I'm supposed to write a paper going over the positive impacts of gaming, as a counterpoint to the perspective that gaming teaches people to waste time, lose the ability to prioritize, and lose touch with society.
I want to argue that the real issue that causes those problems is backlash against people who have no respect for an art form that is compelling to a certain kind of person, but I was reading a thread in this forum about reasons for the popularity of the last generation of consoles, and one major reason given for why the WiiU is lagging is because the games designed for it aren't single-player-friendly enough and that there aren't enough time sinks to get people really committed to it.
Now, I want to stress that this thread is not about console wars. The only reason I bring it up is because I'm wondering: do games, as an art form, depend on people who exhibit the unhealthy aspects of gaming culture in order to exist as a viable business, or is gaming culture a thing apart? What would the stereotypes about gamers be, if they weren't that they waste time and never go outdoors? If we lived in a world where a non-gamer could find out that someone was a gamer, and be impressed by it, why would they be impressed?
(As an example, for me, if someone tells me they like Yoga, I don't think they're weird for wanting to hold still in uncomfortable positions for long periods. I interpret it as them being fit, relaxed, and centered. Yoga has good PR, so to speak.)
Also, is the common perception of a gamer a result of the people who play games, or a result of game designers encouraging certain behavior in the first place? Can games appeal to the target demographic of "gamers" without encouraging them to lose themselves in the game, or is that immersive-ness too much a part of the appeal in the first place?
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
This is some stuff that the gaming community has done that has benefited the world as a whole, and we can all be proud of.
But even if these didn't exist, games are an artform. They are a means of expression, and of bridging gaps between people. They are creations borne of the creativity of man, and offer shared experiences that people can participate in, grow, and be changed by.
So the question I ask is: who ****ing cares what people stereotype gamers to be? First of all, the fact that 40% of all gamers are female alone means that the stereotype is bogus anyway. But the fact remains that we are participants in an art form that bridges barriers, creates joy, and makes us feel alive. Exactly who do we need to justify ourselves to?
Thanks for the links, I find those to be very useful.
As for your question, I care. It is patently obvious that gaming has fostered a culture which accepts certain unhealthy behaviors as normal. I don't mean things like mysogyny or trolling or other things which are patently not accepted by the gaming community as whole, but rather stuff like having 500+ days /played on, say, WoW. That's the sort of thing that gamers brag about, but it isn't actually a good thing on any level. Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
I don't want to come down on the side of thinking of gaming as a negative aspect of one's personality, but it's hard not to. When games were like Super Mario, that you could beat in 45 minutes and then think back on fondly, it was one thing. When games are like Skyrim or SC2, which demand a level of time commitment that goes beyond reasonable and approaches obscene, I have to wonder if this is because gamers are the kind of people who are especially bad at time management, or if it's that game designers are actively trying to get people to lose a sense of the value of their real lives.
The paper I have to write feels very much to me like I'm playing devil's advocate, which is fine, but I'd rather find a way to be convinced that gaming is actually something to be proud of. The links you offered are good for that, but I still can't help but feel like most gamers have never even heard of those endeavors, or indeed any endeavor beyond how they can amuse themselves for the next six hours.
When asked by parents at work, I tell them that, yes, there are.
One example is hand-eye coordination. Especially in games that require twitch reflexes like Call of Duty or Super Meat Boy, you very quickly have to develop the ability to react swiftly to what it is you're seeing.
There's also logical thinking skills and the ability to think outside the box. See the Professor Layton series for the former and games like Scribblenauts for the latter. But there's even games like X-Com that force you to look at your map/battlefield/whatever and think of a strategy to make things work.
Interpersonal communication and organizational skills are often part of gaming. I've read (though I'd have to hunt down the article) that you'd do well to cite your role as a raid leader in WoW on future applications for a job because that shows you can organize. If you're getting twenty or more people to work together on a single project that requires teamwork and split-second timing, you've got a hell of a job. And if you do it well, many jobs are going to want that type of skill on their payroll. And while you may scoff at 'interpersonal communication' and think of the many 'your mother' comments on the 'net, think of a game like League of Legends. You need to be able to establish teamwork and communication with your teammembers in the first few minutes of the game. That's not much time to get across information. Encouragement helps, and people learn that. See also the WoW raiders bit.
Rapid thinking and calculation are typically trained up in games. It may be something like an RPG where you're calculating, in your head, how good a new piece of equipment is. While you may not be looking at exact numbers, you're going to be estimating quickly. It's a valuable tool. Or perhaps calculating how many more monsters you need to kill to level up. Planning ahead to see what your next level should take to optimize your character. Looking at routes through a battlefield to see what's the fastest and safest way through. Things like that. Games don't always do the math for you, which means you have to do it yourself.
In some cases there's genuine learning to be had. Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis have all sorts of historical facts built into the games, like policies of the Holy Roman Empire or the de jure borders of Portugal. Scribblenauts, which I mentioned before, can easily improve your vocabulary as you search for words that fit the puzzle you're on. Or perhaps something like Cooking Mama which imparts, in small doses, cooking techniques that you can take to the real world.
You said that people can't do time management with video games. I have to disagree. There are games like Dead Rising where time management is everything. How much time do I have to do this, or that? There are games like the Atelier series where you have X amount of days to do everything and you have to figure out how you're going to make it all work. Or games like Recettear where you have a set time limit to do as much as you can. This can teach you to put a value on things and decide what's your best actions in a short period of time.
Catharsis is a big part of gaming for some people. Gaming can be a way to relax and get away the stress of the day. If you can sink yourself into Street Fighter, your rapid button presses may be the best way to get our your frustrations. You may go into a game with a time trail (like I did recently with Blood of the Werewolf) and put all of your stressed energies into beating that time.
Relaxation is another huge thing. Take a game like Knytt Underground, Zen Bound, or Poker Night at the Inventory. These are games you can just sit back and enjoy. There's little in the way of stress in these games. You can just have fun with them and lower the blood pressure. That definitely helps out.
Highroller linked to the Huffington Post bit I wanted to point out. There's some side projects that gaming helps, but there's plenty of things that gaming can add to the individual. Generally they are side effects from the actual gaming. I play Battlefield as a Sniper, and a side effect is that I begin to understand the concepts of gravity on bullets over distance. So, physics. They can make concepts easier to grasp as you actually mess with things and see how they work. Or just practice various things, like hand-eye coordination.
