Gaming's Problem with Narrative
One thing you probably have noticed through this political season was the heavy use of narrative to define the candidates. Obama especially emphasized "change" (using quotes as a point of narrative, not as a commentary on it) to put himself into a certain light.
So, one problem that the ESA has to tackle is the narratives that are surrounding video games to non-gamers. And there are several.
1) "Games are for kids." Probably came around during the classic area of games, the Atari and Nintendo (NES) era. Games at this time was marketed to kids, although there were attempts to break out of that mold. Nintendo, as part of their quality control, had limits on what content couldn't be in games, like blood or use of religous symbols.
2) "Games are violent." Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto are to blame for this.
3) "Games can be addictive, keeping the player in front of the screen at all times" This is a confusion of both perception and confusion over the term. For the term, gamers use it the same as "can't put a good book down." As for the perception problem, I think many parents would see that games put in as a regular activity, something akin to how sometimes a kid would "watch too much television."
As you can guess, problems arise when those narratives aren't just put in seperately, but in combinations. Rule 1 and 2 put together is often something that has been accused by video game critics.
So, how can the industry, or gamers themselves, break the narrative. Well, I would like to say factchecking journalism helps, but can just as often hurt. One problem that journalists can have is that they often compare percieved narratives of topics at hand (like the ones above).
Just repeating a narrative doesn't nessisarily mean it reenforces it. But if a journalist doesn't emerse him/herself into the community properly, they can misinterpret that their subjects into being an exception to the narrative, rather than the actual norm.
One thing I do think helps is the Penny Arcade Expo. There, you get a variety of people, all in a community setting having fun.
Even something like The Guild can help. Although it exploits some of the more negative narratives about MMO's (mostly for humorous effect), the actual themes of the series go to the heart of why we love those games, and why we are gamers.
It will be a very high hurdle. It took comic books decades to be accepted as an adult medium. However, even today, comics aren't considered a "serious" medium like books, movies or even art. Time isn't the answer. Having the gaming community branch outward, like what the Wii is doing, does help, but can be done wrong and might not reach everyone still.
The only real answer I see is to have some game that captures the non-gamer market in a way that they see it as a true means of expression and not a toy.
So, one problem that the ESA has to tackle is the narratives that are surrounding video games to non-gamers. And there are several.
1) "Games are for kids." Probably came around during the classic area of games, the Atari and Nintendo (NES) era. Games at this time was marketed to kids, although there were attempts to break out of that mold. Nintendo, as part of their quality control, had limits on what content couldn't be in games, like blood or use of religous symbols.
2) "Games are violent." Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto are to blame for this.
3) "Games can be addictive, keeping the player in front of the screen at all times" This is a confusion of both perception and confusion over the term. For the term, gamers use it the same as "can't put a good book down." As for the perception problem, I think many parents would see that games put in as a regular activity, something akin to how sometimes a kid would "watch too much television."
As you can guess, problems arise when those narratives aren't just put in seperately, but in combinations. Rule 1 and 2 put together is often something that has been accused by video game critics.
So, how can the industry, or gamers themselves, break the narrative. Well, I would like to say factchecking journalism helps, but can just as often hurt. One problem that journalists can have is that they often compare percieved narratives of topics at hand (like the ones above).
Just repeating a narrative doesn't nessisarily mean it reenforces it. But if a journalist doesn't emerse him/herself into the community properly, they can misinterpret that their subjects into being an exception to the narrative, rather than the actual norm.
One thing I do think helps is the Penny Arcade Expo. There, you get a variety of people, all in a community setting having fun.
Even something like The Guild can help. Although it exploits some of the more negative narratives about MMO's (mostly for humorous effect), the actual themes of the series go to the heart of why we love those games, and why we are gamers.
It will be a very high hurdle. It took comic books decades to be accepted as an adult medium. However, even today, comics aren't considered a "serious" medium like books, movies or even art. Time isn't the answer. Having the gaming community branch outward, like what the Wii is doing, does help, but can be done wrong and might not reach everyone still.
The only real answer I see is to have some game that captures the non-gamer market in a way that they see it as a true means of expression and not a toy.
posted by SeanM at 6:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home