Living in Diversion
I stare at the screen. 50 hours? Have I really put two entire days into this game? I did not notice that they'd gone--there was no chime to mark each hours passage from my life into a world that exists only in code--but they most certainly are. If I concentrate I can almost feel the void they filled, a bizarre phantom pain. And as the game's infallible timer continues to remind me rather mercilessly of where they've all disappeared to, all I can think at this point is, "What a strange hobby we have."
It is a hobby, isn't it? Is that what we're calling it? I'm honestly not sure. A pastime, an activity we engage in outside of our work, purely for pleasure. Yup, that's a hobby alright. Yet part of me strains at using that word in this context. A hobby? Somehow it doesn't sound right. Somehow, this descriptor does not seem to fit the breadth of what we do. Or rather, I don't want it to sound right. That word describes a terrain of kites and model airplanes, a world of whittlers and stamp-collectors and unicyclists: in essence, a geography of diversion.
Diversion is not necessarily bad, but it's not particularly good either. It's simply a non-act, an ultimately benign feat of self-gratification in which nothing is gained but distraction and nothing is lost but time; in this case, an embarrassing (some might even say obscene) amount of time. It's not just time lost playing games. I also spend a lot of time reading about games, probably more than I do playing them. I watch video podcasts about games. Now I am even spending time writing about them. If gaming is a "hobby", then I'm living a vast portion of my life in diversion. This "hobby" has become more like a lifestyle; at times, I find this vaguely terrifying.
It is at this point I begin to feel ashamed. Such waste, such excess! Time is a limited resource, a most unique commodity that is infinitely flexible, and we squander it in what are essentially endless feedback loops, great big black holes of code which suck in more and more with seemingly little return on investment. What are we getting out of this? How can we reconcile such considerable expenditure?
The trick is in convincing ourselves that what we do is somehow more than mere diversion, that it has a comparable relevance to the time we devote to it. It is difficult to separate games from this realm of diversion. It is populated with things which seek to turn our attention away from real-world problems to focus instead on relatively insignificant yet easily surmountable virtual ones, and ultimately this is the functionality at the dark heart of any game. But in taking these digressions from our real-life problems, can we not come away having gained something, some higher understanding? Can we not make the claim that what we do is less like stamp-collecting, and more like traveling; less like model airplanes, more like literature? Or would we simply be deluding ourselves? As of yet I cannot rationally assert that what I gain from the fifty hours I put into any game is in some way more meaningful than what the "hobbyist" gains from his ten hours of B1 Bomber construction. It almost seems that he comes out on top. He at least gets something tangible, something to hang in his room, while I get what is essentially an empty, lonely world, a world devoid of any consciousness save my own.
Like any quasi-intellectual gameplayer, I suffer from a serious case of GIC, or Gamer Inferiority Complex. In my mind this is the crux of all game industry issues: I'm desperate for games to be more than they actually are. I have impossibly high hopes for the medium. I yearn for games to be recognized as art, if only for the fact that it would help to justify the amount of time I spend playing them. I'd like to think that in playing games (some games at least) I have grown as a person, or I have learned something about the human condition; some kind of fancy-pantsy cerebral something-or-other has happened to validate my commitment.
I want to believe that games have the potential to be just as rewarding as any other medium, that they are capable of compelling me to experience some of the complex reactions inspired by literature or film or even music: catharsis or angst or melancholy. Try as I might, I can't shake the feeling that something that takes over 40 hours of my life ought to give me something more than this. This is the cruel irony of our hobby (eek, that word"…) as it stands now: the disparity between the amount of time we must devote to it and the sense of accomplishment it provides.
I'm not necessarily advocating Dostoyevsky: The Game, although perhaps that's not such a bad thing to advocate. But this disparity is the most chilling aspect about gaming for me. If a medium is to require so much of its participants, it has an obligation to connect with some higher part of them, to compel them in ways far removed from reptilian urges. Will there ever come a day when a game provokes a pause, a reevaluation, an epiphany? When you think about a game while you're not playing it, not in the nicotine-craving way I am thinking about Oblivion this very moment, but in an intellectual capacity, or an emotional capacity, just something beyond base mechanics?
