It was a Sunday spent in the hospital as Neo was down with a severe bacterial infection...Amongst the umpteen trips to Lilavati, two things caught my attention. A front page story in TOI on the gaming obsession amongst the young(The New Devdas is a Gamer) and the snatch of a conversation between a 6 year old girl and her grand-parents in the lift!I know the world of gaming exists. I watch and wonder about it from a distance. Too old, too weary, too fascinated with it...
1. Had initiated a research few months back. With little supervision, didn't really get to the bottom of either gamers or gaming . Must do a ver 2.0 soon!
2. "Unable to face the realities of heart-break, outright rejection, and other humiliations of love, youngsters today are seeking refuge in addictive multi-user games, a whole parallel universe where life is boy-friendly." - Sunday TOI
3. Looks like these MMORPGs(Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) are filling in for real life relationships, sexual fantasies and other fetish. And the legion of obsessive admirers is growing by the day!
4. There there is something called the Hentai(Japanese term) - these are cartoon games which involve sadomasochism and paedophilia!!
5. Amidst all this general knowledge I gleaned, I heard an exasperated 6 year old girl explain the Gameboy to her grand parents. Who kept on asking why the boys play gameboy and not the 'gamegirl?!@' LOL
In another few months, I can envisage a similar conversation between Neo and my father or worse still between Neo and me!!
4 comments:
The Indiatimes Gaming team sits right next to ours. What i've learnt in all the interactions is that E-games may be the hottest new sport in India, but believe me, they're simply overhyped as far as all the negativity is concerned. Maybe I can request a good gamer friend of mine to tell you why!
Hey Manish
I just read this blog post (link given by Soumya).
I am an avid gamer and have been playing games for more than a decade and a half. I have also been on the other side...the game sevelopment/media/game-related-services industry.
I had read the Sunday TOI article...infact it was so hilarious I carry it in my bag everyday. I have it in front of me and would like to clear some misconceptions (both your's and and the author's).
1) Most gamers do NOT play games to find girls (or to indulge in virtual girls). Gamers on an average are tech-savvy people who have got thousands of avenues for porn and to make new friends. Games are generally the worst medium for both.
Other alternatives for eg: Internet Search Engines and Porn Sites ; Social Networking Sites ; Public Chat Servers ; Forums
All these alternatives are much suitable to find 'girls' and 'friends' as compared to playing games.
2) Gamers are NOT losers in real life. This depends more on individual cases and I would rather that you do not generalize.
Games are similar to other forms of entertainment...books, movies etc. Infact, they go one step beyond these conventional media because they include interactivity.
For a good read on what games are...what they aren't...and how they compare to traditional media...as well as how they help, read Raph Koster's 'Theory of Fun in Game Design'. I seriously recommend it for gamers and non-gamers alike.
3) Hentai does not refer to porn based games. Do a google or wiki search for Hentai and you would realize Hentai refers to porn based comics.
I do agree...there are games based on hentai...but then there are also games based on building civilizations...rescuing princesses...saving the world and thousands of other topics.
4) The 'MMORPGs' that the author (Priyanko Sarkar) lists - Max Payne, NFS and Half-life are not MMORPGs at all. Max payne is infact ONLY a singleplayer game.
The rest of these games are called Multiplayer games (Multi-User can be used too) and support upto 10-20 (on an average) players.
MMORPGs include games like everquest, world of warcraft, eve online etc. These games usually have around 1000-2000 players online at the same time!!
5) 99.99% Games do not have girl characters shedding layers of clothing. There are almost no games like these except porn-based games like Strip Poker. But then...strip poker can be played in real life too.
The article in TOI as a whole was a piece of shit (to be polite). It was factually incorrect at many points. Articles like these spread wrong ideas amongst non-gamers.
Would be more than happy to help you out in your research or to clear out any other myths.
ciao
Himanshu / hpgupta
thanks himanshu...
all this information is most useful...will get in touch with you for any other dope on gaming!
However, my intention was not to paint all gamers with a broad brush stroke. I am not qualified to make that comment.
Nothing is ever as good or as bad as media makes it out to be!!
Thanks to Himanshu..he just saved me from typing in the gamer-defense rant.
and Thanks to Soumya for stating a fact.
Its just a matter of being intimidated by a new thing. I feel the way about the ipod the way most non-gamers feel about gaming lol
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