Do you feel sorry for non gamers?

[DioWallachia]

Accessibility to games is completely irrelevant to my point. The best of the best writing in games rarely matches that of films and books (often not matching those which we'd simply consider just plain good).

I don't really get the confusion.

If it is not well know that a good game exist then its obvious that people will say that there arent any. If only commercials of COD and MW3 are available on the TV then obviously people will believe that games are about violence and nothing else.

Its about perception and more on the fact that no one has the balls to actually do a research about it

 

[Dejawesp]

Games are just a free time waster like TV. I don't think any amount of "pride" should be attributed to it.

Its certainly not productive and definitely not educational. Its per definition a waste of time. We play them to use up our free time and some people take it too far at that.


Most of the time they should feel sorry for us. I do envy people that do productive stuff on their spare time like manage the garden or work on the car or even workaholics who do what they get paid to do for fun.

 

[Woodsey]

Accessibility to games is completely irrelevant to my point. The best of the best writing in games rarely matches that of films and books (often not matching those which we'd simply consider just plain good).

I don't really get the confusion.

If it is not well know that a good game exist then its obvious that people will say that there arent any. If only commercials of COD and MW3 are available on the TV then obviously people will believe that games are about violence and nothing else.

Its about perception and more on the fact that no one has the balls to actually do a research about it

The argument is my opinion, I'm not taking it from anyone else. The OP said he feels sorry for them because they're missing out on loads of great stories, I said I don't feel sorry for them because they're not missing out on that many great stories.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I don't feel bad for anyone who is not invested/interested in video games as much as I would feel bad for people who is not invested/interested in sports. To everyone, there is a form of entertainment that they enjoy and if they feel like others should hop on your personal bandwagon it should be because you believe that they would enjoy it as well.

If they don't, it's cool; just let them know that it will always be there waiting for them, if at some point in the future they feel a little curious and want to check it out.

 

[DioWallachia]

Accessibility to games is completely irrelevant to my point. The best of the best writing in games rarely matches that of films and books (often not matching those which we'd simply consider just plain good).

I don't really get the confusion.

If it is not well know that a good game exist then its obvious that people will say that there arent any. If only commercials of COD and MW3 are available on the TV then obviously people will believe that games are about violence and nothing else.

Its about perception and more on the fact that no one has the balls to actually do a research about it

The argument is my opinion, I'm not taking it from anyone else.

Not saying that you did so but one can fall into the trap of "If i didnt heard about it then it doesnt exist"

I am pretty much a believer that if the shitty story is the more is know about it in the wide world (Twilight, Transformers, The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, Noir by K.W. Jeter)

And the best story ever is the one that almost not a single soul could possibly have read/seen/played it (The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari)

Well world is fucked up like that.

 

[Archer666]

Games having the greatest stories ever told? Hardly. Also, telling them how you have a relationship with a video game character doesn't speak too well of you.

Video games are fun and all, but there are other hobbies out there that people enjoy too. Its like feeling bad for people who don't follow sports.

 

[Phasmal]

I have a lot of non gamer friends and i sometimes try to explain to them how emotionally invested in games people can get. I have tried to explain that i have been in a 4 year relationship with Liara from the Mass Effect series. I feel bad for them because they are missing out on some of the greatest stories told because they don't get to play games like Skyrim, Uncharted, Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid to just name a few.

Let me know what you think.

I think calling it a relationship makes you sound like a love-pillow sniffing weirdo.

The only people who I feel sorry for are the ones who dont try gaming because it isn't aimed at them. I have trouble making female friends because we have nothing to talk about, but I'm sure those same people feel sorry for me for being a terrible woman and not loving shoes or whatever.

But I think feeling sorry for people who dont game just leads to elitism, and we don't need any more of that.

Hm.... sorry, i.....had a trouble with the fireplace and i dont know what overtook me when i wrote that up there.

Pretty sure I see what you did there.

 

[Kahunaburger]

@Dio: so you're saying that because many people have terrible taste in books literature is a bad medium?

And yeah, woodsey is right about the quality of writing in games IMO - although there are many very well-written games out there, we haven't had a gaming Odyssey yet. This is because the medium is still very young and people are just figuring out what can be done with it.

