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Taking Games Seriously
from the a-new-website-helps-redefine-culture-online dept.
"The spirit of the hacker is one of the great creative wellspings of our time, causing the inanimate circuits to sing with ever more individualized and quirky voices; the spirit of the bard is eternal and irreplaceable, telling us what we are doing here and what we mean to each other." -- Janet Murray, Hamlet On The Holodeck
What will it take, wondered MIT Professor Murray in her classic 1997 book, for authors to create rich, satisfying stories that exploit the charactertistic properties of digital environments and deliver the aesthetic pleasures that cyberspace seems to promise?
For Murray, one of the first academics to take seriously the evolving digital world as culture, there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace.
Her prediction was especially bold at a time when the Net had already become almost synonymous with obsession, addiction, bomb-making, gun-buying, and porn. But day by day, it's clearer that she was right. Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some Weblog or messaging system. In our time, the Net is where smart, curious, freedom-seeking and restlessly creative minds go to express themselves, experiment, and create a new kind of culture.
Wherever he or she is, her work will probably pop on a Web site something like MyVideoGames.com, launched a few months ago by Neil Morton and Steve Park, two former editors of the culture-savvy Canadian magazine Shift.
MyVideoGames is already an important site, just by dint of its existence. It acknowledges, implicitly and explicitly, that games are no longer simple forms of entertainment, but increasingly creative, complex -- even political -- expressions of the new culture forming online. It's the gaming equivalent of the newsmagazine in the media world of yore - stylish, literate, interesting.
The site offers breaking vid news, reviews, profiles of game heroes and heroines, and essays. One recent edition featured reports on the sleazy days of gaming, and the controversial "tits-and-ass game" Panty Raider, as well as ruminations on the sometimes-addictive nature of creative games. Such a site, almost inconceivable even five years ago, now seems a benchmark of the way new media evolve to recognize and shape new culture. The mainstream press, as usual, gets left behind, clucking about the new world like Temperance Ladies outside a bar.
It makes sense that this new kind of medium is forming around a complex community of gamers who seek not only amusement but intellectual challenge, stimulation, role-playing and community. Gaming is becoming a bigger part of the cultural lives of more and more people all the time. On eBay, some game characters are auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars. Barely recognized off-line at all, gamers number in the tens of millions, a following as large or larger than that which follows many traditional forms of culture -- opera, classical music. Gaming, given the storytelling inherent in video and computer games, is perhaps the most vital new cultural form emanating from cyberspace. Many games have evolved far beyond mind games like chess and Scrabble. Their characters, storylines and intellectual challenges are demanding and highly evolved.
This isn't by accident. The formulaic nature of storytelling, Murray points out, makes it especially suitable for the computer, so skilled at modeling and reproducing patterns of all kinds.
The idea of cyberspace as culture is a particularly bitter pill for many of the shapers of thought and opinion -- educators, academics, journalists, writers, members of the clergy, the so-called intelligentsia -- to stomach. In fact, Murray still has few colleagues supporting her contention that networked computing is re-shaping culture in diverse and highly creative ways.
Undaunted, Murray began teaching a course in electronic fiction in l992. "These stories cover every range and style, from oral histories to adventure tales, from the exploits of comic book heroes to domestic dramas." She is, she writes in her book, drawn more and more each year to imagining "a cyberdrama of the future ... I see glimmers of a medium that is capacious and broadly expressive, a medium capable of capturing both the hairbreadth movements of individual human consciousness and the colossal crosscurrents of global society. Just as the computer promises to re-shape knowledge in ways that sometimes complement and sometimes supercede the work of the book and the lecture hall, so too does it promise to reshape the spectrum of narrative expression, not by replacing the novel or the movie but by continuing their timeless bardic work within another framework."
Murray's idea will remain bitterly controversial for some time, especially among the guardians of conventional culture. But that's exactly the sensibility that pervades MyVideoGames.com, from Sean Monkman's essay on the physical challenges of videogames on the hands to Jonathan Kay's heartfelt -- and very truthful -- essay on how vid-games became the "ultimate scapegoat" after the Columbine High School massacre in l999.
Morton and Parks got the idea for MyVideoGame last October after they noticed half the workers in the Shift offices playing and talking constantly about games, and organizing get-togethers to play after work.
"So, I thought, heck, I gotta start a site that focuses on nothing but that," he e-mailed. "Videogames are a new mass medium. So let's do real videogame journalism like [Jann] Wenner did with music when he started Rolling Stone." Morton and Parks noticed that while a number of sites were devoted to cheats and reviews, hardly any focused on gaming's growing importance as a cultural force. "So we made a quick adjustment ... Let's focus on implications, not just applications of gaming." The site began soliciting contributions from academics and journalists, game addicts, designers and players.
