hai. I'mma blog!!!

Fuck.  I just bought a ps3 with my sibs not a month ago.  Wanted one for forever and we finally just cracked, pooled some dinero and ordered a pretty sweet bundle from wally world's dot com home.  So Finally we're in the current gen.... well ish.  The thing is now that I have a ps3 and have been thoroughly enjoying it for some time I kinda want to get a 360.  Why I ask you why?  I haven't even finished one game on the ps3 and I still have a stack to go through.  And on top of that I have piles of games for ps1/ps2/ps3/wii/ds/game cube/steam that I have never played.  I don't need a 360 in any way shape or form. 
 
But I wants it precious.  There's a not too shabby bundle deal on new egg (black, old style, 250g, splinter cell conviction, 2 wireless controllers, wired headset, 350 bones and free ship.) and I just want it.  I want to play some of them nifty xbox exclusives and to have a friends list and achievement points to go on my gb profile.  So I dunno, I've worked an assload of overtime this month but I should really save that money and not blow it on a console that I don't need and a subscription for said console.  But I dunno, maybe I can work it out .  I mean if @zommunism pays me back for lodging stuffs I can tuck some of that away for vacation and use my check to clear off a chunk on my c card.  But I really shouldn't.

Holy wow I've been meaning to write this for FOREVER.  I still haven't really done all the background work I wanted to for this but I'm gonna write it now anyway b/c I need to do something to wake myself up, been slinking around all sleepy like all day and this cannot stand.

So I'm sure everyone has heard at least something about his "Are video games art" debate.  I wanna say this whole thing started b/c of this:
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/22/paris-has-a-new-video-game-museum/
Basically somewhere in Paris someone opened a video game museum.  I can't really find any in-depth articles (granted I just checked the first page of a google search) but I assume they're trying to preserve some sort of video game collection.  If you think about it that makes sense.  Games of the video variety have been around and part of popular culture for about 30+ years, and as all games know, no console lives forever so it's not a bad idea to have old yet functioning stuff around for people to check out.

So I tend to think of this as a sort of science museum, but most people see 'museum' and think 'art'.  So there's been this debate about whether or not games are art.  I can see both sides of this argument b/c as far as I'm concerned the only true definition of 'art' is that it is in the eye of the creator.  If you makes something with the intention of making 'art' well then that's what you're doing.  It might not be good, but if you think it's 'art' then that's what it is.  It could be La Gioconda, it could be the Fountain of the Four Rivers, it could be a really pretty plate of spaghetti or it could be a lump of clay that you punched once or twice.  It doesn't really matter what the end result is.  So as far as I'm concerned, graphic artists and programmers can claim that they are making art.  They have skills that they have to hone, they pour hours of efforts into the end result and most of them clearly take a deal of pride in what they do, gaming wouldn't be where it is today if they didn't.  However, I can also see the argument against it b/c games are a commercial product.  The end goal of making a game for some people in the industry is to have the game played, others care more about having the game sold.  So if they want to say they're making art that's fine by me, if someone else wants to scoff at this claim, also fine by me.

While this debate was going on I started seeing all this stuff on twitter about Roger Ebert being an arrogant twat.  This didn't really surprise me as a statement b/c  he strikes me as a total snob.  But the volume of such things confused me so I started looking into it and it turns out that he made some flippant comment to the effect of "Video games are NOT art" which lead to a mass response that was something to the effect of "Well Roger, what was the last game you played?" to which he responded with "Ok, fine so I don't play games, that's because I like to READ" ah, now I see why the nerds are seething.  He responded a bit later with this
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html I glanced through this and he does defend his point fairly well but then again I don't think the gamers of the globe had a problem with him saying vgames aren't art, I think they had a problem with the implication that they also don't read.