Or maybe it already exist but because the hardware is no longer produced to sustain things that according to video game producers dont make a profit it was lost in time. I mean, i know that filmaking started around 1895 but 80% films from that point to say 1943 (the year Citizen Kane was made) were lost forever. Same for videogames except that even with all the things that were against the film industry you can still get The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1920 and technically belong to public domain) on a bloody DVD but good luck find a game and a console that works (not including emulation that its technically illegal)

I don't think early gaming is sitting on an Odyssey that we somehow haven't heard of. (That said, I'm not even convinced that literary fiction has an Odyssey.) There are excellent writing and/or stories in games -- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, Shade, Planescape:Torment, stuff by Tim Schafer, and so on. But in terms of writing, these tend to be on par with good books or short stories, not classics to outlast civilizations.

 

[Smertnik]

I'm sorry, what? Why would you "feel sorry" for people not interested in an entertainment medium? We aren't even at the point where video games would provide deep and profound experiences and even then it all comes down to preferences. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean everybody else has to as well.

 

[DioWallachia]

@Dio: so you're saying that because many people have terrible taste in books literature is a bad medium?

And yeah, woodsey is right about the quality of writing in games IMO - although there are many very well-written games out there, we haven't had a gaming Odyssey yet. This is because the medium is still very young and people are just figuring out what can be done with it.

Or maybe it already exist but because the hardware is no longer produced to sustain things that according to video game producers dont make a profit it was lost in time. I mean, i know that filmaking started around 1895 but 80% films from that point to say 1943 (the year Citizen Kane was made) were lost forever. Same for videogames except that even with all the things that were against the film industry you can still get The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1920 and technically belong to public domain) on a bloody DVD but good luck find a game and a console that works (not including emulation that its technically illegal)

I don't think early gaming is sitting on an Odyssey that we somehow haven't heard of. (That said, I'm not even convinced that literary fiction has an Odyssey.) There are excellent writing and/or stories in games -- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, Shade, Planescape:Torment, stuff by Tim Schafer, and so on. But in terms of writing, these tend to be on par with good books or short stories, not classics to outlast civilizations.

Then we will be dead by the time that happens even with the Internet at large, dont you said? Or maybe those classics outlasted civilizations because it was the only thing around to read and making good stories makes blood come out of people's nose, so its not surpricing that they were good because people didnt know any better.

 

[PureAussieGamer]

I have a lot of non gamer friends and i sometimes try to explain to them how emotionally invested in games people can get. I have tried to explain that i have been in a 4 year relationship with Liara from the Mass Effect series. I feel bad for them because they are missing out on some of the greatest stories told because they don't get to play games like Skyrim, Uncharted, Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid to just name a few.

Let me know what you think.

LOL. I hope you mean stories told in games, overall? You must be crazy then.

And if you feel sorry for non gamers, do you feel sorry for gamers who dislike that specific games?

I was just listing a bunch of games i had recently played. I didnt put much thought into what games have the best story. First it was late at night and second thats not what the thread is about.

 

[Palademon]

I only feel sorry for them if they feel they shouldn't play games out of some societal stigma.

For example, one of my acquaintances asked for advice with buying a game for her boyfriend, and I had to ask things such as what genres he likes and what platforms he has, and I had to explain how games made for platforms don't work on others. That was fine, but what really got me was when she reached a point of giving up when she couldn't answer certain questions and burst out with "I don't know, I'm a girl!". She must've forgotten that every other girl in our group plays video games, and I was so focused on trying to argue with that mindset that I forgot too, and couldn't make them all facepalm at her until a few days later.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I don't think early gaming is sitting on an Odyssey that we somehow haven't heard of. (That said, I'm not even convinced that literary fiction has an Odyssey.) There are excellent writing and/or stories in games -- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, Shade, Planescape:Torment, stuff by Tim Schafer, and so on. But in terms of writing, these tend to be on par with good books or short stories, not classics to outlast civilizations.

Then we will be dead by the time that happens even with the Internet at large, dont you said? Or maybe those classics outlasted civilizations because it was the only thing around to read and making good stories makes blood come out of people's nose, so its not surpricing that they were good because people didnt know any better.

Actually, most early epic poems predate literature in the cultures they come from. They're the product of centuries of oral tradition, and were written in a time when most people couldn't read. So with something like the Iliad or the Epic of Gilgamesh, you're not looking at something that was written as a book - you're looking at the end product of centuries of continual refinement. You're also looking at something that later cultures believed was worth reading and worth transcribing and/or translating. Gaming, film, and arguably literary fiction are too young to have produced something like that.

 

[Strain42]

No, should I?

I don't feel sorry for people who don't read or watch movies, I don't feel sorry for people who don't play sports, whittle or make ice sculptures.

Why should I feel sorry for someone just because they don't have a certain hobby?