I believe it's possible; in fact it's already happening in certain cases. Games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus give me the greatest hope for a future of games providing something deeper than pure gameplay. Entire worlds and experiences designed to evoke mixed and conflicting emotions, where gameplay serves as metaphor for something relevant to the human experience. Planescape: Torment and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic took steps in the right direction; endeavoring to challenge us intellectually, yet still providing entertainment. And while I've yet to play it, Dreamfall, according to every review I've read so far, has "a great story", a story so great most reviewers are willing to overlook various flaws in its mechanics. This gives me hope, but there will have to be something more. A discernable trend towards chipping away at the disparity, towards a time when games routinely seek to compel me not only through body, but soul as well; or else at some point, I'll have to face the fact that I'm living in diversion.
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Phenomenal article on an issue that I often think about. I really like your writing style. Well done.
Great article. I wish to remain positive and think that games have the ability to evolve to the higher narrative standards of film - even if the road toward accomplishing that is not at all the same.
After spending 80 hours with Oblivion I think many of us are in the same head space as you are, Malacola. Good article. And while there is definitely a need in our lives for pure diversion, I imagine that amount is much smaller than the 4 hours of Oblivion I play every night. Games take the place of TV for me, so I don't feel quite as guilty. But it is nice when a game can offer poignant moments that stir you to think more deeply than how to best frag the 5 enemies in front of you. I remember this hitting home in KOTOR and even more (though disjointedly) in KOTOR2. I secretly yearn to have those kinds of rich, philosophical and moral debates and decisions. If games offer us a channel for our stress and imagination, why not offer a channel for an even wider spectrum. My best compliment: you made me think.
Rat Boy on Newlywed Ackbar wrote:
Great article and welcome to the site. I hope you enjoy the work!
"Can I have a job? I donut have much experiences, butt I always use an spellchecker spellchecker on my articles." - Sway
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This is exactly how I feel about games. Great article!
This is not. We shouldn't aspire any other standards, certainly not if we're calling them "higher". Games should follow their own path. If that path sometimes coincides with film narratives, so be it. But I do not believe games should strive for more narrative per say. Only if it makes the game itself better. Narrative and game are not the same, though they may reinforce one another if implemented in the right way.
Roo: "Just to cheer you up if any of the above made you sad: Boobies."
Koning_Floris, on my online 'skills': "Stinking is a skill too!"
The overwhelming majority of today's games (ones that are supposed to have a plot) have a plot that would bore a 7-year-old to tears. They should definitely aspire to higher storytelling standards.
That is sort of what I meant in the second half of the sentence which you cut out of your reply
Not more. God knows World of Warcraft is full of narrative. Every quest has a story, many of them follow up on one another, "developing the arc", and all of them are generic crap, written by programmers, not professional writers.
We don't need more. We need better.
I never said they were the same. I said the games could benefit from better standards of telling the story. Of course, Ratchet & Clank is excluded from being burdened by such a requirement
Welcome again. I said it before, but it bears repeating: your style is so friendly and conversational that I feel like I just sat down with a friend for coffee. I can't wait to read more from you.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
My Website v. 3.0
Welcome to the site, and a warm congrats for becoming a part of the staff.
I like your style and the way your mind works.
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
Excellent article. In many ways, I think we are already seeing some of what you are searching for in games for children. There are a lot of games designed for kids as tools for education and development. Games are ideally suited for this sort of purpose. The problem, as you so eloquently allude to, is that as adults, we look to games for a different purpose. We look to games for as a vehicle of entertainment. We don't need games for art, education or cerebral enlightenment. We have other outlets for those purposes; probably more than any of us desire.
Games are a lot like sports ... or watching TV. They are forms of entertainment. There is a certain amount of art to the medium but, on the whole, their purpose is to provide us with a respite from the pressures of everyday life. I think games have some room to grow as forms of art and also as socially acceptable forms of entertainment. However, the fact that you just lost 50 hours of your life will still hold true, no matter if your habit is seen as a "higher" hobby or not.
Really good food for thought. Looking forward to your next article!
Good article, very thoughtful and well expressed. I think games can be very useful in preparing for certain situations, and if one is prepared to learn from them, there are lessons for real life. Basic management skills, budgeting, patience, persistence, timing, developing plans under time and resource presssures - all those can be found in some games. But that's certainly not true for every game.
What is the role for hobbies and diversions? I think that it's no coincidence that in very high pressure societies, where long working hours are the norm, games and hobbies in general are very popular. We can see this in Japan, in South Korea, in the US, as well as in other countries. My hypothesis is that we crave intense diversions to deal with the stress of daily life.
That's the simplest explanation I can see. I don't think "downtime" is something to be guilty about. But that's not stopped me from feeling vague twinges at times as I chose to start a game rather than pick up the living room. And that, well, that's a problem. But compared to the other problems I face? It's not a big one.