They never mention AGDQ, despite AGDQ2014 being the most successful gaming marathon for charity to date. This is likely due to the episode being written before it, though.
Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
The only reason why books are more of a "reimbursement" for your time is because they are more valued culturally. This is an argument that was used against early films, and early television: You should be reading books instead, because they better your life blah blah. There is nothing wrong with the medium of games that makes it inferior to books, and some of the stories being told in games can be quite well written, and games such as Torment do touch on pretty wide range of subjects. The issue is that books, and now films, have been canonically accepted as "high art", whereas games are still seen as "child's toys".
Gaming does increase your abstract thinking skills, improves your reaction times and eye-hand coordination, and reduces the likelihood you'll suffer from recurrent nightmares. Real-Time Strategy games increase your ability to make decisions under pressure, and games such as World of Warcraft are highly social. I played WoW, starting in Vanilla. I still have contacts to some people I played with. The main reason I renewed my subscription as long as I did was to keep chatting with them. Anything on Wii-Fit probably keeps you fit.
As a non-native English speaker, I also have scored the highest possible score on nearly all tests I've taken in my life. This is, quite simply, due to gaming. From Baldur's Gate to Magic: The Gathering, to World of Warcraft and to Dungeons and Dragons, everything is written in English, and since it's something I was interested in, I just learned the language as a byproduct.
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
As I see it, the video game industry has both positives and negatives impacts. I will start witht he negatives one.
Negative Impact number one: some players will develop a dependance to the video games, which will make them socially awkward in certain situations.
Negative Impact number two: hands problems. Remember that the game systems recently got a hold of ergonomy. Thos with many years of gaming experience ends up with hands problems, in the same way some sportsmans have carpal tunnel problems.
Negative Impact number three: Stroboscopic images. It's mainly a visual art. You can't take out that sometimes, you must put a strobe effect when a grenade blows up. But this also applies to movies.
Negative impact number four: Some players will be toxic under the guise of annonymity and will trash talk at other players.
Good Impact number one: Hand-eyes coordination is developped at a quicker pace.
Good impact number two: recent game systems started to include ergonomy in their desing.
Good impact number three: The graphisms are a piece of art by themselves. Same with the music. To resume, video games are the same thing as a movie, but with the player being able to take part in the adventure. The music of the soundtracks and the graphisms have the exact same impact as a movie on the brain.
Good impact number four: a social community growing day by day. You can't deny that some video game communities actually help some persons. There are even conventions where players can get to meet.
Good impact number five: gaming can become a job. Pros are gainning money trought out the world. Altought they are rare and their job is hard (they sometimes have to get a second job), they still manage to live a real life. To this, they are similar to those pro poker players.
Good impact number six: gaming can be educative. There are now video games to teach kids how to read and write. I learned my english with video games.
Good impact number seven: health improvement. In recent years, we have seen a game system add a whole new concept to game. Health gaming. I'm speaking of Wii here.
To resume, there will always be good and bad aspect to everything. That's how our world is made. You can't say that something has only negative impacts. Even the atomic bomb had a good side by helping humanity develop a reliable power source, altought said power source has seen lot of controverse and needs constant monitoring.
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Casual crazy magic player, otaku maniac, unrully cosplayer, what did you expect me to be?
I think Video Games are incredibly beneficial (if a double-edged sword, other posters have identified the problems). There have been studies showing that a gamer, compared to their non-gamer counterparts, are generally better at multi-tasking and much more goal oriented.
For me personally, I've seen a lot of benefits of gaming:
- I've got a great three dimensional sense of direction. This is largely from 90's PC games with poor maps.
- PC Gaming in the 90's has made me an excellent typist. Of course, it's not true anymore due to VOIP, but in general when you had to type fast or die, you learned to type fast.
- It's honed my leadership skills when it comes to cooperative games like Left 4 Dead. I learned how to communicate quickly and effectively with my teammates in tense, time-sensitive situations
- My problem-solving skills are excellent, and I can break problems down to definable objectives really easily
This, of course, does not include more generic things like resource management. Civ-style games and strategy games actually made me really good at managing money in real life.
I think Video Games are incredibly beneficial (if a double-edged sword, other posters have identified the problems). There have been studies showing that a gamer, compared to their non-gamer counterparts, are generally better at multi-tasking and much more goal oriented.
This would be a really helpful piece of information to find. Do you know where you read it?
To others: I appreciate the input. I'm more looking for the sorts of things that I can say are the characteristic effects of gaming, rather than just the sorts of things that games make possible. For example, while learning English, or staying fit with the Wii, are probably very useful, they aren't the sort of thing that gamers as a group really take advantage of (at least in the US, where my paper is directed). Are there more examples of positive impacts on gamers in general?
Lastly, just to play devil's advocate for a minute here: books and movies and music and art have been considered a poor use of time in the past, sure. But the production of those forms of art has always been about elegantly getting a point or a story across to the viewer. Games, on the other hand, are increasingly just about getting people to spend more time playing them. There's something appealing to us about "RPG elements", but they aren't artistic. They're manipulative. The specific reason they're in games is to get people interested in playing long enough to hit just one more milestone. That's a business model that devalues customers' time, and trains their customers to devalue it to themselves. (Please keep in mind that while I really do think this, I am actively looking to be talked out of the opinion, or at least find a good counterargument for it. I am not trying to piss anyone off here.)
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Along the lines of hand-eye coordination and stuff, I rarely see it explicitly mentioned but I think video games are a big part of why my reflexes and awareness are good. Playing survival horror games, good action games and that kind of thing really requires it.
Sports also helped me with that too I'm sure, though.