And if I ever found myself in a conversation with someone who said they felt bad for me because I chose not to play the ME series or Skyrim, I'd think they were a MASSIVE douche and wouldn't want to associate myself with them anyways.

 

[DioWallachia]

Then we will be dead by the time that happens even with the Internet at large, dont you said? Or maybe those classics outlasted civilizations because it was the only thing around to read and making good stories makes blood come out of people's nose, so its not surpricing that they were good because people didnt know any better.

Umm, what? Books have been published in large amount for the last 400 years, it wasn't something rare back in the early 20:th century. Or do you seriously believe that some games can match the works of Orwell, Lovecraft, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare etc.? These works are classics because they're that good. There were a lot of books written back then, yet there are those that we remember for a reason. Or do you consider the all the literal minds of the Earth to have everything completly backwards and only liking certain books because it's cool to do so, but they really aren't?

Look, Books have been around for thousands of years, and have been at their top for about the last 150 years. Movies have existed since about 1895 but really reached their top around the 70:s. Gaming is a very young medium, which is why they haven't gotten up to the high standards of books.

No, what i am saying is that people regardless of what era they belong are still the same back then as they are now: lazy and too bloody ignorant to give a fuck about the world at large and their neighbor.
With that in mind its easy (for me) to assume that most epics that lasted for centuries are more easy to just rewrite them over and over, word for word without thinking because "Hey this thing is pretty cool to read. I could write something like it but i am too lazy to do it and there is always some idiot that doesnt want to help on the farming and wants to write this kind of thing. Good for me either way"

Never said that books of poems never existed before the XX century, i just said that if there is already a "good" book out there, then logically the people doesnt need to make another. Its too much work after all and those Babilonian walls arent going to repair themselves, you know?

 

[DioWallachia]

I enjoyed the first two Mass Effects (haven't gotten to the third yet) and can explain that in more detail if you wish, and I haven't played Metal Gear games ever, so I decided not to comment. That's about it, really.

Is it really worth fighting about?

I will answer that with the same reaction i have for those games: "Meh"

And you think the gaming industry is different?

Its going there and that its because.....

You know it, i know it. Soon the 2nd Video Game Crash will ensue and the fact that people are still bitching about things like ME3 ending without making bloody clear what is exactly wrong with that will mean that the developers will give up finally and do businesses blindfolded like when ATARI did when they decided to overproduce the Pacman port and the ET game.

You really have no concept of how a business works, do you?

....because the people in the game industry just know the same as i.... nothing at all. Their decision making seems to be just repeating a formula that worked before and that is it and more so if the film industry is doing it. If there were any REAL developers like say, the people that are capable to do the things listed in these 2 Extra Credits episodes...

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so-you-want-to-be-a-developer-part-1
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so-you-want-to-be-a-developer-part-2

....then nobody would question THAT kind of professional who is capable to tell the producers with a straight face and a shitload of statistics that: "You cant pull that BS on the gamers, the numbers said that it will be a disaster"

Why did you choose those 2 examples? District 9 at least i know that tried waaaay too hard on a subject that has been already touched upon, the other one didnt see it all i know is that its an adaptation of a book.

How is that any different from the people who tried the same but failed as well on the gaming medium? What did exactly those 2 examples did? Its isnt just because they wont Oscars right? Or that those 2 are, from a technical standpoint, movies that the people at the Oscars normally dont give 2 fucks about because it isnt about WW2 or about Class or about anything that any Oscar Bait director could try on them but instead they are about Science Fiction, a genre that only now has started to receive acceptance from the old farts? That could be an achievement from a certain point of view, but what about already existing Sci Fi movies that the old fart didnt even ATTEMPT to see? wont those movies deserve some recognition if they were good?

That is one of the many problems of why the movie industry (in my biased opinion at least ) is the LAST place i will like to see a good story receive praise, because its more biased than than EVER and i feel that the old farts are just throwing a bone to the Sci-Fi lovers as a mean to shut them up rather than just admiting that they are really good.

I have never seen anyone go to that much trouble to dig up a goalpost and move it that far. What the hell does your view on the legitimacy of the Oscars have to do with the objective quality of the movies?

Because i fear that some people NEED to be told or convinced that their hobbies or whatever are being evaluated by experts and such. The Oscars question is to know if maybe games would be taken more seriously if they have their own oscar nominations to reasure the gamers that, yes, games with good plot exist and you can all stop sending bombs to Roger Ebert of the "Games are not Art" fiasco, ok?

