CatsAkimbo

" Seems like you might be over-thinking here. I believe most people consider gamers to be lazy and wasting their time because of the way gaming looks from their perspective. When I am sitting on my couch playing a game for 3 or 4 hours and people walk by, all they see is me sitting there looking at the screen with a controller in my hand. When they come by hours later, they see the same thing. I don't think they must be workaholics to call this lazy. You could chalk it up partially to their ignorance, and partially to the fact that it's sort of true. Being a gamer might not make you an outright lazy person, but the act of playing a game is rarely demanding. "

@Manhattan_Project

" @CatsAkimbo:
" If you've been to Mexico, South America, or Italy, you've probably noticed the huge difference in work ethic between them and those of us in the United States or the United Kingdom.   People in the U.S. seem to be compelled to work too hard, and often feel guilty for not working." 
 
That right there, made your entire post worthless. 

@DoctorWelch

" As others have said, you are definitely over thinking this. Basically, focusing on/doing any one thing, whether it be a hobby, job, relationship, ect, for too much of your time can be unhealthy. ..."  

We've all heard it in some form.   "Why are you wasting your time playing games?"   "Shouldn't you be working?"   "You're not hardworking and you'll never be successful" (ouch, that last one was rough).   How do people jump to these conclusions based solely on seeing us playing a game?   It has to do with modern day "workaholism" and goes back to the mid 1550's with a man named John Calvin.  (Note: This is history.  I'm not preaching :)

Calvin believed in "original sin," that each human is born morally corrupt.   Unlike some versions of Christianity, which say that one can be redeemed by good acts, Calvin believed that there was nothing a human could do to redeem his or herself.   According to him, God chose who was chosen to be saved, and who was to be damned, and that there was nothing one could do to sway God's judgment.   This belief in predestination is kind of depressing, so Calvinist ministers told their followers that one can find out if God has chosen them through their work.   One who is chosen is someone who devotes their life to unemotional good works and self-control, so if someone emulates a chosen one, and is chosen, they'll be rewarded for their good faith with economic wealth.   In contrast, if one works hard, but loses their farm to a drought, they must have been damned by God all along.   This created followers who are very devoted to their work.

(This is a very short description of Calvinism and focuses only on the part related to work ethic.   I left many things out because I'm not trying to recount an entire religious belief system.)

Fast forward to the late 1700's with Benjamin Franklin, whose father was a Calvinist.   Franklin himself was a "Deist," like many of the U.S.'s founding fathers*.   Despite this, the Calvinist influence did appear in his writing, the epitome of which is his famous quote, "time is money" **.   This refers to the economic view that time spent not working is actually lost money that you could've earned in that time.   This quote has been enormously influential on the people of the United States.   According to Max Weber, an influential sociologist, Franklin had a secularized Calvinist work ethic (secularized meaning removed from religion).

This leads to today's "Protestant work ethic" ideology.   An ideology is a belief that distorts the universe, and is often invisible to those who hold the belief to be true***.   If you've been to Mexico, South America, or Italy, you've probably noticed the huge difference in work ethic between them and those of us in the United States or the United Kingdom.   People in the U.S. seem to be compelled to work too hard, and often feel guilty for not working.   This work ethic is regarded as perfectly normal, and even part of human nature, when in fact it's very recent in terms of the history of humanity, only dating back to Calvinism.   This is the "Protestant work ethic" or "workaholic" ideology.

This "workaholic" ideology can be a good thing.   People working long hours, sometimes working overtime without pay, provide huge profits to businesses and create a booming economy.   Those who devote their lives to working for charitable organizations help the less fortunate with their strong work ethic.   There are many technological advances we can thank to people who were compelled to work late into the night.   However, there can also be a very destructive downside to this ideology.

"Workaholics" can be driven to work long hours in a job they don't enjoy, leading to a miserable existence where they deprive themselves of enjoyment.   They can believe that economic success is equal to moral superiority and create a judgmental attitude toward those who don't devote their life to their work.   They can believe that a hardworking, successful businessman is a better person than someone who doesn't work hard to get rich.

This leads to them calling people out who aren't working.   Their belief that time=money and accumulation of money is the goal in life causes them to believe that time spent playing video games is a worthless endeavor.   This is why they call you a lazy, worthless gamer.

Of course, believing gamers are lazy, worthless human beings is only small part of it.   It also leads to harmful racist beliefs.   In the past, an example is the "drunken, lazy Irishman".   Some believed that because they weren't hard working, self-disciplined people like them, the Irish didn't really matter and could be mistreated.   A more recent example is the "lazy Mexican" who is a lesser person for working less hours than Americans.   This is a particularly dumb belief because many of the same people also hold the wider belief that these lesser, "lazy Mexicans" are coming to America to steal their jobs.

So how does one reconcile the good parts of workaholism with the bad, judgmental parts?   Through self-consciousness.   You can realize you're a workaholic and "own" it without passing judgment on others for not holding the same belief in a strong work ethic.   Someone who enjoys their leisure time gaming is not a lesser person than the businessman working late into the night.

* This controversial statement is contrary to many who claim the U.S. was based on Christianity, which is historically incorrect.   Deism differs from Christianity in that Deists did not believe that Jesus was a savior, nor did they believe in divinely inspired scriptures, the trinity, or the Catholic Church.   Instead they focused on a belief in God without the need for organized religion, emphasizing rationality.

**Note that this quote was written under one of Franklin's pseudonyms: Poor Richard.   It's not clear if Franklin was writing his actual beliefs or a satire. 

Thanks to Professor Barbara Goodrich.   A much deeper recounting of the "Protestant/Calvinist Work Ethic" can be found at her website here.

"  @CatsAkimbo:   I think this is a very well written-and informed- way of looking at different styles of gameplay. With that being said though, I do believe some games are made to be PASSIVE experiences where as some games are ACTIVE experiences and you can't expect to transpose those styles, in any way you wish, into games. Games are made with certain goals in mind, with a certain experience...so to conclude, I like your post, however; perhaps you should tweak ever so lightly your technical jargon to be: Passive Game, Active game--that way you define what the game is designed to do as opposed to what the player wants to do...sometimes they do not coincide. "

 I've been noticing a strange trend in the way we talk about video games recently.  It seems like people are focusing more on a game as it stands on its own, and not on how they interact with the game.  I shouldn't have to remind you that games are an interactive medium.  You can't experience the whole of a game without pressing a button, moving a stick, or waving your arms around.  If you could, then it's just a movie.

This really came to light for me on the October 15th Weekend Confirmed podcast.  Jeff Cannata expressed his outrage at people who skip cutscenes; going as far as to call them "selfish and impatient" (* 1:29:00) for not getting into the story.  I'm not attacking him for the language he used since he sounded very frustrated at the time and probably was being a little melodramatic, but I think this really illustrated how one can get caught up in their own way of playing games.

I'm going to make up my own jargon here.  I'm really only using it to illustrate the difference.

Passive Gaming

Passive gaming is where you let sit back and experience the game.  This is the most prevalent way that reviewers talk about games.  This is about what the game does for you and not about what you're doing to the game.  There's a big focus on story, since passive game is just a few steps removed from movies.  Your interaction with the game helps you feel more connected to the story, but that interaction is secondary to what the game presents you.  An extreme example would be something like Call of Duty's single player.  There is a very specific experience that you can have with the game, and that experience is the main focus.

Active Gaming

Active gaming is where the player is the focus.  You're actively taking a role in the experience. You're not relying on the game to present you with the experience; instead, what you do to interact with the game is the experience.  An example of this the multiplayer mode of nearly any game.  You're controlling your own experience.  This is extremely fulfilling to a lot of people, because when something amazing happens, it's a direct result of their actions, of their ability to pull off that combo or that killstreak.  The game didn't set up that experience on a platter for them, they took it into their own hands.

When people game, they fall somewhere between these two extremes.  They watch cut-scenes (passive) or they build their own levels and have an amazing match inside it (active).  You can't make a value judgment about which of these is "better", that's defined by the player's taste. Someone could prefer the passive enjoyment of watching a game more than playing it, or they could prefer to skip those passive cut-scenes and jump into the active interaction of the game. They're both equally valid ways to play the game and one shouldn't forget about either of them.

*Weekend Confirmed Episode 30, October 15th. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/66047

Here I thought this was a thread about Monday Night Combat 'cus the bouncers in that game are like big gorillas.... maybe I play too many vidja gamez

This would be so great!

Didn't even notice this quest was added!  Could use some criticism on my picture here

I had 5 bucks off an amazon download, so I grabbed it.  Great background music.

Partly because I wanted 720p videos, partly to support the site.  I have a friend who can get cases of energy drinks from someone who works at Coors, and was going to send them one for the great content.  However, now that I've got the subscription, I feel pretty even. :)

I loved Riven back in the day, but I couldn't get very far without a guide.  The music and atmosphere in general is incredible though, like all the Myst games.