The gamers revolution

I've been watching some doco's lately on 'the rise of the gamer' - which is a pet love of mine. it finally hit me that with this onslaught of games and the revolution in how we define and play games we are now developing a whole new structure of thinking and interacting.

so at work one day I penned this intro and would love to hear other people's ideas on the matter. By the way 'IMO' is a gaming term for 'in my opinion' - just for all the oldies out there :P

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVOLUTION
The Gamers IMO

It was Rolan Barthe’s a modern French philosopher who penned ‘...it is a good thing that the spectacle has made the world more explicit. But it is both reprehensible and deceitful to confuse the sign with that which is being signified’.
I remember on my fifth birthday receiving a gaming console, the wonder of world imaginative right on my television screen. Pixels lined up and moved, action abound as the character jumped and shot down his enemies. I had donned the façade of my hero and as I pushed the buttons on the controller, my world was fading into a bright and fantastical new one.
The world of gamers is just like this, fantastical, bias is based on skill and elitism and age old rivalries are settled with a good duel. But what makes these individuals tick? We are bound by a whole new social structure and set of rules, where spamming and flaming are considered both reproaches and instructional. Where having a voice is dependant on your ability to overload the chat screen and even then this is not without reproach. Language is no longer dependant on grammatical structure and new words are invented by the second, I believe psychiatrists refer to these phenomena as neologisms. This is the truth of it, is gaming simply an issue to be dealt with, where psychiatrists and psychologists term gaming as a mental health issue, a simple despondency of reality, or is there a new philosophy emerging? I believe in the latter, and it is my hope to delve into several areas alerting the reader and I to the gamer’s way of thinking. These facets include gaming ethics, grammar, personality, bias and play style.

I think there are few aspects to gamers that make them different from non-gamers; most of the things people associate with gamers are not unique to them as a group.

What I see when I play games online (I play first person shooters) is not unlike what I have seen many times in various forums, chat rooms, blogs, and comments elsewhere online; you get the same elitism, entitlement, competition, flaming, spamming, word-creating, social-restructuring, etc.

It seems the media focuses on online games as primary sites of internet culture -- perhaps rightly so, but why focus on games and not the bigger picture? Is it because games are commodities, and our consumer society has come to understand the world through things that can be bought and sold? Whatever the answer, most criticisms of gaming culture seem misdirected.

Thanks for the reply
definitely a valid point, and a good one at that.
Personally I think that even though you are correct, in that much of internet culture is based around those ideals, it is, that gaming culture has been around for much longer.

What we see in internet forums and subsequently in online gaming, has just been an extrapolation of what was around before the internet even existed.

I don't know how old you are, but like the intro states, i received my first gaming console at 5 and the internet wasn't even around, but still remembering to back then, alot of these concepts were forming and being exhibited. sure social structure based on internet identities were not around, but we did have alot of flamming, elitism etc.

I now play on all the consoles and various computer games, asked to take part in closed beta's of games and as a whole, gamer's haven't changed much. I think the internet has just made it:
a) socially acceptable to be classed as a 'gamer'
b) redefined some aspects of social structure.

sure 'internet culture' maybe media stylized towards gamers - but i believe that is a different topic to 'gaming culture'.

I'm 28, so to a degree I know where you're coming from; I didn't discover the internet until maybe 15 or 16. I do agree the internet is just a window into who we are -- that it doesn't change us but rather exposes us in new ways. The interesting question in my mind is: why? A big (human-psychology-sized) question to be sure.

I'm curious, how would you define 'gaming culture', or just a 'gamer' in general? Does your definition fit with those of the docs you've been watching?

The only thing I can come up with that makes a gamer different from anyone else is an increased tendency toward interactivity. I myself have always favored the active over the passive, even if the difference between active and passive is a controller in my hand -- video games are interactive where TV is not.

good point and an excellent question.
definitely a folly of mine to not put the definition in the intro. We should always start with the definition.

my definition is a bit more strict than the definition portrayed in the documentary's - if theirs were true - ALL of us would be classed as gamers.

however, let me put it this way, what makes a race car driver different than those who have driven a race car? the answer is immersion.... they immerse themselves in the sport and just as there are professional and hobbyist race car drivers so to is the same for gamers. But simply saying a gamer is someone who immerses themselves in games is a bit ambigious. So, lets say for propriety's sake that a gamer frequents the video game store on AVERAGE >3 times per week. They play games for >2 hrs per day and frequently engages in research into TBR games and games in general. They have a tight network, whether internet or RL based.

