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Its weird to read an article about expanding who gets into the "gamer" club, when the same writer once tried to convince me that the concept of "gamer" as a label/club is preposterious to some large degree.
its possible I'm being dense, or casual in my Holmes appreciation, but but these ideas of counter-counter culture feel ... nihilistic? is that the right word? Destructive? I dunno. Its like the only way to save gaming hobby-ism is to destroy the old boys club and create an all inclusive language of appreciation.
But then, what is there to talk about. We're then saying yeah, games are cool and stuff and well yeah I press buttons to do things, but I can't relate to your gaming experiences at all -or- you just don't talk about the thing I'm interested. Which creates distance, because there's no commonality?
Yeah, its jerkish to belittle someone for their interest, however superficially same/different... but shared, specific experience is the meat of a shared hobby.
Written with a stinkface, because I don't think I'm being all that constructive, but wanted to share.
its possible I'm being dense, or casual in my Holmes appreciation, but but these ideas of counter-counter culture feel ... nihilistic? is that the right word? Destructive? I dunno. Its like the only way to save gaming hobby-ism is to destroy the old boys club and create an all inclusive language of appreciation.
But then, what is there to talk about. We're then saying yeah, games are cool and stuff and well yeah I press buttons to do things, but I can't relate to your gaming experiences at all -or- you just don't talk about the thing I'm interested. Which creates distance, because there's no commonality?
Yeah, its jerkish to belittle someone for their interest, however superficially same/different... but shared, specific experience is the meat of a shared hobby.
Written with a stinkface, because I don't think I'm being all that constructive, but wanted to share.
This is all about experience.
As one person mentioned, the people at Rockstar who made Red Dead Redemption were not cowboys. No, they certainly were likely not, HOWEVER, they had to have researched it and watched a lot of westerns to be able to get the feel and look of the Old West down. You wouldn't want to play a game about cowboys and shootouts that was made by people with no knowledge of these things. It would be a shallow experience at best.
It's the same with this director and games. No matter how great of a director you are... research, sweat and blood, and some experience with what you are trying to create is going to make a better product than someone that says "Let's make a video game movie" and throws some random stuff together. Asking her if she's a gamer, is a very valid question, for those curious about how games and those who play them are portrayed in the film. Knowing the difference between Mario and Mega Man are valid concerns.
The "What is a gamer?" debate is another can of worms entirely, and a question that is not easily answered now that there is a gaming boom going on. People that have never picked up a controller previously played the Wii, even more have thrown birds at pigs on their cell phones or made a farm/city/etc on Facebook. Are these people "gamers", even if they haven't touched a console in their life? What about those that have no knowledge of classic games, that were not raised on text adventures, Atari 2600, or the NES? Are they true gamers if they only hopped on board in the past decade? You can keep throwing qualifiers all day and never come up with a straight answer, because there isn't one. Like any other hobby that hits the masses, there's so many flavors of gamer now, that it's near impossible to declare someone a "gamer" and someone else "not". It doesn't even really matter. All that matters is if you are having fun or not, and interacting with those on your gaming level.
Also those that are making comments like "gamers can't get girlfriends" are just helping to bring down video games. You are hindering with the stereotypes, not helping.
As one person mentioned, the people at Rockstar who made Red Dead Redemption were not cowboys. No, they certainly were likely not, HOWEVER, they had to have researched it and watched a lot of westerns to be able to get the feel and look of the Old West down. You wouldn't want to play a game about cowboys and shootouts that was made by people with no knowledge of these things. It would be a shallow experience at best.
It's the same with this director and games. No matter how great of a director you are... research, sweat and blood, and some experience with what you are trying to create is going to make a better product than someone that says "Let's make a video game movie" and throws some random stuff together. Asking her if she's a gamer, is a very valid question, for those curious about how games and those who play them are portrayed in the film. Knowing the difference between Mario and Mega Man are valid concerns.
The "What is a gamer?" debate is another can of worms entirely, and a question that is not easily answered now that there is a gaming boom going on. People that have never picked up a controller previously played the Wii, even more have thrown birds at pigs on their cell phones or made a farm/city/etc on Facebook. Are these people "gamers", even if they haven't touched a console in their life? What about those that have no knowledge of classic games, that were not raised on text adventures, Atari 2600, or the NES? Are they true gamers if they only hopped on board in the past decade? You can keep throwing qualifiers all day and never come up with a straight answer, because there isn't one. Like any other hobby that hits the masses, there's so many flavors of gamer now, that it's near impossible to declare someone a "gamer" and someone else "not". It doesn't even really matter. All that matters is if you are having fun or not, and interacting with those on your gaming level.