Along the charity route if you're going to take it, don't forget Child's Play. Video games for raising charity AND video games for the amusement of sick kids.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Lastly, just to play devil's advocate for a minute here: books and movies and music and art have been considered a poor use of time in the past, sure. But the production of those forms of art has always been about elegantly getting a point or a story across to the viewer. Games, on the other hand, are increasingly just about getting people to spend more time playing them. There's something appealing to us about "RPG elements", but they aren't artistic. They're manipulative. The specific reason they're in games is to get people interested in playing long enough to hit just one more milestone. That's a business model that devalues customers' time, and trains their customers to devalue it to themselves. (Please keep in mind that while I really do think this, I am actively looking to be talked out of the opinion, or at least find a good counterargument for it. I am not trying to piss anyone off here.)
You keep coming back to this 'spend more time playing them' bit, but it's a very, very bad argument to make. Simply enough, you need proof.
The argument you're trying to make here is that video game companies want you to keep playing their games, yes? Not just buy more, but they want you to specifically keep playing a specific game for longer periods of time.
This may be true for the games in the 'time management' genre that specifically do this on purpose. Things like Farmville, for example. But they do it because they can make money out of you by encouraging you to keep playing. The more you play, the more you see that you need the microtransactions that make longer periods of play possible. Those games are legitimately manipulating you into playing longer because they make more money.
The same holds true for MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. They want you to keep playing for long periods of time because you pay them for long periods of time.
But what about a game like Starcraft II? You pay for it once and then you play it for hundreds of hours. Blizzard makes no more money on you for it. They made their money and that's it. What's the motivation for them to encourage you to spend more time playing it? Same with games like the Elder Scrolls series. What's the motivation for them to make you play it longer?
There's actually very little motivation for them to make you play longer other than customer satisfaction. If you're willing to put 300 hours into Elder Scrolls V, why would you buy Elder Scrolls VI when it comes out? If you're not done with V with all the content within, the only reason for you to buy VI is because of the 'ooh shiny' factor.
The 'ooh shiny' factor is, in my opinion, what games like Madden, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Final Fantasy are focusing on. They want you to forget the old game and get the new one as soon as it comes out. That's what makes them money. The longer you're willing to play the older one, the less money they're making off of you. This is where things like map packs come in. But the more you play in a game you only pay for once, the less they're actually making.
"RPG Elements" aren't meant to be artistic. Frequently they're meant to give a better element of progress to a game, or to give a player a level of control and customization over their character. Something like Borderlands, for example. Yes, you may be inclined to grind up a bit to get yourself maxed out. But the RPG elements aren't for that. You're going to level as long as you play the game. They exist to give you a sort of progress element beyond just 'I made it to the next stage', and they're there to let you customize your gameplay experience for more enjoyment of the game. I'd probably like playing Axton with his turret just fine by itself. But being able to use the turret as a teleporting nuke that softens up enemies so I can run in and mop them up makes him more fun to me. My friend likes playing the Psycho just fine, but he likes him more because of 'you're in my spot' among other things.
Your assertion that they're trying to get us to devalue our time seems to be based on flawed ideas. "One more milestone" means nothing as a business model if the companies in question don't actually make money off of it. Typically, game length helps a customer feel more secure with their purchase, happier that they didn't spend their money on a short experience. I would be unhappy if I spent $60 and only got 6 hours of gameplay out of it. On the other hand, I'm generally ecstatic if I spend $60 and get 80 hours of gameplay out of it.
Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
Remuneration? Really? So if you spend 500+ days reading books, you get money? Where does this money come from? I'm pretty sure I should be entitled to it by now.
I don't want to come down on the side of thinking of gaming as a negative aspect of one's personality, but it's hard not to.
Is it really, or are you just trying to stir up controversy where there isn't any?
When games were like Super Mario, that you could beat in 45 minutes and then think back on fondly, it was one thing.
Erm... I don't know how you did as a kid, but I certainly could not beat Super Mario in 45 minutes. Super Mario was a game I played for months on end, and loved doing so.
When games are like Skyrim or SC2, which demand a level of time commitment that goes beyond reasonable and approaches obscene,
Obscene compared to what?
Ok, fine, you don't like investing large amounts of time into video games. That's fine. But where do you get off judging other people for doing so? Further, what makes that hobby any worse than any other hobby ever?
The paper I have to write feels very much to me like I'm playing devil's advocate,
No, it doesn't sound like you're playing devil's advocate. Devil's advocate means you take on a side you don't necessarily agree on in order to stimulate discussion and test the validity of the other side's argument.
That's not what you're doing. You're just declaring, "Playing video games for an extended period of time is bad" without actually justifying your statement at all. You proclaim it a waste of time, but never give any reason as to why it's a waste of time over any other hobby ever. Therefore, you're not actually testing the other side's argument, because you've offered no actual argument to demonstrate that video games have no value.
but I still can't help but feel like most gamers have never even heard of those endeavors, or indeed any endeavor beyond how they can amuse themselves for the next six hours.
But you missed the point of my post: even absent all of the good things the gaming community does, gaming does not have to justify itself. People are having fun engaging in an activity that harms no one. There is nothing that requires them to justify their activities to you.
Go back and reread what you wrote. You're talking about people who, given a choice, choose out of their own free will to participate in an activity for 500+ days out of their own time. You know what those people have? Passion. That's what brings a person to do something that long of their own choice. They have found a thing that they can do for days on end and still come back to because they have found something that is fun and makes them feel alive.
Who the hell are you to claim that is illegitimate?
Lastly, just to play devil's advocate for a minute here: books and movies and music and art have been considered a poor use of time in the past, sure. But the production of those forms of art has always been about elegantly getting a point or a story across to the viewer. Games, on the other hand, are increasingly just about getting people to spend more time playing them. There's something appealing to us about "RPG elements", but they aren't artistic. They're manipulative. The specific reason they're in games is to get people interested in playing long enough to hit just one more milestone. That's a business model that devalues customers' time, and trains their customers to devalue it to themselves. (Please keep in mind that while I really do think this, I am actively looking to be talked out of the opinion, or at least find a good counterargument for it. I am not trying to piss anyone off here.)
I will counter the argument that RPG elements are only there to show you another milestone. It is clearly wrong. RPG elements allows the player to integrate themselves int he story as the hero instead of a third view person, like in novels and movies. Video games are like those ''You are the hero'' books, some with the added aspect of multiplayer and others without that aspect. Also, most of the games are ''Pay once and you can play it as much as you want'', unlike games like WoW, which is a Pay to Play (P2P) with a Pay for Perks (PfP) feature. Most games are not like that due to the fact that one prefers to pay for a game once and enjoy instead of constantly paying for their enjoyment.