 Then a day or two later on the Ed show (the same episode on which they were talking about Obama being a racist) the annoying female commentator that I despise said something about how "When I was young I got a job at a drive thru, these kids today want to become instant CEO's, they don't want to work they just want to sit around playing their video games" (I think italics represent sneers, if not well that's what they mean in that sentence)

In general this bothers me.  This instant claim that video games are horrible and stupid and a waste of time and money and for nerds; I understand where this is coming from but I still despise the prejudice.  Back in the day the only people who played games were people who had computers and teenagers.  Teenagers are viewed as inherently silly and materialistic who actually *liked* to spend time in dark noisy and fairly smelly arcades; and people who owned computers were few and far between and frankly freaky little nerdy people.  So there was a small subset of society that played games, fine, that's fair.  However, since then games have evolved and the kids who hung out in dank arcades raised kids of their own who were raised on games.  Computers are significantly more common and consoles are easily accessible and fairly cheap when  you compare the quality compared to arcade machines (It's more cost effective to buy a ps3 then go to an arcade once a week, and you have more game selections even if you stick to one console).  So vgames are no longer on the fringe of society; they're a common part of our lives, esp with the wii it's no longer a niche, consoles are more like TVs were in the 50's/60's, it was more or less common to find one in a house.

So Ebert's claim that he dosn't play games because he 'likes to read' is just stupid.  Clearly he doesn't know too many gamers b/c every gamer I know also enjoys a good read, be it a nice thick 700+ page sci-fi novel or a series of graphic novels or an ungodly huge programing manual, we all like to read.  And by the way Roger, dear, you know who else likes to read?  Twilight fans.  SNAP.  And when you get right down to thinking about it, games and books are on pretty equal footing.  I know they're totally different media but think about the following:
-Most games will take a minimum of 10 hours to complete, that's a pretty substantial commitment of time.  Kind of like a book
-Story has become, in some people's eyes, an important part of game development.  Studio credits more often than not include some nature of 'writer'.  So they have to have a coherent tale to spin.  Kind of like a book
-Games have the relatively unique ability to spark spirited debate.  Kind of like a book.
Now I'm not saying that we should all stop reading books and do nothing but play games, I think that's an incredibly stupid thing to do but I am saying that they really aren't so very different.  I'm also not saying every game is a uniquely spiritual experience that will make you want to sing it's praises from the rooftops, that's not every game.  Mario Kart is not that kind of game, Peggle is not that kind of game, but there are games out there with stories worth getting into and stories worth talking about.

I have a very similar problem with unnamed bitchy commentator on the ed show's comment.  Firstly, the fact that 'these kids today want to be instant CEOS' is not necessarily a bad thing.  I think it shows a decent initiative, yes I see what she's saying, pride has spoiled our children, and there are kids out there who think they merely 'deserve' to be CEOs for no readily apparent reason and yes, they are proud and spoiled.  However, look at the attitude this woman is taking towards them in general, she assumes kids are silly frivolous and lazy, you really want me to believe that she doesn't treat the kids working at Mc Donalds like inferiors?  I know well enough from working at the K that no one is more condescending that middle aged white women.  So just b/c a kid wants to have a good job right off the bat doesn't make them horrid.   But I'm doing to stop defending Teens now b/c it makes me feel dirty.  The point I was trying to get at is that she instantly dismisses video games as a waste of time.  I think I made a decent point in the previous chapter that they aren't.  And just b/c someone plays games doesn't mean that they only play games and are an anti-social freak.  That's not the modern gamer.  So please, stop this unnecessary prejudice against my people.  We're not the arcade-cave-men we used to be, we've evolved, some of us even shower regularly and have functional jobs!  So pull the stick out of your collective asses and at least give some picross a shot before you say games are brainless and stupid and for dumb people.

Douchebags
Douchebaggery
When I get jealous
When I get silly
When the brownies are gone
Accidentally seeing roadkill
when pets cease to be
being on fire (I assume)
clowns
zoos
the circus
when my camera batteries die and I have no backup
being sick
when the house is dirty
fruit flies ( I submit that they are THE most offensive insect ever) 
tbc...

In no particular Order:
 
Doctor Who
Puppies
Bunnies 
Zommunism 
Twin Peaks
Brownies
Hikes
Painting
Drawing
Bulbasaur
Zombies
Cheeseburgers
Fries
Autumn
Trees
Waterfalls
Audrey Hepburn
Charles Dickens novels
Bookstores
Nature
Insanity in others
That feeling of satisfaction you get when you finish something
Reading
Videya Gamezzzz
Not being on Fire
Camping
Smores
Taking Purdy Pictures
Not being quite as mental as my Aunt
tbc....