With the result, Norton and Parks have made a bit of media history, once again demonstrating how mainstream journalism has napped through many significant, if less sensational, parts of the digital revolution. MyVideoGame.com recognizes precisely what Janet Murray describes so convincingly in Hamlet On The Holodeck, now out in paperback from MIT Press.
One of the most vigorous, rapidly expanding forms of popular culture, games are growing astonishingly inventive, creative, challenging and complex. Some, without question, are works of art both graphically and conceptually. For growing numbers of Americans and people elsewhere in the world, gaming is intrinsically conected to story-telling, mental stimulation and recreation, for all that school administrators, politicians and many parents still don't get it -- or fear it.
Murray's notion of the transformative power of computing as an advance in the history of narrative also is reflected on the discussions and editorial agenda of myvideogames.com.
"Computers offer us countless ways of shape-shifting," writes Murray. "Using 'morphing' software, we can transform faces so seamlessly that a grinning teenage boy melts into a haggard old woman, as if under a magic spell. The transformative power of the computer is particularly seductive in narrative environments. It makes us eager for masquerade, eager to pick up the joystick and become a cowboy or a space fighter, eager to log onto the MUD and become ElfGirl or BlackDagger."
As a service to /. readers... (Score:5)
Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The site offers breaking vid news, reviews, profiles of game heroes and heroines, and essays. Gaming, given the storytelling inherent in video and computer games, is perhaps the most vital new cultural form emanating from cyberspace. Many games have evolved far beyond mind games like chess and Scrabble. Murray's idea will remain bitterly controversial for some time, especially among the guardians of conventional culture. One of the most vigorous, rapidly expanding forms of popular culture, games are growing astonishingly inventive, creative, challenging and complex.
Culture is dynamic (Score:4)
Gaming as culture (Score:4)
Until recently, most games in our culture (I live in the US) were played outdoors by groups of people. Baseball, football, soccer, etc... However today, few people have the time or outdoor space to engage in these activities, and there are very few adult leagues set up on a purely recreational (ie not very competitive) level. As a replacement for these, online gaming has developed.
I both play and administer muds and have come to know people from literally all across the globe through my play and work on these. Much of what used to occur on street corners and ball fields now happens over computer screens, simply because that is what we all have free or relatively free and easy access to.
As Kirk observed (rough quote) "The more advanced the culture, the greater the need for the simplicity of play"
Games will continue to develop and become more a part of our culture, just as chat-rooms, messanging, and email have become.
Mainstream games (Score:4)
Recently, though, other types of games have made it to the forefront. Final Fantasy VII was one of the first RPGs to have its own commercial - suddenly, RPGs were mainstream. It's games like these that the non-videogaming populace could look at and think (possibly) that they're worthwhile. Something with plot, depth, and artistic merit. Something that could spark a creative mind to make new things.
I'm not bashing any of the other genres. There's nothing like a good quakefest, after all - but to the folks who aren't really into videogaming, it's the games that seem to have more depth which are leading to greater acceptance of games.
Now, if I could only convince my parents
Emanating From Cyberspace?? (Score:3)
Far be it from me to challenge the many months of historical perspective behind this statement, but gaming with storytelling elements was old when the VIC-20 was new.
Gaming != Computer Gaming, folks.
/.
Save six bucks. (Score:5)
I think that $CURRENT_TREND is forcing us to re-examine our entire culture.
With my vast imagination, I predict a time when these developments could lead to $OBVIOUS_APPLICATION.
Other clueless liberal-arts majors in my field scoff at the notion, because they don't "get it" like I do.
Technical experts tell me that all this is currently impossible, but that will all change once $FAR_OFF_BREAKTHROUGH happens, and we should be ready.
I have no idea what it will take to make this a reality, but that's because I'm a big-picture person, not a detail person.
You geeks, who clearly never would have thought of this without me, should all get behind my vision so we can make $OBVIOUS_APPLICATION happen someday.
Honor (Score:4)
Honor doesn't take much, other than true skill. It's teaching the cheating bastard a lesson. It's taking on the guy attempting to rape the newbie as opposed to the newbie. It's sticking for the ideals of "That's just not fair, it's not right."
You're not often going to get the chance to do it in real life, I'd wager. I mean.. if you're truly pious and good you'll stick up for what's right. You'll probably get the shit kicked out of you a number of times too. As much as we'd like to be truly honorable all the time, we also have this thing about saving our own asses sometimes.