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Casual crazy magic player, otaku maniac, unrully cosplayer, what did you expect me to be?
Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
Remuneration? Really? So if you spend 500+ days reading books, you get money? Where does this money come from? I'm pretty sure I should be entitled to it by now.
It's about the status of books as "high art". Mentioning that you have read all the Russian classics in a interview is probably something to be seen in a positive light. Saying that you can do a 0-star run in SM64 gets you a weird look. A lot of our culture is built on top of books, and references to them. It's not that there is anything wrong with the medium of games, like I said earlier, but the mediums are valued differently. It is a hilarious case of "Gaming is less beneficial because people think less of it."
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The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
Remuneration? Really? So if you spend 500+ days reading books, you get money? Where does this money come from? I'm pretty sure I should be entitled to it by now.
I don't want to come down on the side of thinking of gaming as a negative aspect of one's personality, but it's hard not to.
Is it really, or are you just trying to stir up controversy where there isn't any?
When games were like Super Mario, that you could beat in 45 minutes and then think back on fondly, it was one thing.
Erm... I don't know how you did as a kid, but I certainly could not beat Super Mario in 45 minutes. Super Mario was a game I played for months on end, and loved doing so.
When games are like Skyrim or SC2, which demand a level of time commitment that goes beyond reasonable and approaches obscene,
Obscene compared to what?
Ok, fine, you don't like investing large amounts of time into video games. That's fine. But where do you get off judging other people for doing so? Further, what makes that hobby any worse than any other hobby ever?
The paper I have to write feels very much to me like I'm playing devil's advocate,
No, it doesn't sound like you're playing devil's advocate. Devil's advocate means you take on a side you don't necessarily agree on in order to stimulate discussion and test the validity of the other side's argument.
That's not what you're doing. You're just declaring, "Playing video games for an extended period of time is bad" without actually justifying your statement at all. You proclaim it a waste of time, but never give any reason as to why it's a waste of time over any other hobby ever. Therefore, you're not actually testing the other side's argument, because you've offered no actual argument to demonstrate that video games have no value.
but I still can't help but feel like most gamers have never even heard of those endeavors, or indeed any endeavor beyond how they can amuse themselves for the next six hours.
But you missed the point of my post: even absent all of the good things the gaming community does, gaming does not have to justify itself. People are having fun engaging in an activity that harms no one. There is nothing that requires them to justify their activities to you.
Go back and reread what you wrote. You're talking about people who, given a choice, choose out of their own free will to participate in an activity for 500+ days out of their own time. You know what those people have? Passion. That's what brings a person to do something that long of their own choice. They have found a thing that they can do for days on end and still come back to because they have found something that is fun and makes them feel alive.
Who the hell are you to claim that is illegitimate?
You're misunderstanding my goal here. I'm not trying to write an anti-gaming article. I'm trying to write a pro-gaming article, despite the fact that I don't feel that way. I'm not making any claim that gaming is illegitimate. I'm saying I *feel* like gaming is typically illegitimate, and I'm looking for reasons (many have been offered) to not feel that way. I'm not trying to convince anyone that my attitude is correct, but actually the exact opposite.
Gamers may not have to justify themselves, but wouldn't it be nice if they could? If someone could bring up in casual conversation that they accomplished something requiring a significant time investment in a game and have people nod and say "I admire that man for his achievements."? People (in general) think a guy who has read the collected works of Tolstoy is cultured and well-educated. People (in general) think a guy who has played the collected works of EA is a nut, and probably a sucker also. I want to explore that and find a good reason to say that playing the collected works of EA (or whatever else) is a reason for respect from someone who has never, and probably will never, bother to do so.
Asking whether the question is a valid one to ask is irrelevant to me. It's what the paper has to be about, and that isn't going to change.
You're misunderstanding my goal here. I'm not trying to write an anti-gaming article. I'm trying to write a pro-gaming article, despite the fact that I don't feel that way.
It is clear, then, that I have misunderstood your goals, and I both apologize and thank you for at least making some effort.
Though, if I may ask, what made you want to write this paper in the first place?
I'm not making any claim that gaming is illegitimate. I'm saying I *feel* like gaming is typically illegitimate,
Illegitimate why?
I don't like gardening. Can't stand it. That being said, there are people who just love gardening. I don't share their interests, but that doesn't mean I view gardening as an illegitimate or detrimental hobby.
Gamers may not have to justify themselves, but wouldn't it be nice if they could?
Except asking them to justify themselves is like asking anyone to justify any preference of anything ever. "I like it."
If someone could bring up in casual conversation that they accomplished something requiring a significant time investment in a game and have people nod and say "I admire that man for his achievements."?
Well, you're not a gamer.
Any niche interest is going to probably go over the heads of people outside of that niche. I probably wouldn't be able to follow along in a conversation with a person whose interests include entomology. That doesn't diminish his or her interest in it.
People (in general) think a guy who has read the collected works of Tolstoy is cultured and well-educated. People (in general) think a guy who has played the collected works of EA is a nut, and probably a sucker also. I want to explore that and find a good reason to say that playing the collected works of EA (or whatever else) is a reason for respect from someone who has never, and probably will never, bother to do so.
So in other words, and let me see if I understand your position correctly, you view the worth of your actions as stemming from how cool other people think you are?
That's not a healthy mentality.
Also an extremely questionable one for someone on a Magic: The Gathering site.
Asking whether the question is a valid one to ask is irrelevant to me. It's what the paper has to be about, and that isn't going to change.
I'm writing the paper as a refutation of the opposing point of view. The point is to research and thoroughly understand a position I do not take, and present it in as supportive a light as possible. The point is to demonstrate that popular perception of one side of an issue is almost always more a result of lack of information and lack of interest in the opposing view than it is about one side or the other actually being right.
I don't like gardening. Can't stand it. That being said, there are people who just love gardening. I don't share their interests, but that doesn't mean I view gardening as an illegitimate or detrimental hobby.
Because I have a sense (true or not) that it encourages more unhealthy behavior than healthy.
Well, you're not a gamer.
