in call of duty, I'd explain that it's a game and not a sim.
The only way that we are going to change perceptions about gamers and gaming is to be vocal. Eventually, people and reviewers will get it.
Drunken rambling]
I'll drink to being vocal. But object to being crudely vocal Red Wine or none. This site maybe a great many things but hypocritical it is not. :-X
Not this site, slash...I think the OP and the article referenced is talking about is why in general are most game sites / reviews / previews geared towards the lowest common denominator when clearly that is not who we as gamers are. In other words: should the likes of us be more vocal on other sites, or would that be a too Sisyphean task?
Quote from: Jack Nastyface on August 02, 2014, 01:28:38 AMshould the likes of us be more vocal on other sites, or would that be a too Sisyphean task?
Why - oh, WHY?! - do you need
other sites?! ;)
There are other sites? I know what you're saying Jack. My wife already tells me I'm too vocal.
I'm in complete agreement with the OP and the Positech blog post. The problem is that I don't know if there is a solution, other than sites like this to bring people of like mind together.
A couple of days ago I had a few moments free and thought I'd hop into ARMA3 and have a go. Within about 15 minutes some late teen early twenties guy starts yelling that player X needs to switch teams so he can come over here and suck his....and there ya go.
The problem is that given anonymity, it seems a large portion of adult humanity loses all sense of said humanity. Then you have the unsupervised minors learning how to socialize on the internet with those same humanity-less adults. From this you get games of DOTA where your own team tells you to turn off your computer and go slit your own wrists.
Cursing doesn't necessarily bother me, but it should be used like seasoning. I've heard some podcasts where the obscenities are just ridiculous, almost like a computer just strung them together at random. Most likely I think it is a 'cool' cover up for a simple lack of broadcast ability.
I do wish there were more mature podcasts that discussed gaming that i could have on in the car with the kids...but that will probably never happen. The closest I've found is Aviatorcast which discusses flight sims among other aviation topics.
Quote from: republic on August 03, 2014, 10:35:40 AM
I do wish there were more mature podcasts that discussed gaming that i could have on in the car with the kids...but that will probably never happen.
One of these days....
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 03, 2014, 12:05:31 PM
Quote from: republic on August 03, 2014, 10:35:40 AM
I do wish there were more mature podcasts that discussed gaming that i could have on in the car with the kids...but that will probably never happen.
One of these days....
"Pow! Right in the kisser!?"
:))
Sisyphus (ˈsɪsɪfəs)
n
1. (Classical Myth & Legend) Greek myth a king of Corinth, punished in Hades for his misdeeds by eternally having to roll a heavy stone up a hill: every time he approached the top, the stone escaped his grasp and rolled to the bottom
Wow, Jack!
:) for even knowing that term.
:) :) For pulling it out in a red wine drunk rant!