Online gaming culture has the chance to be different from this, to actually have some honor in it. Sadly this doesn't seem to be happening. More people become obsessed with being Ultimate Rambo, or winning at all costs, or taking down the easy ones. Online gaming is becoming more popular. I hate to sound nostalgic, but I'm dead sure the two are linked.
Anyway, I guess my point is online gaming appeals to me because I have the chance to cultivate a (albeit small) culture akin to Arthur's Knights. Sounds stupid, but feels cool. Whatever keeps me happy?...
Blatant plug (Score:3)
Kaa
Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:4)
Gotta give the guy credit: he's as earnest as college freshman writing his or her first term-paper.
In fact, Katz's articles usually read like freshman, 5-paragraph paper material.
For example, the typical freshman paper always contains that first paragraph which either quotes the dictionary ("Webster's dictionary defines the word 'geek' as
As for the 'body' of the paper?
Well, Katz, like most college freshmen, relies on broad, sweeping assertions to drive home a point that hasn't been properly (or even 'clearly') specified. We know we're reading something -- the author is certainly making a lot of assertions -- but we aren't convinced why the author so adament in his or her assertions.
The persuasive power of the text is lost in what I've come to understand is the typical Katzian sentence.
For example: "...there's no doubt that the next Shakespeare will come from cyberspace."
Are we to believe this literally? Does Katz even himself believe this? Is this a quote? A paraphrase?
Or is this just rhetorical flourish? Or, worse yet, rhetorical "filler" to bridge the paragraph previous to the paragraph following?
Or, another example:
"Culture isn't being destroyed online, but re-invented. The next Shakespeare is probably clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
Katz is fixated on the notion of the next Shakespeare. It's an interesting idea: but he's using Shakespeare -- or his *notion* of Shakespeare -- for a specific rhetorical purpose.
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
Or, better yet: "a writer who creates enduring work?"
But Katz's Shakespeare is "clacking away on some weblog or messaging system."
WTF?
First, why would anyone "clack away on a weblog?" And is clacking on a weblog really similar to clacking on a "messaging system"?
Second, why would Katz's Shakespeare -- one who creates enduring art -- clack away at a message system? Is Katz implying the cultural shift from creating theater (the first "Shakespeare") to creating applications (Katz's new Shakespeare)?
If this is the case, it's an interesting thesis: perhaps, this new "eCulture" has made some gradual shift in its notion of the imagination -- creative works now include stuff like "weblogs" and "messaging system" and if Shakespeare is to be found, he (or she) will be located not by examing plays, novels, or stories, but instead web-based applications like "weblogs" or "messaging systems."
This, as I say, is pretty damn interesting. Katz is no fool -- he just writes like one. Why not pursue this notion?
Well, because that's not what the article is about. The article is really about gaming. And, um, this (apprently) new idea: a gaming site.
WTF?
I could go on, but I won't.
Instead, I'll make a plea: Katz, please don't underestimate your audience here. Please tell me that you really don't think we're as naive as your writing makes us sound.
Tell me that it's all done for a rhetorical purpose. You think Slashdot readers aren't as savvy as they really are.
If that's the case, I can forgive you. You've made a mistaken assumption about your audience -- and, well, in the future, you'll crank your rhetoric and analysis up a notch.
You don't actually write this sort of simplistic analysis: you just write it because, well, that's the sort of quick analysis you think Slashdot readers want.
If all this is a rhetorical mistake, you're forgiven. But, if not
The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:5)
a professor at the most famous Ivy League University (along with being
a partner at a software startup). And I for one *do* think that video
games *may* become the central artform of the 21st century. At the
beginning of the 20th century, film was a used for little more than
silly experiments and peep-shows that people who could not afford the
theater attended. But by any reasonable measure film became (along
with the novel) the great artform of the 20th century: Kurosawa,
Bergman, Kubrick etc.
But greatness is just the promise of video games. No video game has
achieved anywhere near the sublime greatness of ``Wild Strawberries''
(a better example for this audience would probably be ``2001''). I do
think, however, that video games may achieve greatness sometime in
this century. Such video games will almost certainly look vastly
different than they do today.
I usually don't bash J. Katz, but this post was aggressively stupid.
Katz often rants about the stereotyped, oppressed geek. But I guess
stereotyping the ``intelligentsia'' is fair game. Nowhere does he
present the arguments that *SOME* in the ``intelligentsia'' would make
against video games---arguments with which I do not agree. He just
bashes them for their conclusions.