Any niche interest is going to probably go over the heads of people outside of that niche. I probably wouldn't be able to follow along in a conversation with a person whose interests include entomology. That doesn't diminish his or her interest in it.
But my concern isn't about being able to share an interest in gaming, but about wanting to respect an interest in gaming. If an entomologist starts talking about his field and I go, "Oh boy, here he goes again. Maybe if I avoid eye contact and yawn enough, he'll go away," then the disrespect is palpable. That kind of attitude is pervasive when it comes to gaming. Even admitting to a non-gamer that you play games, without ever mentioning what games or any details at all, will generally get a glazed look and a change of subject, and more importantly, an effort to avoid talking to that person again in the future. You see this with romantic relationships, professional relationships, everywhere. Being known as a gamer ranks just above being known as the guy who tells booger jokes.
EDIT: I can see there's maybe a disconnect in what I seem to be saying. My goal with this paper is to find things about gaming that are "respectable" with the idea that presenting those things to people is the best way of changing opinions about gaming. I'm not saying that people should disrespect gamers unless their choices are healthy.
So in other words, and let me see if I understand your position correctly, you view the worth of your actions as stemming from how cool other people think you are?
I'm writing the paper as a refutation of the opposing point of view. The point is to research and thoroughly understand a position I do not take, and present it in as supportive a light as possible. The point is to demonstrate that popular perception of one side of an issue is almost always more a result of lack of information and lack of interest in the opposing view than it is about one side or the other actually being right.
... Yeah how's that going for you?
Because I have a sense (true or not) that it encourages more unhealthy behavior than healthy.
Based on...?
But my concern isn't about being able to share an interest in gaming, but about wanting to respect an interest in gaming.
Actually, I don't perceive you as wanting to respect an interest in gaming.
If an entomologist starts talking about his field and I go, "Oh boy, here he goes again. Maybe if I avoid eye contact and yawn enough, he'll go away," then the disrespect is palpable.
Maybe. Or it might be that the person in question has a habit of droning on about things that nobody else relates to or cares about.
Now, if you were to go to an entomology lecture, for example, and react in the same way, then yes, clearly you are disrespecting the field of entomology. But your disrespect of entomology does not reflect negatively on the field of entomology.
That kind of attitude is pervasive when it comes to gaming.
So?
Even admitting to a non-gamer that you play games, without ever mentioning what games or any details at all, will generally get a glazed look and a change of subject,
Yeah, because most people can't really relate to the subject matter. I'm positive if I told most people that I am a player in the London Philharmonic, or a professional snowboarder, or a brain surgeon they would react the same way. Why? Because most people cannot relate to those things.
and more importantly, an effort to avoid talking to that person again in the future.
You have experienced that if you mention to anyone that you play video games at all, they will avoid you? Who, exactly, have you been hanging out with?
Video gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that is responsible for thousands of jobs. Its activities are neither illicit nor shameful. Exactly what about this merits such a response?
You see this with romantic relationships, professional relationships, everywhere. Being known as a gamer ranks just above being known as the guy who tells booger jokes.
... Oh, you're in High School. Well that would explain it.
I can see there's maybe a disconnect in what I seem to be saying.
Several.
My goal with this paper is to find things about gaming that are "respectable" with the idea that presenting those things to people is the best way of changing opinions about gaming. I'm not saying that people should disrespect gamers unless their choices are healthy.
Define "respectable." You've pretty much outright declared "Gamers bad" without any rationale for it. When you've thrown rational argument out the window, what could possibly be achieved by conversation?
Demonstrate why video games merit disrespect and ridicule in your mind. Let's start from there.
So in other words, and let me see if I understand your position correctly, you view the worth of your actions as stemming from how cool other people think you are?
That's not a healthy mentality.
A desire for respect is innate, healthy or not.
People are much more likely to respect you when you're not desperate for them to do so.
I want to argue that the real issue that causes those problems is backlash against people who have no respect for an art form that is compelling to a certain kind of person, but I was reading a thread in this forum about reasons for the popularity of the last generation of consoles, and one major reason given for why the WiiU is lagging is because the games designed for it aren't single-player-friendly enough and that there aren't enough time sinks to get people really committed to it.
Now, I want to stress that this thread is not about console wars. The only reason I bring it up is because I'm wondering: do games, as an art form, depend on people who exhibit the unhealthy aspects of gaming culture in order to exist as a viable business, or is gaming culture a thing apart? What would the stereotypes about gamers be, if they weren't that they waste time and never go outdoors? If we lived in a world where a non-gamer could find out that someone was a gamer, and be impressed by it, why would they be impressed?
(As an example, for me, if someone tells me they like Yoga, I don't think they're weird for wanting to hold still in uncomfortable positions for long periods. I interpret it as them being fit, relaxed, and centered. Yoga has good PR, so to speak.)
Also, is the common perception of a gamer a result of the people who play games, or a result of game designers encouraging certain behavior in the first place? Can games appeal to the target demographic of "gamers" without encouraging them to lose themselves in the game, or is that immersive-ness too much a part of the appeal in the first place?
That said, your thread title is simple enough. Are there positive aspects of gaming?
Well let's start with good things that the game community does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=183_K4KfrP0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/aids-protein-decoded-gamers_n_970113.html
This is some stuff that the gaming community has done that has benefited the world as a whole, and we can all be proud of.
But even if these didn't exist, games are an artform. They are a means of expression, and of bridging gaps between people. They are creations borne of the creativity of man, and offer shared experiences that people can participate in, grow, and be changed by.
So the question I ask is: who ****ing cares what people stereotype gamers to be? First of all, the fact that 40% of all gamers are female alone means that the stereotype is bogus anyway. But the fact remains that we are participants in an art form that bridges barriers, creates joy, and makes us feel alive. Exactly who do we need to justify ourselves to?
As for your question, I care. It is patently obvious that gaming has fostered a culture which accepts certain unhealthy behaviors as normal. I don't mean things like mysogyny or trolling or other things which are patently not accepted by the gaming community as whole, but rather stuff like having 500+ days /played on, say, WoW. That's the sort of thing that gamers brag about, but it isn't actually a good thing on any level. Gaming is a time waster in a way that books and painting and acting never were, because at least if you devote your life to those things, there's some kind of remuneration involved.