Now i'm a bit of a purist... I play the game for the games sake, to be able to assess it and compare to other games. I don't find myself in console arguments, deciding which is better, as I believe these are simply the ramblings of the little more inept and those who don't actually own all the consoles. I do however prefer at this point in time the PS3, but if a game is better on computer or xbox360 i won't deny its worth.

anyways I have to run... throw your comments down and I'll get back to writing this.

Isn't life a game now? Isn't anyone who has a created online identity playing a character anyway?

true Silas,
but what's the definition of a game? is simply portraying yourself as another over the internet a game?
I don't believe so, a game has a set goal, even MMO's have goals in the broadest sense of the word.

I think a good starting point to understanding this matter is if we as a group come up with some definitions - thereby we can assess each definition and its truth (very platoic i know). so lets begin by defining these 2 terms.

A) what defines a game?
B) what defines a gamer? this definition needs not just be 'a person who plays games' - indeed a good starting point, but lets be a bit more robust shall we. as i said, is a person who has driven a race car, a race car driver?

a) Something with rules perhaps, and yes, some goal, even if that goal, in terms of multiplayer online roleplaying games or first person shooters perhaps, is to possess more things (tags, awards etc) than other people, become more powerful, or dominate your friends in competition.It could temporarily also be about solving that next puzzle, getting past that next monster, getting to the next pretty cut scene and musical interlude, or completing a story. Now many games are stories you have to battle to stay a part of.
b) Maybe someone not just who plays games, but who defines themselves by the fact that they play games. They identify gaming as a hobby like someone else might say they are a martial artist, or someone else might say they are a skydiver.

alright so we have:
A) a game is an event with a goal.
but is every event with a goal a game? actually that is a very poignant point, i'm glad you brought that up silas, cause if you think about it, work is an event with a goal, and somebody I guess would call work a game, but are we willing to accept that everything with a goal is a game? I would like to see it become more specific.

B) a gamer is somebody who defines themselves by the fact they play games. so we have an element of inward observation. I like it, but lets add more to it people.

great start Silas, thanks.

I could add to B that a gamer may work off the prepackaged identity of characters in a game, or create others, to work with other aspects of their own personality that they don't normally show to other people.

A) An activity governed by prescribed rules, generally, but not necessarily, undertaken for enjoyment. (this means that things like work can simultaneously be a game)
B) The gamer is personally influenced by games, you hint at this with your racecar driver analogy; this is opposed to the non-gamer who casually plays a few games of monopoly or what-have-you hither and thither. This definition seems especially convenient when considering that one of the goals here is to find those special qualities that set the gamer apart from the "default."

I think you sort of answer one of your own questions in your original post: "is gaming simply an issue to be dealt with, where psychiatrists and psychologists term gaming as a mental health issue, a simple despondency of reality...?" Answered by, "bias is based on skill." Not that they have something personally against it, but judge it by its superficial appearance. For how else could they possibly judge it? Sensibility tells me that it is not very intuitive to think old psychiatrist blokes are spending their money and time sitting in a room somewhere analyzing the intricate psychological effects that CODMW2 imparts on its players by p0wning noobs online.

I think what you'll find at the end of your enquiry is that all the answers to the questions you ask rest upon human nature. e.g. We do not ever forgo the innate, intuitive grammar that Chompsky describes, though we do forgo the traditional rules and thereby replace our mode of verbal communication with something more fundamental and less expressive. Why does this happen? Probably because we have found a more expressive means of communicating/expressing (perhaps, for most of us, the initial cause of our gaming career) of, i.e. actions (even if they are virtual), and ergo found vocabulary and the traditional syntactic rules expendable; and hence we arrive at the cliche "actions speak louder than words." The meanings of the ad hoc words we invent are intuitively discernable because, to the individuals that they are primarily directed, they were developed in similar contexts of experiences.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "game ethics...personality, bias, and play style." please elaborate

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Originally Posted by Cunninglinguist

A)For how else could they possibly judge it? Sensibility tells me that it is not very intuitive to think old psychiatrist blokes are spending their money and time sitting in a room somewhere analyzing the intricate psychological effects that CODMW2 imparts on its players by p0wning noobs online.

