You may have missed a recent rant of mine on our official YouTube Channel, where I discuss how it annoys me that movies are somehow valued more than video games. Go and watch it, because it's, y'know... it's okay.
It's been rattling around in my head ever since, and builds on something else I recently wrote, about how games might be pressing certain biological, evolutionary buttons.
But in short, this is how society sees things: Movies are art. Video games are... well... "games". And it seems to be this which results in games being somehow looked down upon.
Movie directors are artists. Actors are Hollywood "royalty". Screenwriters wrestle with their inner demons, in some sort of romantic tradition of inner angst (trust me: there might be angst, but it's a job like any other, and there's nothing romantic or poetic about it, unless you're kidding yourself).
Video game designers are often portrayed geeks or hipsters, or nerds, or oddballs - people high on the spectrum. People who aren't valued. The uncool. And people that produce games are - society has decided - producing disposable entertainment of little worth. Frivolous fancies for idiots. But games exist, and if they exist, surely they have a function that goes deeper than the superficial nonsense they're often dismissed as?
It's been rattling around in my head ever since, and builds on something else I recently wrote, about how games might be pressing certain biological, evolutionary buttons.
But in short, this is how society sees things: Movies are art. Video games are... well... "games". And it seems to be this which results in games being somehow looked down upon.
Movie directors are artists. Actors are Hollywood "royalty". Screenwriters wrestle with their inner demons, in some sort of romantic tradition of inner angst (trust me: there might be angst, but it's a job like any other, and there's nothing romantic or poetic about it, unless you're kidding yourself).
Video game designers are often portrayed geeks or hipsters, or nerds, or oddballs - people high on the spectrum. People who aren't valued. The uncool. And people that produce games are - society has decided - producing disposable entertainment of little worth. Frivolous fancies for idiots. But games exist, and if they exist, surely they have a function that goes deeper than the superficial nonsense they're often dismissed as?
OBLIGATIONS
Adults have obligations - they're obligations because we're told they're obligations (just listen to how many times David Cameron uses the phrase "hard-working"... yet there's no biological imperative to pay taxes, follow the laws of whatever country we live in, own a house, work hard - beyond fuelling the energy required to exist - etc. etc... these are all constructs of "society"...).
But we haven't really got a huge amount of leg room living within such a system, unless we want to risk arrest, or have things taken from us by those who have positioned themselves into authority.
David Cameron doesn't want us to be hard-playing. He wants us to work our arses off and pay as much back into the economy as possible so that this deeply imbalanced construct endures.
We're conditioned from an early age to believe that hard work makes us good citizens, good human beings. Do well in school. Do your homework. Revise for exams. Tidy your room. You can play your games when you've finished your chores. Yet the world will not end if you fail to do any of those things. Your world will not come crashing down if you simply down tools and pick up a joypad.
But... what is at risk for the individual who resists the conditioning, resists the "obligations" we're given and rejects the society, is social exclusion, scorn, a removal of freedoms, and the anxiety, guilt and inner conflict that comes from breaking these conditions of worth.
Adults have obligations - they're obligations because we're told they're obligations (just listen to how many times David Cameron uses the phrase "hard-working"... yet there's no biological imperative to pay taxes, follow the laws of whatever country we live in, own a house, work hard - beyond fuelling the energy required to exist - etc. etc... these are all constructs of "society"...).
But we haven't really got a huge amount of leg room living within such a system, unless we want to risk arrest, or have things taken from us by those who have positioned themselves into authority.
David Cameron doesn't want us to be hard-playing. He wants us to work our arses off and pay as much back into the economy as possible so that this deeply imbalanced construct endures.
We're conditioned from an early age to believe that hard work makes us good citizens, good human beings. Do well in school. Do your homework. Revise for exams. Tidy your room. You can play your games when you've finished your chores. Yet the world will not end if you fail to do any of those things. Your world will not come crashing down if you simply down tools and pick up a joypad.
But... what is at risk for the individual who resists the conditioning, resists the "obligations" we're given and rejects the society, is social exclusion, scorn, a removal of freedoms, and the anxiety, guilt and inner conflict that comes from breaking these conditions of worth.
WASTING
So if work is a value in society, conversely play - or too much play - is frowned upon. Especially if it's the wrong sort of play.
Watching or making movies is considered acceptable (George Osborne even tweeted from the set of The Force Awakens). Going to art galleries is acceptable. Likewise reading books, and watching sport. These are all considered fine by those who make the laws, written and unwritten, in our society. We reward footballers with enormous wealth and adulation. Games - and those who make them - do not receive the same.
Because that's how our society has deemed it.
Video games are considered pointless, a waste of time. Make games, play games, write about games... and you're somehow wasting your life in the eyes of certain others. You're playing when you should be working, or doing something that feeds your intellect... yet playing is vital. We don't ever lose that instinct as we get older. But we are encouraged to lose sight of it, to bury it, and all those externally-imposed obligations I've mentioned sometimes means that we don't even have time to play as much as we'd like. Or, if we do, we feel guilty for doing so.
Yet psychiatrist Stuart Brown believes that play is as vital to our survival as oxygen. In his book Play, Brown states: "It’s all around us, yet goes mostly unnoticed or unappreciated until it is missing".
The importance of play is a theory echoed by Scott G. Eberle, editor of The American Journal of Play: "You find surprise, pleasure, understanding - as skill and empathy - and strength of mind, body, and spirit.”
Play is - says Eberle - doing anything for the sake of it, without an end goal. It's not done to further your career, or get you a house, or a meal. We play - when we do play - because we enjoy it. And when we enjoy the things we do we become better human beings. Not necessarily what society has deemed "good citizens".
Yet somehow, for some reason, not enough of us do play. And when we do, as we've seen, it seems that society has deemed certain types of play more acceptable than others. Video games are most definitely not on that list.