I don't want to come down on the side of thinking of gaming as a negative aspect of one's personality, but it's hard not to. When games were like Super Mario, that you could beat in 45 minutes and then think back on fondly, it was one thing. When games are like Skyrim or SC2, which demand a level of time commitment that goes beyond reasonable and approaches obscene, I have to wonder if this is because gamers are the kind of people who are especially bad at time management, or if it's that game designers are actively trying to get people to lose a sense of the value of their real lives.
The paper I have to write feels very much to me like I'm playing devil's advocate, which is fine, but I'd rather find a way to be convinced that gaming is actually something to be proud of. The links you offered are good for that, but I still can't help but feel like most gamers have never even heard of those endeavors, or indeed any endeavor beyond how they can amuse themselves for the next six hours.
One example is hand-eye coordination. Especially in games that require twitch reflexes like Call of Duty or Super Meat Boy, you very quickly have to develop the ability to react swiftly to what it is you're seeing.
There's also logical thinking skills and the ability to think outside the box. See the Professor Layton series for the former and games like Scribblenauts for the latter. But there's even games like X-Com that force you to look at your map/battlefield/whatever and think of a strategy to make things work.
Interpersonal communication and organizational skills are often part of gaming. I've read (though I'd have to hunt down the article) that you'd do well to cite your role as a raid leader in WoW on future applications for a job because that shows you can organize. If you're getting twenty or more people to work together on a single project that requires teamwork and split-second timing, you've got a hell of a job. And if you do it well, many jobs are going to want that type of skill on their payroll. And while you may scoff at 'interpersonal communication' and think of the many 'your mother' comments on the 'net, think of a game like League of Legends. You need to be able to establish teamwork and communication with your teammembers in the first few minutes of the game. That's not much time to get across information. Encouragement helps, and people learn that. See also the WoW raiders bit.
Rapid thinking and calculation are typically trained up in games. It may be something like an RPG where you're calculating, in your head, how good a new piece of equipment is. While you may not be looking at exact numbers, you're going to be estimating quickly. It's a valuable tool. Or perhaps calculating how many more monsters you need to kill to level up. Planning ahead to see what your next level should take to optimize your character. Looking at routes through a battlefield to see what's the fastest and safest way through. Things like that. Games don't always do the math for you, which means you have to do it yourself.
In some cases there's genuine learning to be had. Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis have all sorts of historical facts built into the games, like policies of the Holy Roman Empire or the de jure borders of Portugal. Scribblenauts, which I mentioned before, can easily improve your vocabulary as you search for words that fit the puzzle you're on. Or perhaps something like Cooking Mama which imparts, in small doses, cooking techniques that you can take to the real world.
You said that people can't do time management with video games. I have to disagree. There are games like Dead Rising where time management is everything. How much time do I have to do this, or that? There are games like the Atelier series where you have X amount of days to do everything and you have to figure out how you're going to make it all work. Or games like Recettear where you have a set time limit to do as much as you can. This can teach you to put a value on things and decide what's your best actions in a short period of time.
Catharsis is a big part of gaming for some people. Gaming can be a way to relax and get away the stress of the day. If you can sink yourself into Street Fighter, your rapid button presses may be the best way to get our your frustrations. You may go into a game with a time trail (like I did recently with Blood of the Werewolf) and put all of your stressed energies into beating that time.
Relaxation is another huge thing. Take a game like Knytt Underground, Zen Bound, or Poker Night at the Inventory. These are games you can just sit back and enjoy. There's little in the way of stress in these games. You can just have fun with them and lower the blood pressure. That definitely helps out.
Highroller linked to the Huffington Post bit I wanted to point out. There's some side projects that gaming helps, but there's plenty of things that gaming can add to the individual. Generally they are side effects from the actual gaming. I play Battlefield as a Sniper, and a side effect is that I begin to understand the concepts of gravity on bullets over distance. So, physics. They can make concepts easier to grasp as you actually mess with things and see how they work. Or just practice various things, like hand-eye coordination.
My helpdesk should you need me.
They never mention AGDQ, despite AGDQ2014 being the most successful gaming marathon for charity to date. This is likely due to the episode being written before it, though.
The only reason why books are more of a "reimbursement" for your time is because they are more valued culturally. This is an argument that was used against early films, and early television: You should be reading books instead, because they better your life blah blah. There is nothing wrong with the medium of games that makes it inferior to books, and some of the stories being told in games can be quite well written, and games such as Torment do touch on pretty wide range of subjects. The issue is that books, and now films, have been canonically accepted as "high art", whereas games are still seen as "child's toys".
Gaming does increase your abstract thinking skills, improves your reaction times and eye-hand coordination, and reduces the likelihood you'll suffer from recurrent nightmares. Real-Time Strategy games increase your ability to make decisions under pressure, and games such as World of Warcraft are highly social. I played WoW, starting in Vanilla. I still have contacts to some people I played with. The main reason I renewed my subscription as long as I did was to keep chatting with them. Anything on Wii-Fit probably keeps you fit.
As a non-native English speaker, I also have scored the highest possible score on nearly all tests I've taken in my life. This is, quite simply, due to gaming. From Baldur's Gate to Magic: The Gathering, to World of Warcraft and to Dungeons and Dragons, everything is written in English, and since it's something I was interested in, I just learned the language as a byproduct.
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Negative Impact number one: some players will develop a dependance to the video games, which will make them socially awkward in certain situations.
Negative Impact number two: hands problems. Remember that the game systems recently got a hold of ergonomy. Thos with many years of gaming experience ends up with hands problems, in the same way some sportsmans have carpal tunnel problems.
Negative Impact number three: Stroboscopic images. It's mainly a visual art. You can't take out that sometimes, you must put a strobe effect when a grenade blows up. But this also applies to movies.
Negative impact number four: Some players will be toxic under the guise of annonymity and will trash talk at other players.
Good Impact number one: Hand-eyes coordination is developped at a quicker pace.
Good impact number two: recent game systems started to include ergonomy in their desing.
