3 ms·
This article is weird. It sort of addresses the solution to it's problem while it's problem is also almost non-existant. 1 - not every medium is for everybody.
by Vaskivo 10y ago
This article is weird. It sort of addresses the solution to it's problem while it's problem is also almost non-existant.
1 - not every medium is for everybody. Getting my friends to play videogames (or getting my few gamer friends to play niche/weird game I recommend) is something I already gave up. I don't dislike cinema, but most of the movies the are made simply don't appeal to me. There's nothing wrong with cinema. I'm just not that attracted to the medium.
2 - the author's friends' attitude to videogames. This shows lack of knowledge, lack of humility and elitism. Just because they don't know any games that "change you as a person" or cater to their "cultural preferences and interests" that doesn't mean that there isn't. People should be humble when judging other things. I don't like hip-hop. But I don't assume it is all bad or that I will dislike it all. Sturgeon's law applies both ways, and to everything.
3 - about the author's suggestions. I like the suggestions. I thought Skyrim would be a bit too heavy to a new gamer (specially to one who was really on the fence) but it worked! It showed the power transposing ourselves to a new world and live within it. And that Lidya story.. It was the best outcome it could happen. Sure, Kristina later abandoned the game. But the theme wasn't of her liking. But it showed her a glimpse of what is possible.
4 - I dislike the demonization of the bulk of the medium. Sure, there are a lot os FPSs and violence and twitch-reflex action games. We have Call of Duty as we have Katy Perry and Transformers[0]. And these get a lot of imitators and visibility and money because... there are a lot of people who like these things ans are willing to play for them. And this is OK. Niche stuff, out of the mainstream is always harder to find.
Finally 5 - The author is there and clearly knows videogames. If a friend wants to try videogames you should, like the author said, ask what they like or expect to see and direct them to a game like that. Skyrim is a good choice. Papers please is also nice. Maybe a puzzle game. Or a walking simulator to someone who just wants to experience a story in his own pace. And maybe you could, I don't know, give them Call of Duty. They might enjoy it. And they might even dislike everything. Because, as I said, not every medium is for everybody. but The demonization os the mainstream simply shows a clear lack of understanding of the market and an extremely "hipseristic" attitude.
[0] - I'm using these as an example of something low-brow, made for the masses. This is only my opinion and you are free to enjoy them and regard them in whatever way you want.
- saint_fiasco 10y agoI think the author wants some validation and acknowledgement that a high-brow exists. Some of her friends thought the entire videogame industry is low-brow and the author says, quoting Tim Gunn, "this is a design failure and not a customer issue".
- emodendroket 10y agoWell, frankly, narratively video games rarely even rise to the level of genre fiction (and the best ones stop somewhere around there) and I have a hard time taking claims about highbrow art seriously from somebody who claims that novels and cinema are now irrelevant because our lives are unpredictable.