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I beg to differ, my day job is that of a medical doctor. I have just spent 10 weeks in mental health, and trust me the attitude towards gaming comes off as being a mental health issue. It's one of the things set out in mental health assessments. probably not specifically COD4, but games in general and time spent on them. and there are plenty of studies (search PUBmed - if you're able to get access) of varying sensitivities and specificity, non-significant and significant 'p' values alike, looking at the effect of games on mental health and health in general.

I think you may have missed the point, (perhaps maybe not clearly explained on my behalf) that there are many forms of bias, which i'm sure you'll agree - but as you clearly started 'PWN NOOBS' is an elitist attitude - we place preference on being leet or being a noob - no middle ground, therefore a bias. Gamers don't seem to place too much emphasis on race or creed, but rather how much better their character is, or how they just wiped the floor with the others in kill counts, and so on and so forth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cunninglinguist

A)I think what you'll find at the end of your enquiry is that all the answers to the questions you ask rest upon human nature. e.g. We do not ever forgo the innate, intuitive grammar that Chompsky describes, though we do forgo the traditional rules and thereby replace our mode of verbal communication with something more fundamental and less expressive. Why does this happen? Probably because we have found a more expressive means of communicating/expressing (perhaps, for most of us, the initial cause of our gaming career) of, i.e. actions (even if they are virtual), and ergo found vocabulary and the traditional syntactic rules expendable; and hence we arrive at the cliche "actions speak louder than words." The meanings of the ad hoc words we invent are intuitively discernable because, to the individuals that they are primarily directed, they were developed in similar contexts of experiences.

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exactly what i'm looking at, has human nature changed because of interactivity or over interactivity? now to say we NEVER forgo the innate, intuitive grammar - is not quite right, disease certainly allows us to forgo it. but forgive my ignorance as i'm not really tight on noam chomsky's heirachy (medical school days are clouded in a drunken haze) so i may have missed your point. Now I don't disagree that experiences have shaped these 'expandable traditional syntactic rules', but again that's the point? these experiences have led to a new social structure, a new way of organizing and expressing thoughts ... neologisms are beside the point, since they are simply a form of expression that is comprehensible by another - through experience.

therefore I think we have come up with another facet to defining a gamer - they must be apart of a network of others sharing similar experiences. Again I want to point out that the internet is not necessarily a defining factor for a gamer - sure games today have a major basis around internet play - but the question is, has the attributes of a gamer changed pre-internet when compared to the era of the WWW. I would hazard a guess to say they haven't.

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Originally Posted by loki456

I beg to differ, my day job is that of a medical doctor. I have just spent 10 weeks in mental health, and trust me the attitude towards gaming comes off as being a mental health issue. It's one of the things set out in mental health assessments. probably not specifically COD4, but games in general and time spent on them. and there are plenty of studies (search PUBmed - if you're able to get access) of varying sensitivities and specificity, non-significant and significant 'p' values alike, looking at the effect of games on mental health and health in general.

I think you may have missed the point, (perhaps maybe not clearly explained on my behalf) that there are many forms of bias, which i'm sure you'll agree - but as you clearly started 'PWN NOOBS' is an elitist attitude - we place preference on being leet or being a noob - no middle ground, therefore a bias. Gamers don't seem to place too much emphasis on race or creed, but rather how much better their character is, or how they just wiped the floor with the others in kill counts, and so on and so forth.

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I thought you were saying that you believe gaming not to be a mental health issue, which, in general, I agree with (everything in moderation). Although I was painting with the same brush, I was offering a reason as to why many psychiatrists today label it as such. In short, most of them don't know the many "facets" of gaming, its virtues and its vices; which, as you have admitted by entertaining these questions, even you (and I) do not fully grasp.

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Originally Posted by loki456

exactly what i'm looking at, has human nature changed because of interactivity or over interactivity? now to say we NEVER forgo the innate, intuitive grammar - is not quite right, disease certainly allows us to forgo it. but forgive my ignorance as i'm not really tight on noam chomsky's heirachy (medical school days are clouded in a drunken haze) so i may have missed your point. Now I don't disagree that experiences have shaped these 'expandable traditional syntactic rules', but again that's the point? these experiences have led to a new social structure, a new way of organizing and expressing thoughts ... neologisms are beside the point, since they are simply a form of expression that is comprehensible by another - through experience.

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To risk sounding a bit pedantic or fastidious, human nature is a set of properties that cannot change via day to day activities. To be a student of human nature is to understand the rules, if you will, by which we change from environmental influences. It is impossible for anyone with any degree of sensibility to deny that computers are changing us culturally; if you're ultimately asking how or why it changes us you will get an answer regarding human nature, if you're asking what has changed then you wont. I understand you to be asking more the former.

I think that when we assess the case of the diseased (i.e. people suffering from forms of dimentia or vegatables) we ultimately arrive at the conclusion that they have lost some of those properties necessary to be human (they have lost their nature). And, though at times misled by superficial appearances, we do ultimately tend to treat them as such by giving them less rights, de facto or de jure. The question may become, for practical and philosophic purposes what is the set of properties that defines our nature? But for our purposes we can suspend such vague questions, I think; for, even if there are these "diseased" playing video games, who function under different psychological and psychosocial rules, there are such a small amount as to be impertinant.

I would write more but I cannot afford the time at the moment.

I actually wasn't referring to people with dementia - more importantly those with frontal lobe strokes, bipolar or even schizophrenia (they don't have to be a vegetable). Now many antipsychiatric and anti-western medicine writers such as Thomas Szasz would denounce psychiatry as a fundemental flaw to human rights and therefore a rebellion towards human nature. Which i agree with you, if you understand medical ethics and their fluidity (non-malifecence, beneficence, autonomy and justice), that certain people will lose some rights based on disease, but in most cases this is autonomy. Therefore to say we treat them as less than human, is a bit misguided. and mental health is one of the fastest growing medical fields - and these guys play multitudes of games... so the amount of people is not impertinant. But the question again becomes, because mental health patients play video games, are people who play video games mental health patients? there answer is obviously no.

Now I also agree with you that human nature is a set of rules and cannot be changed by day to day activities - which was definitely a misnomer on behalf in my last post - for that I am sorry.
again, a very good question you ask, what are these set of rules that define human nature? because as you rightly point out how and why these games are changing us culturally is definately a question aimed at human nature.

but for the time being, the question is aimed at what defines:
A) a game
B) a gamer

for us to look at human nature - we need a set of guidelines to compare too, so lets begin by looking at these 2 terms first.

A) Any activity which follows a specifically laid out rule-set or structure, with fun as the object.

This is about as tight a definition I can muster for "game". I'm having trouble with it though, particularly in finding the line between "play" and "game". Tossing cards into a hat, for example, has some structure and rules -- you can't just drop them into the hat from above, the hat must be small enough to make it a challenge -- and yet it still feels wrong to call such an activity a game.

I suppose the simplest activity I can comfortably consider a game would be Tag, can anyone come up with a game simpler than that?



B) Anyone who identifies with games, gaming culture, or derives greater than normal pleasure from the playing of games.

This is a tricky one too, it seems to me that "gamers" are drawn to games for such a giant variety of reasons that the term becomes too broad to be useful as a descriptor. Some are into the immersion factor of MMORPGs; some get a charge from the adrenaline rush that action games can offer; some use online action games to practice, perfect, and display their mastery of minute manual dexterity ("twitch"); some are into the technology of gaming; some are drawn to fantastic escapism; some are drawn to the strategic thinking and mental exercise demanded by certain games; etc, etc etc.