Moreover, I would welcome the next ``Shakespeare''. But given that we
haven't had one since the original, I'm not holding my breath. We've
had great, fantastic wonderful writers and artists, but no one with
the overwhelming culture transforming power which was Shakespeare. I
refer Katz to Harold Bloom's masterpiece ``Shakespeare: The Invention
of the Human''. But wait, offer a reference? That's just what
someone who's part of the ``intelligentsia'' would do! Never mind
that Harold Bloom (who is a professor at Yale) is much hated by many
members of the literary establishment. Does that still qualify him as
a member of the ``intelligentsia''? I thought only geeks were allowed
to disagree and have the right not to be stereotyped. Then again,
many members of the ``intelligentsia'' are geeks, one would say most
members if one follows Katz's very expansive definition of geek. MR.
Katz you are full of contradictions. I wish that were the only
problem that the post had.
Re:Mainstream games (Score:3)
Just to be contrary, I'd like to point out that at the previous turn of the century, similar issues surrounded pugilism. You know, boxing.
It took a few poet-souled writers to articulate the beauty of boxing, but then it was in vogue in the intelligencia to "appreciate" it.
I never Got what there was to appreciate about the aesthetics of boxing, until one day I saw one of the two-person kick-boxing games being played publically at a cybercafe(tm). And I Got it!
And I thought that was so cool, my getting in touch with the aesthetic of a previous century's forbidden violence obsession via this century's forbidden violence obsession.
So don't be so quick to dismiss the aesthetic value of Quake, etc. It was cool for aesthetes to disdain pugilism, too, in its day, until the Poets (complementary to Geeks) got their hands on it. When a Poet falls in love with Quake, all bets will be off.
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Baffling (Score:3)
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Re:Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:3)
As I read this, he's not meaning the "next Shakespeare" literally -- he's apparently using the name "Shakespeare" to imply "a good writer." Or perhaps "a famous writer". Or, wait -- is a "good" *and* "famous" writer?
I think Katz's notion of Shakespeare is something along the lines of, "An incredibly famous writer who changes the way the world thinks for the next five hundred years."
Probably very closesly connected with, "And he'll also be the author of a book called 'Geeks.'"
Keep clacking away at the weblog there, Johnny Boy.
Re: Katz's Wonderful Naivete (Score:3)
In short, you seem to be victim of the very crime you apparently disparage: bad writing.
I'm not going to give anyone any lessons on how to write well. God knows I'm the last person you'd want to ask for polished prose.
I just hope your not trying to say that there's some objectively pure manner in which good prose should be written, or that the only point of writing is to make a point.
What's the "point" of a book such as "Lolita"? I hope you agree that there's a place in writing for stylistic flourish. (No, I'm not comparing Katz to Nabokov. Please.) (Do you think the bard at the weblog is
Does JK write poorly. Perhaps. I'm just not sure why you got your panties in such a bunch. What do you propose be done about this horrible situation? You end your posting sounding somewhat like a stalker. Should we have all potential Slashdot articles pre-moderated by the style marshalls? Would you like to volunteer? Do you secretly wish that you were Roblimo?
Do liberal arts majors make you nauseaus? All you computer geeks out there better thank your lucky stars that some people have other interests, or you wouldn't have a job. Not to mention a mother and a father. If your idea of heaven is a island full of Linux geeks, free solar power, and honking network, you need to go outside and get some sunshine.
Re:The much maligned "intelligentsia" (Score:3)
well, i'm a redneck in a trailer (along with owning a seadoo with my brother cletus).
i agree with everything you said. does that make me part of yer "intelligentsia"?
Re:Save six bucks. (Score:3)
- Jeremy S. Anderson
Google can find anything. :)
Actually, it's a great book (Score:3)
Hamlet is not a Toffler-esque "The Future is coming!" screed. Katz, like the folks he started out with [wired.com] seems to think everything written about New Media must point to a transformative future with miraculous developments like jet cars, eternal life, and libertarianism. (Actually, to be fair, he didn't say as much in his article. Maybe I'm reading the futurist schlock into his article, but whatever, it's fun.)
Hamlet on the Holodeck is actually a fairly modest book that was written for people who care about writing, storytelling, and art. It's a book not about society, but about narrative and storytelling. I happen to ardently love good RPGs, digital or dice-based or whatever. I happen to have a near-religious belief in the impossible dream of collective authoring enabling all of us to be social, creative, and thus fulfilled. No jet cars necessary. I am a freak. This is a great book for me. It is not a book for everyone.
That said, the book does offer a lot of really cool background on narrative and storytelling in a lot of genres--including fiction writing and video games--that might be interesting to a lot of folks. In the way it offers a great overview of broad themes across art forms it is a lot like Scott McCloud [scottmccloud.com]'s dazzlingly outstanding book Understanding Comics, which focusses on comic books but also contains the best 15-minute gloss on art history that I've ever encountered.
As for the site that Katz rhapsodizes about: please!
Just my $.02.
goodmike