random and rambling thoughts on gaming

In Sherry Turkle‘s article “Video Games and Computer Holding Power,” she offers several reasons why (based on her social science research) people play games. Some of these seem rather common sense (though of course this is from the hindsight view almost 30 years after the article was written. There are some ideas though that seem better suited to today than when she wrote it. One idea I struggle with is that games allow us to “take on different roles that are important to [us] psychologically.” I’m torn between feeling like she’s creating more more meaning (for the sake of publication) than could really exist with such primitive games as pacman, asteroids, etc. — torn between that and feeling like her ideas are on target and more relevant today than when she wrote this article!

While this idea seems to be going in a new direction from earlier parts of the article, her remarks about the internet allowing us to “self-fashion” and “selfcreate” is remarkably relevant now in the endless stream of online personas (though not really game personas…or are they?) like the profiles of myspace, facebook, twitter, etc.

On the whole this article struck me as quaint and poorly written. The former i’m sure is due to too much mention of pinball experiences and detailed talk of the intricacies of pacman and the latter due to excessive repetition of thought and the ability to suck the life out of something I expected to be completely interesting! (If i never read another article that talks about pinball machines or pacman, i won’t be the least bit sad). [Ed. note: nice work complaining about poor writing with a wandering, fragmented string of thoughts all duct-taped together, huh?]

To be fair, some of what Turkle is discussing in more recent days (including her new book, Alone Together) hold much greater interest, but that’s a post for another day!

Some of the games Turkle discusses, were games I enjoyed playing at an earlier point in my life (Joust and Dungeons and Dragons). I was playing these games more than 30 years ago (am I really that old?!?!) and so I expected a sort of pleasant nostalgic feeling to wash over me as Turkle talked about them, but it didn’t have that effect at all. I had a very similar experience when the family of Star Wars movies. I went to see episodes 1 and 2 in the theater as an adult, having seen the first three to appear (episodes 4, 5, and 6) in the theater earlier in my life. I thought it would be like a reunion of sorts with my childhood and a sort of “finish what I’d started” kind of thing. Even though I remember loving the first three theater experiences, i HATED the next couple (and didn’t even end up sticking out for the remaining movies).

I wonder what my expectation for a happy nostalgia (both in the theater and in reading about games I had enjoyed) and my surprise not to find such a feeling is all about? Is it that I’m “grown up” now? I hope not. Is it that i’m much more refined now in my technological expectations? maybe. If so, what does that mean to be changed by technology in this way? I have my original Atari that I had as a kid. I know games are WAAAAY better now than they were then, but I’ve kept it because it’s a tangible connection to my childhood and earliest gaming experiences. Every few years (or five or ten?) I’ll pull it out and hook it up (which is getting harder and harder to do!) and “re-live” my Atari days. It’s never as interesting as I expect it to be and the “fun” is gone in minutes. I don’t have patience for the primitive graphics, the horrible music, etc. And that’s a little bit sad to me. Can we not appreciate the simplicity, the achievements of an earlier time? Is this why my kids (who are almost eight and almost three) are more inclined to be on the Wii/computer/iPhone (playing games or netflixing) than to play with toys you can hold in your hand and that require YOU to give them life and movement?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *