Ignorance isn' t bliss

Deep breath:

It’s no big secret that our elders misunderstand games as an entertainment that is an exercise in rotting our brains away. The same could be said of any of those who have never rested their hands on an ergonomic controller, this breeds ignorance and these uninformed people often see games as the interactive equivalent to an overblown and brainless Hollywood movie. As we gamers know, they are very very wrong.

A classic example is that of Hitman, a macabre series that may look like it would murder a few brain cells, but those that aren’t in the know probably don’t realise that each hit is often carefully choreographed - requiring much observance on the players part. It’s a series that does offer freedom, but it really comes alive when its played as a thrilling stealth title. Then of course there’s the older Tomb Raider games and point and click adventures such as Broken Sword and Discworld, which drain the brain a lot thanks to some heavy puzzle elements. That’s just a couple of course, I’ve detailed a few genres below.

Fighting games (the one-on-one kind) to the uninformed may look like you are just beating the hell out of your opponent, but in reality when they are being played properly they become not too dissimilar from a virtual human chess game. It’s not just about hammering the buttons until one falls over, it’s all about seizing the moment and choosing your moves wisely, as a real martial artist would do in a one-on-one contest.

The same ignorance has been levelled at FPS and third person action games. when someone says they are just about shooting or slicing people up, haven’t these people ever heard that cover and avoidance is your friend when bullets are flying in your immediate direction. As AI is smarter today then ever before and games more realistic, running and gunning through a game isn’t exactly a frequent option. So there you go, just because a game features guns it doesn’t mean you have to turn into a virtual psychopath as if action titles were all still very much made in the Doom mould.

Of course you have the stealth, RPG, adventure and strategy genres that regularly command meticulousness from their players, and as a result may be more obvious as thinking man titles to the ignoramuses out there.

Your thoughts?

Agree with u man ... Mr.Jack Thompson , u listening ....??

They are just trolls in people' s suits. Don' t mind their stupid actions.

" What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things."
~ Unknown ~

Good observation though, although if you' re trying to touch base with non-gamers, and anti-gamers, Hitman possibly isn' t the best example IMO.

Untill they threaten to pass legeslature stopping me from doing anything I can do now in games. I couldn' t care less about the idiots on capitol hill who legeslate the kind of bull we' re seeing now. I' ll be willing to teach the uninformed, but there ain' t nothing to be done for stupid.

I can' t really comment on legislation that happens in America, or the Western world, for obvious reasons.

I' ve followed on the court cases that have happened. Thankfully, Jack Thompson appears to have been only really succesful in Georgia, or Lousiana (sorry, can' t really remember which state it was). He has lost his credibility as it is anyway.

Thank goodness that for now, the judges are able to view video games objectively, and yes, thank gawd for your first amendment protection. Obviously though, it won' t protect forever, and then, only within the court.

For me here, in Singapore, we' re lucky in that beyond censorship, there' s no stigma against gaming here. Our government views it a little more...mercenary. They see it as an industry, worth billions, worth cultivating.

It' s not all bad. The UK government is extremely supportive of the games industry. Its people in charge have the right idea about games and all the hot topics. It is just a matter of common sense and not being blinded by " all the modern technology" of it all in most cases.

Im not too fearful of anything. Time goes on and generations swap we soon gonna have old aged gamers running the house. Or somthing of the likes ya know?

My grandma thinks in years to come we will be mindless zombies hooked up to machines matrix style and that we will all be enslaved. Makes for interesting Christmas over the table discussions / conflicts I can tell you!

Further to this she even thinks that photoshop makes art for you (she is classically trained painter / pianist) and that cubase or synths write music for you and all the creativity is gone. She is lovely but who can blame her for such infuriating thoughts when companies like Currys are pulling ' Bully' from the shelves when they hadn' t even read the synopsis!

What sometimes freaks me out is what technologies will be around to freak US out when we are 50-60 years old. Yeah i know we can argue that we will still be tech savvy then, and to a certain degree we will be, but seriously - just think about it for a second. What might we be " outraged by" !?

What might we be " outraged by" !?

Nude codes in our full-body Virutal Reality avatars?

Time goes on and generations swap we soon gonna have old aged gamers running the house. Or somthing of the likes ya know?

I read a quote, can' t remember from whom, possibly a congressman. He said that in years to come, this ' gaming' generation would be in charge and in congress themselves, and this present period would have been just a time of ' rock and roll' .

Words of wisdom.

Older generations will always fear something that they don' t understand. IMO there are too many " Do gooders" out there with nothing better than to stir up controversy and anti this and that because they seriously have nothing better to do, what should be looked at is the certification and making sure that is adhered to.

I agree with what you said except I wouldn' t compare fighting games with chess. At best fighting games are about memorization on reflexes. There' s hardly any strategy involved beyond knowing the right moves to use for each character (memorization and reflexes). Chess is a bit more complex than fighting games in terms of strategy. By " a bit" I mean " much more" .

Often in fighting games the best players are the ones who use the least amount of their brain, and simply button mash. There' s a reason why we hate when our opponents button mash or repeat the same move over and over, because it works. In Chess there is no equivalent to " button Mashing" because in this game you are never aloud to put your brain in cruise control. Like no other game Chess forces you to think at all times. The best players see the game thousands of moves ahead.

Chess is a game that has mathmaticians all over the world trying to grasp it' s complexity. Even to this day we are unable to create an unbeatable computer player, something that can easilly be done with fighting games. A computer the size of a house isn' t even needed for that you can just use the console the game is played on.

In other words saying that fighting games which is essentially one of the most mindless videogame genres is comparable with chess is...wrong.

Im not too fearful of anything. Time goes on and generations swap we soon gonna have old aged gamers running the house. Or somthing of the likes ya know?

Yeah, it' s inevitable. But what I would like to see is older people being more open minded, rather than just dismissing gaming in its entirety as brain rot without even knowing the underlying mechanics for themselves.

In other words saying that fighting games which is essentially one of the most mindless videogame genres is comparable with chess is...wrong.

I think you' re right, but I don' t agree with you about fighting games being mindless. The likes of Virtua Fighter are extremely technical and an adept player can always come up with up with ways of altering their strategy to combat button mashing.

I think you' re right, but I don' t agree with you about fighting games being mindless. The likes of Virtua Fighter are extremely technical and an adept player can always come up with up with ways of altering their strategy to combat button mashing.

Yeah not all fighters are mindless but fighters are not popular because of the strategy involved. Only the most hardcore players really get into the strategy. Where as chess is pure strategy. Theres something like a gazillion moves in Chess, it' s insane when you really try to get into it.

My grandma thinks in years to come we will be mindless zombies hooked up to machines matrix style and that we will all be enslaved.

...we already are... ....minus some minor details...

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Sometimes I don' t understand when people say:

" Aren' t you too old to be playing videogames? They are for kids..."

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WHAT?

" Aren' t you too old to be reading books? They are for kids."

Seriously, you' d find more kids reading books than playing videogames, yet games
are for kids apparently..

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

My mom is a strong christian woman who definately frowns on my choices in lifestyle. I' m not gay, I' m not a drunk, I don' t smoke, and I' m not a crackhead, but I am " addicted to these computer TV games" . I love my mom to death, but sometimes...