Also those that are making comments like "gamers can't get girlfriends" are just helping to bring down video games. You are hindering with the stereotypes, not helping.
Good video, good article, good moral, good stuff.
Also, she's pretty damn fine. Tad off-putting to be honest, it gets in the way of all the idolising of Holmes and I just don't know what to do.
Also, she's pretty damn fine. Tad off-putting to be honest, it gets in the way of all the idolising of Holmes and I just don't know what to do.
I'm not sure exactly what this article is about.
At first I thought it was saying that gamer cred is a useless thing that should not be used to judge people.
To that I kind of have to disagree. Mostly because if someone doesn't even know what a video game is, and then they try to make a game, while there exists the possibility that that game could be fantastic, I don't want to be the one funding it.
Knowing about different games and gameplay ideas is a useful thing, and it can come in handy in discussions, reviews, and development. I can't count how many times I have read reviews and the reviewer themself will make comparisons between games. "Take some game x, add a dash of y and you get game z". This statement only becomes useful if you know at least the basics about game x and y, and reviewers assume that the audience (gamers) knows those games (x and y) being on a gaming blog.
But since so many people are agreeing with you, I'm at a loss as to what this is actually about.
Also, obviously a film maker doesn't need to have 'gamer cred' in order to make a film, even a documentary about game developers. It could be helpful to have some working knowledge of what they are talking about, but it is not strictly necessary. I would still be curious about how much the film maker played video games though, if only because I'd be curious as to what motivated them to make the film. So perhaps a better question would have been, what was your motivation.
I should stop typing now. Holmes, I love you but sometimes I don't get you.
At first I thought it was saying that gamer cred is a useless thing that should not be used to judge people.
To that I kind of have to disagree. Mostly because if someone doesn't even know what a video game is, and then they try to make a game, while there exists the possibility that that game could be fantastic, I don't want to be the one funding it.
Knowing about different games and gameplay ideas is a useful thing, and it can come in handy in discussions, reviews, and development. I can't count how many times I have read reviews and the reviewer themself will make comparisons between games. "Take some game x, add a dash of y and you get game z". This statement only becomes useful if you know at least the basics about game x and y, and reviewers assume that the audience (gamers) knows those games (x and y) being on a gaming blog.
But since so many people are agreeing with you, I'm at a loss as to what this is actually about.
Also, obviously a film maker doesn't need to have 'gamer cred' in order to make a film, even a documentary about game developers. It could be helpful to have some working knowledge of what they are talking about, but it is not strictly necessary. I would still be curious about how much the film maker played video games though, if only because I'd be curious as to what motivated them to make the film. So perhaps a better question would have been, what was your motivation.
I should stop typing now. Holmes, I love you but sometimes I don't get you.
I feel the question was less about gauging her "cred" as it was to gauge her passion for the content of her movie. And either way I don't even know if it matters if she was passionate about games or not, she could have simply been into learning about something new and putting it to film for others to see and it would have been fine.
You kind of don't need a ton of passion for documentaries to work, sure, it helps -A LOT- but its hardly crucial, all you really need -at its base- is simply a subject and the time/resources to dig around about it.
Either way, it kind of shows in the movie that someone involved had no clue what they were getting at and maybe the reason for that was her lack of passion for the subject matter. Because what should have been a movie with a pretty clear focus that set out to teach us something about making a game, became nothing more then another unfocused mess of trying to get video games some validation. Whatever the movies goal was, it only did so half-heartedly at best.
But yeah, I get your point Holmes and I agree and always do when this particular subject is brought up. "Gamer" is such a weird term that only gets weirder when we find ourselves grinding it down even further into "Casual", "hardcore", "indie".. All it is is labels because people can't possibly live without having a word to call something, something. But for all the fighting about it people do over these labels, all it turns out to be is the same thing as calling a piece of fiction writing Sci-fi because it happens to have an apocalypse (or an space ship, or something) in it. Or, in a gaming way, calling something like Dead Space Survival Horror when really its also simply just a 3rd person shooter.