Up there i mentioned the bias that the people at the Oscars have but i should have keeped it simple by saying that its just the old problem of people being too lazy to check facts that are easily answered like:

Cartoon no longer are dumb and can be enjoyed at any age, Latin America writers do NOT make only novels about Magical Realism, Aquaman no longer sucks since the 70's, the Internet is not a series of tubes, Dan Brown does NOT make anything that remotely resembles research in his books EVER, the capital of Brazil is not Buenos Aires, 42 is the ANSWER to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything but the question is unknown.

Unless we count independent filmaking in that case...........in that case we have to include independent game developers too.

I thought that was assumed. And since when do mainstream studios never turn out good movies? How many movies did you see last year?

None, i didnt care to see and i was kinda busy trying to figure out in my spare time wtf is wrong with Minecraft and collecting footage of Blood Omen 2

In this case, once again, the crap of movies outweight anything good made previously in film history.

And yet the only proof you have thus far offered is two shitty movie franchises. When asked for more, you fuck right off. Meaning you didn't actually think this opinion through.

Oh wait, i said of recent years right? So lets start from 2008 and below with a few exceptions of 2009, not counting the Asylum and Uwe Boll movies, we got from big studios..

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Gigli
Every movie of Seltzer and Friedberg
Basic Instinct 2
Battlefield Earth
88 Minutes
The Brown Bunny
Bratz movie
Children Of The Living Dead
(actually it will be interesting if i manage to hit a movie that isnt well know)
3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
Ben and Arthur
Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
ALL the Adam Sandler movies
Christmas In Wonderland
Daddy Day Camp
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Who's Your Caddy?
Five Across The Eyes
Gamera: Super Monster
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie
Godzilla's Revenge
Going Overboard
Highlander 2: The Quickening
Highlander: The Source
Hobgoblins
The Hottie and the Nottie
The Howling: New Moon Rising
I Know Who Killed Me:
Jaws: The Revenge
The Last Airbender
Leonard Part 6
Lost Continent
Lower Learning
The Neverending Story III: Escape from Fantasia
Night Junkies
North
The Omega Code
One Missed Call
Robo Vampire
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
Santa With Muscles
The Seeker
Sex Lives Of The Potato Men
Sextette
The Starfighters
The Devil Of Blue Mountain
Dirty Love
Exit to Eden
The First Turn-On!
From Justin To Kelly
Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2
Swept Away
They Saved Hitler's Brain
The Undefeated
Avatar (pretty but overdone)
2012
Bride Wars
10,000 BC
Dragonball Evolution
The Hangover
Funny People (or course)
Ninja Assassin
Birdemic
Driven
Parting Shots
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
The Ugly Truth
D-War
ThanksKilling
All About Steve
The Haunted Mansion

.....sigh....

Get Carter
Death Race (2008)
The Happening
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Riddle
While She Was Out
Seven Pounds
The Spirit
The Unborn (2009)
Ultraviolet
Fat Slags
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
The Dork Of The Rings
Pentathlon
Grown Ups
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Deaths of Ian Stone
Lady in the Water
Out of Reach
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
The Tourist
Night of the Living Dead 3D
Silent Hill (the movie of course)
Spy Kids 3D - Game Over
Good Luck Chuck
Gamer
Stay Alive
Van Helsing
When in Rome


.....oh god. I am going to need a rest. just one more thing to do

Later.

Translation: "Fuck, he's got me. Escape!"

YES!! ESCAPE TO THE ESCAPIST TO RESEARCH MORE OR TO WIKIPEDIA WHERE I CAN RESEARCH WHILE TAKING MY TIME TO DO A COHERENT ANSWER RATHER THAN A RUSHED ONE!!! OR ESCAPE TO THE BED BECAUSE THAT BLOODY LIST UP THERE GOT ME TIRED OF THINKING ALL THAT CRAP THAT I HAVE TO REMIND PEOPLE OFF!! Nevermind the fact that, you know, i am still human and i need, you know, rest

yay -_-

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I like to think that everyone has their own way of gaming, be it electronically or otherwise. Gaming isn't a specific thing after all. Earlier today I saw a bunch of kids on a playground and realized that none of them were likely to know what a Super Nintendo was or, what Legend of Zelda was (the original I mean) in a way that I didn't know what Battlezone (Atari 2600) or, Ninja Golf (Atari 7800) was until very recently.

As for people who straight up aren't into video games there's other games that they likely play or, other means by which they amuse themselves that I wouldn't want anything to do with like actual golf, skiing, etc. It's their loss if they're not into video games but there's more to gaming than consoles.