I liked the article and I look forward to your next one!
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Reading your article makes me want to read more of your work. Great job Malacola. Or should I say.... LOBSTERMOBSTER?!
I'd list more names but I figured a single accusation would have more credence if it was actually right. Kinda like Keno, you know, pick only a few numbers and if you win you get more money...
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Some on here, including a certain other writer that never seems to post a lot probably due to spirits and soul searching, would argue that you have topped every other "hobbyist" out there. We as gamers are different from those that build models or fly kites because while these hobbies accrue tangibility, we accrue experience.
Think of it like this: Gamers are not made up of people who want to escape, quite the opposite; we want to experience everything. We want to be a Spartan on the battle field, a sniper in the jungle, a race car driver, a fighter pilot, a business tycoon, a platoon commander, a skateboarder, a baseball player, the savior of a world, and a Jedi. A human being can't do all of that in a lifetime, but damnit, at least we are trying.
No more talk of wasting your time to escape. You are a proud member of a group that likes to spend their valuable time to learn.
Good article by the way.
Letters to the Internet
Good article, Malacola, It's something we've all thought about.
My only question is: Did you post in this thread congratulating yourself, just to throw off the speculation? are you in fact... YOYOSON??
There's a decent argument against that saying that we want to experience everything, but we are too afraid or too lazy to accomplish any of those goals outside of the virtual world. Some of the examples you list are impossible, but some aren't.
Hyperbole - THE BEST THING EVER
I dont want a game to tell me a good story at least not in the sense of "traditional" media. What a game needs is to further the idea of the "interactive" story.
While Deus Ex didnt really have the greatest writing (or acting) its pseudo open "endness" created an illusion and feeling of a interactive world.. I "became" my character in a sense through the complexity of the game design and its "rpg" lite building. That and its large levels and multiple solutions to problems allowed what was in many ways a mediocre shooter to rise above and achieve greatness...not through physics models.. or whiz bang graphics but through gameplay.
Give a videogamer good gameplay and they will in their mind create their own story.. afterall isnt that the whole point?
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Great article, with much to ponder. Welcome to the front page.
Fantastice perspective Chiggie. It captures what is hard to convey to a non-gamer.
Inadvertingly when talking about such issues as presented in this article, we talk about "games". I tire of this generalization that I'm completely guitly of perpetuating. When we talk games aspiring to higher levels (nice game term) of intellectual and emotional compulsion, I don't want that. That is, I don't want all games to do that. I want the activity of the whole of games to be capable of that, and more, no doubt. I want games I can hold up as a pinnacle of human activity, expressing nuances and truths about our condition in a way no other format can convey. But, please, not every night. I too have replaced TV with games as nightly winding down ritual. Sometimes I wish to put myself in the crucible and purify my (weird) soul. Sometimes, I just want to mindlessly kill X dragonkin in WoW, or teabag a profanity spewing Yankee cop.
Now we come to the limits of our gaming vocabulary. I've often referred to the latter activity as knitting, borrowing from a friend's description of relaxing yet stimulating state she achieves from knitting for an extended spell. For the former, in which I emerge as a changed person, I have no good word. I'd love to come to some common vocabulary to distuguish between the two (in fact, two is just two forms I've presented, as the gaming world is vast). I just don't think the catch all moniker of "games" is cutting it anymore.
Perhaps I'm just being too nitpicky. I'd love to hear some feedback though.
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It could be that he is in fact Ian Irvine, and the change in username would protect his other user account from association. Further explication left as an exercise for the user and Mr. Google's Online Cabinet of Curiousities.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Great stuff, Malacola. Welcome to the front page, and I look forward to hearing more from you.
Xbox Live: CrankyBaby
baggachipz: Who cares about Japan, let them have their silly pointless dog games and countless re-hashes of anime-based dragon princess super lucky crapitty crap.
Is it possible that his old account had a reputation "bad" enough to be ridiculed or discredited on the front page? Do we have anyone like that here? I didn't think so.
This is going to bug me.
Psychotic Foreign Teenage Chicks are so hot. - Legion
I find it ironic anytime a healthy vaccinated person bitches about science...on the internet. - MaverickDago
Let me ease your mind. Malacola is new to posting, on the page or in the forums in general. Rabbit had a user name that would be recognized at his job, so he changed it. Rabbit wasn't a very prolific forum poster either, I wouldn't say he was a "known" personality.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
That was my first guess too, but in any case it does not really matter who he really is (even if he shares a name with some rather successful writers), what matters is his amazing ability to provoke thought.