Personally I've been video playing games since I was 2 or 3, but I also know I'm not the greatest "gamer" in the world. But I can also care less what people think of me, what I play, or how I choose to play it. Its a hobby that's more or less my lifestyle because its the thing I like to do most with my time and I've been doing it so long that I don't see when I'll stop in the foreseeable future... I don't identify myself as a "gamer", but when people ask me what I like to do, gaming is the first thing I'll fess up to, because, why lie? If people wrinkle their noses I'll ask nicely if they like to watch TV, or movies, or read, or listen to music and then remind them how those are multimillion (or billion) dollar entertainment industries too. People generally get the idea after that that I don't generally care how they feel about me doing it -because everyone needs their vices.
You kind of don't need a ton of passion for documentaries to work, sure, it helps -A LOT- but its hardly crucial, all you really need -at its base- is simply a subject and the time/resources to dig around about it.
Either way, it kind of shows in the movie that someone involved had no clue what they were getting at and maybe the reason for that was her lack of passion for the subject matter. Because what should have been a movie with a pretty clear focus that set out to teach us something about making a game, became nothing more then another unfocused mess of trying to get video games some validation. Whatever the movies goal was, it only did so half-heartedly at best.
But yeah, I get your point Holmes and I agree and always do when this particular subject is brought up. "Gamer" is such a weird term that only gets weirder when we find ourselves grinding it down even further into "Casual", "hardcore", "indie".. All it is is labels because people can't possibly live without having a word to call something, something. But for all the fighting about it people do over these labels, all it turns out to be is the same thing as calling a piece of fiction writing Sci-fi because it happens to have an apocalypse (or an space ship, or something) in it. Or, in a gaming way, calling something like Dead Space Survival Horror when really its also simply just a 3rd person shooter.
Personally I've been video playing games since I was 2 or 3, but I also know I'm not the greatest "gamer" in the world. But I can also care less what people think of me, what I play, or how I choose to play it. Its a hobby that's more or less my lifestyle because its the thing I like to do most with my time and I've been doing it so long that I don't see when I'll stop in the foreseeable future... I don't identify myself as a "gamer", but when people ask me what I like to do, gaming is the first thing I'll fess up to, because, why lie? If people wrinkle their noses I'll ask nicely if they like to watch TV, or movies, or read, or listen to music and then remind them how those are multimillion (or billion) dollar entertainment industries too. People generally get the idea after that that I don't generally care how they feel about me doing it -because everyone needs their vices.
But, but, but... she's didn't MAKE A GAME. She made a FILM.
Everyone countering Holmes' point of view with "but she needs credibility and experience in order to be trustworthy" are forgetting that her job is to ask probing questions and get people who ARE in the games industry to provide answers to those questions. She's the catalyst for the interesting information, not the provider of it.
The analogy is that you expect interesting, relevant, passionate info on games from the writers here at Dtoid... you don't expect it from the HTML code which puts that info on the screen in front of your eyeballs, or from the programmers of said code.
Also, I second the Grammer Nazi proposal for you to never incorrectly use the word 'addicting' ever again, Holmes. Why gamers insist on using this word in that context is beyond me - I blame that muppet at Gametrailers who uses it in almost every review. I would like to get him addicted to crack, then put him in rehab so he will hear the word 'addictive' used over and over and reformat his ridiculous brain! The cunt!
/end rant
Everyone countering Holmes' point of view with "but she needs credibility and experience in order to be trustworthy" are forgetting that her job is to ask probing questions and get people who ARE in the games industry to provide answers to those questions. She's the catalyst for the interesting information, not the provider of it.
The analogy is that you expect interesting, relevant, passionate info on games from the writers here at Dtoid... you don't expect it from the HTML code which puts that info on the screen in front of your eyeballs, or from the programmers of said code.
Also, I second the Grammer Nazi proposal for you to never incorrectly use the word 'addicting' ever again, Holmes. Why gamers insist on using this word in that context is beyond me - I blame that muppet at Gametrailers who uses it in almost every review. I would like to get him addicted to crack, then put him in rehab so he will hear the word 'addictive' used over and over and reformat his ridiculous brain! The cunt!
/end rant
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