Good impact number three: The graphisms are a piece of art by themselves. Same with the music. To resume, video games are the same thing as a movie, but with the player being able to take part in the adventure. The music of the soundtracks and the graphisms have the exact same impact as a movie on the brain.
Good impact number four: a social community growing day by day. You can't deny that some video game communities actually help some persons. There are even conventions where players can get to meet.
Good impact number five: gaming can become a job. Pros are gainning money trought out the world. Altought they are rare and their job is hard (they sometimes have to get a second job), they still manage to live a real life. To this, they are similar to those pro poker players.
Good impact number six: gaming can be educative. There are now video games to teach kids how to read and write. I learned my english with video games.
Good impact number seven: health improvement. In recent years, we have seen a game system add a whole new concept to game. Health gaming. I'm speaking of Wii here.
To resume, there will always be good and bad aspect to everything. That's how our world is made. You can't say that something has only negative impacts. Even the atomic bomb had a good side by helping humanity develop a reliable power source, altought said power source has seen lot of controverse and needs constant monitoring.
For me personally, I've seen a lot of benefits of gaming:
- I've got a great three dimensional sense of direction. This is largely from 90's PC games with poor maps.
- PC Gaming in the 90's has made me an excellent typist. Of course, it's not true anymore due to VOIP, but in general when you had to type fast or die, you learned to type fast.
- It's honed my leadership skills when it comes to cooperative games like Left 4 Dead. I learned how to communicate quickly and effectively with my teammates in tense, time-sensitive situations
- My problem-solving skills are excellent, and I can break problems down to definable objectives really easily
This, of course, does not include more generic things like resource management. Civ-style games and strategy games actually made me really good at managing money in real life.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
This would be a really helpful piece of information to find. Do you know where you read it?
To others: I appreciate the input. I'm more looking for the sorts of things that I can say are the characteristic effects of gaming, rather than just the sorts of things that games make possible. For example, while learning English, or staying fit with the Wii, are probably very useful, they aren't the sort of thing that gamers as a group really take advantage of (at least in the US, where my paper is directed). Are there more examples of positive impacts on gamers in general?
Lastly, just to play devil's advocate for a minute here: books and movies and music and art have been considered a poor use of time in the past, sure. But the production of those forms of art has always been about elegantly getting a point or a story across to the viewer. Games, on the other hand, are increasingly just about getting people to spend more time playing them. There's something appealing to us about "RPG elements", but they aren't artistic. They're manipulative. The specific reason they're in games is to get people interested in playing long enough to hit just one more milestone. That's a business model that devalues customers' time, and trains their customers to devalue it to themselves. (Please keep in mind that while I really do think this, I am actively looking to be talked out of the opinion, or at least find a good counterargument for it. I am not trying to piss anyone off here.)
Some games increase cognital flexibility.
Surgeons that play video games are better at their job..
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
Sports also helped me with that too I'm sure, though.
Along the charity route if you're going to take it, don't forget Child's Play. Video games for raising charity AND video games for the amusement of sick kids.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v501/n7465/full/nature12486.html
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203458604577263273943183932
Just google 'Gamer Brain Function Study' and you'll find a lot.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
You keep coming back to this 'spend more time playing them' bit, but it's a very, very bad argument to make. Simply enough, you need proof.
The argument you're trying to make here is that video game companies want you to keep playing their games, yes? Not just buy more, but they want you to specifically keep playing a specific game for longer periods of time.
This may be true for the games in the 'time management' genre that specifically do this on purpose. Things like Farmville, for example. But they do it because they can make money out of you by encouraging you to keep playing. The more you play, the more you see that you need the microtransactions that make longer periods of play possible. Those games are legitimately manipulating you into playing longer because they make more money.
The same holds true for MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. They want you to keep playing for long periods of time because you pay them for long periods of time.
But what about a game like Starcraft II? You pay for it once and then you play it for hundreds of hours. Blizzard makes no more money on you for it. They made their money and that's it. What's the motivation for them to encourage you to spend more time playing it? Same with games like the Elder Scrolls series. What's the motivation for them to make you play it longer?
There's actually very little motivation for them to make you play longer other than customer satisfaction. If you're willing to put 300 hours into Elder Scrolls V, why would you buy Elder Scrolls VI when it comes out? If you're not done with V with all the content within, the only reason for you to buy VI is because of the 'ooh shiny' factor.
The 'ooh shiny' factor is, in my opinion, what games like Madden, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Final Fantasy are focusing on. They want you to forget the old game and get the new one as soon as it comes out. That's what makes them money. The longer you're willing to play the older one, the less money they're making off of you. This is where things like map packs come in. But the more you play in a game you only pay for once, the less they're actually making.
"RPG Elements" aren't meant to be artistic. Frequently they're meant to give a better element of progress to a game, or to give a player a level of control and customization over their character. Something like Borderlands, for example. Yes, you may be inclined to grind up a bit to get yourself maxed out. But the RPG elements aren't for that. You're going to level as long as you play the game. They exist to give you a sort of progress element beyond just 'I made it to the next stage', and they're there to let you customize your gameplay experience for more enjoyment of the game. I'd probably like playing Axton with his turret just fine by itself. But being able to use the turret as a teleporting nuke that softens up enemies so I can run in and mop them up makes him more fun to me. My friend likes playing the Psycho just fine, but he likes him more because of 'you're in my spot' among other things.
Your assertion that they're trying to get us to devalue our time seems to be based on flawed ideas. "One more milestone" means nothing as a business model if the companies in question don't actually make money off of it. Typically, game length helps a customer feel more secure with their purchase, happier that they didn't spend their money on a short experience. I would be unhappy if I spent $60 and only got 6 hours of gameplay out of it. On the other hand, I'm generally ecstatic if I spend $60 and get 80 hours of gameplay out of it.
My helpdesk should you need me.
Remuneration? Really? So if you spend 500+ days reading books, you get money? Where does this money come from? I'm pretty sure I should be entitled to it by now.
Is it really, or are you just trying to stir up controversy where there isn't any?
Erm... I don't know how you did as a kid, but I certainly could not beat Super Mario in 45 minutes. Super Mario was a game I played for months on end, and loved doing so.
Obscene compared to what?