Call me a bit of a hedonist, but I try hard to rid myself of the impression that time not spent working toward something important is time wasted. Put simply, I count any time that I spend doing something that I enjoy, that stimulates my mind in some fun and unique way, as time well spent. I don't feel that I necessarily need something to show for how I spend every moment of my time. There is value in producing things, in sharing things with others, but there is also value in simply feeding your own curiosity and desires. Spending time playing games already gives me something valuable, so while I am pleased by the idea that it might give me something more some of the time, I don't lament the fact that at times it is nothing more than a pleasant way to spend a few hours of my life.
XBL/PSN: zeroKFE | BHA: zeroKFE
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Geez! I got the two new writers confused and basically blew it. Mala, Rabbit, sorry for any confusion.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
The Goojers are an obsessive bunch. Welcome to the front page, Malacola.
Quick poll: Who would drink a soda named Malacola?
What if it pictured a shot of Captain Mal Reylonds on the label?
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
I only drink diet malacola, the regular stuff is too sticky.
Gamertag: GWJ Rabbit | Last.fm | Twitter
"In other news, Miyamoto pissed on my head, and gave me a forecast of rain." - *Le
Interesting perspective, Malacola. I hadn't really thought about it, but I think with this:
you've nailed something I've had floating around in my head, but had never quite nailed in one spot long enough to look at it. I'm an avid reader, and an avid gamer. Both are escapist methodologies and provide fun and a brief respite. But I've never had a game impact my thinking, or choices or mind virus the way that certain books have.
Some linear games I'll play again - because I know how it's supposed to go, it's like putting your brain on autopilot so it can work on other stuff. Books, on the other hand, I generally reread, and find something new, or make some new connection, or recatagorize because of books I've read in the interim. For example. I reread The Canterbury Tales fairly regularly. I switch between translations sometimes, but mostly I stick to one of the 4 versions I have. Every single time I read it, I find something I didn't see before. Every time. Some turn of phrase will tweak me just the right way, or the majesty of a word in just the right position will send me off on a linguistic journey. Every time, that book expands my brain a little.
I play WoW, a lot. A lot. I can't think of any real brain expansion that has occurred. Lots of fun. Good times with friends. Adrenaline rushes, frustration, giddiness...but no real grey matter building. Perhaps that's why I tend to get burned out and wander off for a while. I dunno. Something to think about.
Evocative article. Nice work.
*butt pats*
*Legion* wrote:
Great article Mal! Ahh, the ever-present thin line between hobby and obsession is something bothered me for a while, until I realized that most people I know suffered from some form of this. Whether it's my Brother-In-Law who knows every baseball stat in the known universe, the across-the-street neighbor who loves his lawn so much that he takes his shop-vac out and vacuums the fringes of his turf once the winter snows come off, the friend that can quote D&D manual page numbers where a specific table is located, or to the wife that will spend hours cutting fancy pieces of paper and photos out and assembling them into voluminous "Scrapbooks". (Longest sentence ever...)
So what if I've spent 45+ hours playing Oblivion, as long as I still have social contacts, remember to scrub myself down daily, and avoid re-scheduling social activity in order to play more of my current game. Heck, I've channeled my obsessive knowledge of the gaming community into a 22% rate of return (last year) on my gaming stock portfolio.. Heck, I might even be at the point where I'm earning more money off my hobby than I've been spending on it!
My belief? As long as you're having a fun time and your life isn't suffering, enjoy!
"War, it's gods way of teaching Americans Geography.." -Jon Stewart
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - Howard Philips Lovecraft
Hey everybody! Thanks for the warm welcome. As certis said, I'm the new kid in town, not the one in the witness protection program. I was a bit apprehensive about coming into this being such a lurker but you've all shown there was nothing to worry about. You've also proven to be a very perceptive bunch, hitting on all the nuances I didn't manage to get to in the article. I can tell I'm going to like it here.
And despite what Google might tell you, I'm not the Ian Irvine with the most hits; though I did buy one of his books and tell people I wrote it.
You need an avatar to give us a picture to associate you with.
And you too, bucko. I demand funny pictures that I will forever characterize as your actual face!
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
But diet Malacola has that funny aftertaste.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
I've nothing to add other than another "well done and welcome." Well done and welcome!
Xbox Live: StaatsM