So if work is a value in society, conversely play - or too much play - is frowned upon. Especially if it's the wrong sort of play.
Watching or making movies is considered acceptable (George Osborne even tweeted from the set of The Force Awakens). Going to art galleries is acceptable. Likewise reading books, and watching sport. These are all considered fine by those who make the laws, written and unwritten, in our society. We reward footballers with enormous wealth and adulation. Games - and those who make them - do not receive the same.
Because that's how our society has deemed it.
Video games are considered pointless, a waste of time. Make games, play games, write about games... and you're somehow wasting your life in the eyes of certain others. You're playing when you should be working, or doing something that feeds your intellect... yet playing is vital. We don't ever lose that instinct as we get older. But we are encouraged to lose sight of it, to bury it, and all those externally-imposed obligations I've mentioned sometimes means that we don't even have time to play as much as we'd like. Or, if we do, we feel guilty for doing so.
Yet psychiatrist Stuart Brown believes that play is as vital to our survival as oxygen. In his book Play, Brown states: "It’s all around us, yet goes mostly unnoticed or unappreciated until it is missing".
The importance of play is a theory echoed by Scott G. Eberle, editor of The American Journal of Play: "You find surprise, pleasure, understanding - as skill and empathy - and strength of mind, body, and spirit.”
Play is - says Eberle - doing anything for the sake of it, without an end goal. It's not done to further your career, or get you a house, or a meal. We play - when we do play - because we enjoy it. And when we enjoy the things we do we become better human beings. Not necessarily what society has deemed "good citizens".
Yet somehow, for some reason, not enough of us do play. And when we do, as we've seen, it seems that society has deemed certain types of play more acceptable than others. Video games are most definitely not on that list.
THE LIST
And I'm speaking, as we only ever can, from experience. Like most people my age, I've got my fair share of baggage. For a long time that dragged behind me like a rucksack full of bowling balls, and it was only in the last few years that I learned how to discard it and play again, without feeling bad or ashamed about it. I honestly thought I'd lost the art of being able to play.
Indeed, Digitser2000 is me playing. Yes, I'd love to be able to do this site full time, but only because I enjoy it so much. And yet, even then, I wonder if that's my conditioning speaking.
Do I want to write Digitiser2000 as a job, because I feel guilty about my playing? It gives me an excuse to write stupid stuff, to do something for the sheer enjoyment, to play games without it feeling bad that I'm not unloading the dishwasher, or doing something that's going to help pay off the mortgage. Maybe that's ok - if feeling that way gives me the permission I need to play then at least it's better than not playing at all.
CHANGING
But anyway. I hope it's changing. I hope that, as games become bigger, more mainstream, and yet more diverse at the same time, the way they are viewed, as one of the less acceptable forms of play, will change. That they will come to include everyone in our society, and offer us all an alternative to an existence where we're swamped beneath a mountain of self-assessment returns, red bills, credit card statements, meetings, meetings and meetings and meetings...
It makes me wonder if this is what Gamergate is actually about - whether those embroiled in the conflict know it or not. That right now, video games are shifting from being something niche, to becoming something more inclusive and acceptable, whether in years to come we'll see this as the gamer equivalent of the Arab Spring - the revolutionaries versus the resistance. The old versus the new. I dunno.
Those involved would doubtless tell you otherwise, but then World War 1 started because Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. Yet that wasn't necessarily what the war was about.
So we'll see. It still irritates me how games - our brilliant, wonderful video games - are snorted at, while other people are rewarded for obsessing over football statistics, or treating movies like declarations from the Gods.
But I'm confident that games are vital to those of us who do play them, that - on the whole - they are a balm on life, and help our mental and emotional well-being. I'm hopeful that one day the wider society will come to appreciate that.
And I'm speaking, as we only ever can, from experience. Like most people my age, I've got my fair share of baggage. For a long time that dragged behind me like a rucksack full of bowling balls, and it was only in the last few years that I learned how to discard it and play again, without feeling bad or ashamed about it. I honestly thought I'd lost the art of being able to play.
Indeed, Digitser2000 is me playing. Yes, I'd love to be able to do this site full time, but only because I enjoy it so much. And yet, even then, I wonder if that's my conditioning speaking.
Do I want to write Digitiser2000 as a job, because I feel guilty about my playing? It gives me an excuse to write stupid stuff, to do something for the sheer enjoyment, to play games without it feeling bad that I'm not unloading the dishwasher, or doing something that's going to help pay off the mortgage. Maybe that's ok - if feeling that way gives me the permission I need to play then at least it's better than not playing at all.
CHANGING
But anyway. I hope it's changing. I hope that, as games become bigger, more mainstream, and yet more diverse at the same time, the way they are viewed, as one of the less acceptable forms of play, will change. That they will come to include everyone in our society, and offer us all an alternative to an existence where we're swamped beneath a mountain of self-assessment returns, red bills, credit card statements, meetings, meetings and meetings and meetings...
It makes me wonder if this is what Gamergate is actually about - whether those embroiled in the conflict know it or not. That right now, video games are shifting from being something niche, to becoming something more inclusive and acceptable, whether in years to come we'll see this as the gamer equivalent of the Arab Spring - the revolutionaries versus the resistance. The old versus the new. I dunno.
Those involved would doubtless tell you otherwise, but then World War 1 started because Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. Yet that wasn't necessarily what the war was about.
So we'll see. It still irritates me how games - our brilliant, wonderful video games - are snorted at, while other people are rewarded for obsessing over football statistics, or treating movies like declarations from the Gods.
But I'm confident that games are vital to those of us who do play them, that - on the whole - they are a balm on life, and help our mental and emotional well-being. I'm hopeful that one day the wider society will come to appreciate that.
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