Ok, fine, you don't like investing large amounts of time into video games. That's fine. But where do you get off judging other people for doing so? Further, what makes that hobby any worse than any other hobby ever?
No, it doesn't sound like you're playing devil's advocate. Devil's advocate means you take on a side you don't necessarily agree on in order to stimulate discussion and test the validity of the other side's argument.
That's not what you're doing. You're just declaring, "Playing video games for an extended period of time is bad" without actually justifying your statement at all. You proclaim it a waste of time, but never give any reason as to why it's a waste of time over any other hobby ever. Therefore, you're not actually testing the other side's argument, because you've offered no actual argument to demonstrate that video games have no value.
But you missed the point of my post: even absent all of the good things the gaming community does, gaming does not have to justify itself. People are having fun engaging in an activity that harms no one. There is nothing that requires them to justify their activities to you.
Go back and reread what you wrote. You're talking about people who, given a choice, choose out of their own free will to participate in an activity for 500+ days out of their own time. You know what those people have? Passion. That's what brings a person to do something that long of their own choice. They have found a thing that they can do for days on end and still come back to because they have found something that is fun and makes them feel alive.
Who the hell are you to claim that is illegitimate?
I will counter the argument that RPG elements are only there to show you another milestone. It is clearly wrong. RPG elements allows the player to integrate themselves int he story as the hero instead of a third view person, like in novels and movies. Video games are like those ''You are the hero'' books, some with the added aspect of multiplayer and others without that aspect. Also, most of the games are ''Pay once and you can play it as much as you want'', unlike games like WoW, which is a Pay to Play (P2P) with a Pay for Perks (PfP) feature. Most games are not like that due to the fact that one prefers to pay for a game once and enjoy instead of constantly paying for their enjoyment.
It's about the status of books as "high art". Mentioning that you have read all the Russian classics in a interview is probably something to be seen in a positive light. Saying that you can do a 0-star run in SM64 gets you a weird look. A lot of our culture is built on top of books, and references to them. It's not that there is anything wrong with the medium of games, like I said earlier, but the mediums are valued differently. It is a hilarious case of "Gaming is less beneficial because people think less of it."
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
You're misunderstanding my goal here. I'm not trying to write an anti-gaming article. I'm trying to write a pro-gaming article, despite the fact that I don't feel that way. I'm not making any claim that gaming is illegitimate. I'm saying I *feel* like gaming is typically illegitimate, and I'm looking for reasons (many have been offered) to not feel that way. I'm not trying to convince anyone that my attitude is correct, but actually the exact opposite.
Gamers may not have to justify themselves, but wouldn't it be nice if they could? If someone could bring up in casual conversation that they accomplished something requiring a significant time investment in a game and have people nod and say "I admire that man for his achievements."? People (in general) think a guy who has read the collected works of Tolstoy is cultured and well-educated. People (in general) think a guy who has played the collected works of EA is a nut, and probably a sucker also. I want to explore that and find a good reason to say that playing the collected works of EA (or whatever else) is a reason for respect from someone who has never, and probably will never, bother to do so.
Asking whether the question is a valid one to ask is irrelevant to me. It's what the paper has to be about, and that isn't going to change.
It is clear, then, that I have misunderstood your goals, and I both apologize and thank you for at least making some effort.
Though, if I may ask, what made you want to write this paper in the first place?
Illegitimate why?
I don't like gardening. Can't stand it. That being said, there are people who just love gardening. I don't share their interests, but that doesn't mean I view gardening as an illegitimate or detrimental hobby.
Except asking them to justify themselves is like asking anyone to justify any preference of anything ever. "I like it."
Well, you're not a gamer.
Any niche interest is going to probably go over the heads of people outside of that niche. I probably wouldn't be able to follow along in a conversation with a person whose interests include entomology. That doesn't diminish his or her interest in it.
So in other words, and let me see if I understand your position correctly, you view the worth of your actions as stemming from how cool other people think you are?
That's not a healthy mentality.
Also an extremely questionable one for someone on a Magic: The Gathering site.
Why don't you argue the other side?
Because I have a sense (true or not) that it encourages more unhealthy behavior than healthy.
But my concern isn't about being able to share an interest in gaming, but about wanting to respect an interest in gaming. If an entomologist starts talking about his field and I go, "Oh boy, here he goes again. Maybe if I avoid eye contact and yawn enough, he'll go away," then the disrespect is palpable. That kind of attitude is pervasive when it comes to gaming. Even admitting to a non-gamer that you play games, without ever mentioning what games or any details at all, will generally get a glazed look and a change of subject, and more importantly, an effort to avoid talking to that person again in the future. You see this with romantic relationships, professional relationships, everywhere. Being known as a gamer ranks just above being known as the guy who tells booger jokes.
EDIT: I can see there's maybe a disconnect in what I seem to be saying. My goal with this paper is to find things about gaming that are "respectable" with the idea that presenting those things to people is the best way of changing opinions about gaming. I'm not saying that people should disrespect gamers unless their choices are healthy.
A desire for respect is innate, healthy or not.
... Yeah how's that going for you?
Based on...?
Actually, I don't perceive you as wanting to respect an interest in gaming.
Maybe. Or it might be that the person in question has a habit of droning on about things that nobody else relates to or cares about.
Now, if you were to go to an entomology lecture, for example, and react in the same way, then yes, clearly you are disrespecting the field of entomology. But your disrespect of entomology does not reflect negatively on the field of entomology.
So?
Yeah, because most people can't really relate to the subject matter. I'm positive if I told most people that I am a player in the London Philharmonic, or a professional snowboarder, or a brain surgeon they would react the same way. Why? Because most people cannot relate to those things.
You have experienced that if you mention to anyone that you play video games at all, they will avoid you? Who, exactly, have you been hanging out with?
Video gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that is responsible for thousands of jobs. Its activities are neither illicit nor shameful. Exactly what about this merits such a response?
... Oh, you're in High School. Well that would explain it.
Several.
Define "respectable." You've pretty much outright declared "Gamers bad" without any rationale for it. When you've thrown rational argument out the window, what could possibly be achieved by conversation?
Demonstrate why video games merit disrespect and ridicule in your mind. Let's start from there.
People are much more likely to respect you when you're not desperate for them to do so.