Gamers! With Jobs!

"Gamers with Jobs?"

Paul’s one of the Coffee Shop Mafia, a breed of Nonfat-Decaf-Latte kakhi that accumulates in the corners of "Sanctuary," the upscale caffeine station where I write 6 hours a day.

"Yeah, it’s a website I write for. Kind of a writers room for gamers with a community inside," I explain, failing.

He’s genuinely perplexed. "But don’t all gamers kind of have jobs unless they’re kids?"

I pause. "I guess you’re right. I didn’t name it, but I’ve always kind of figured it had two exclamation points. You know. Gamers! With Jobs!"

Paul goes back to his vague Italian beverage and his New York Times crossword puzzle. I go back under the chair-and-blanket kindergarten tent of the Internet.

So what distinguishes a gamer who has a job from Gamers! With Jobs!?

In a word: November

November 15th, 2008

1:20: Three hours of grinding in World of WarCraft has yielded me just one more level. But I’ve introduced Becca and Sway, I scored two good pieces of armor and I’m never going to have to back to StrangleThorn Vale again. Lamictal. Benadryl. Water. Sleep.

5:30: Wake up in cold sweat. Zombies. Shotgun out of ammo. Meditate to get back to sleep (Pon Pon Pata Pon).

7:15: Wake up in cold sweat. 4 year-old sitting on head.

7:17: Child ejected. iPhone. Twitter. FaceBook. Email.

7:25: Smell pits. Mental calculus. Shower. Dress.

7:35: Kids fed.

7:47: “Dad, I know the answer is probably no. But can we play just one level of Lego Indiana Jones before school?”

7:48: “No.”

8:00: Drop disappointed and sullen children at peace-making non-violent Montessori school.

8:02: Read back issue of Edge in the car. Can't wait to see the way they do the blood in Mad World. Looks just like Frank Miller.

8:15: Jessica and I check in to our table at Sanctuary. Coffee. Breakfast Burrito. One hour of intense reconnection begins: emails to clients, research, blogs, twitter, websites. A little writing.

9:00: Becca joins us. Work stops. We talk about WoW. My wife shakes her head regularly in disgust as she pores through page after page of edits.

9:15: I reconfigure Becca’s WoW client so she can manage her pet better.

9:45: I had to test it out. Really. It’s the only way to be sure. And you can’t test it out without actually, you know, killing things.

9:45 – 12:30: Sacred Writing Time. Ashley, our ever attendant and well-tipped waitress, refills coffee silently. During bathroom breaks, I sneak off to play GalCon. It's not like I can keep writing in that little tiny tile room.

12:30: John comes in for lunch, which makes four writers and four Macs at our small stool-height table. No room for plates. Lunch conversation centers on LittleBigPlanet, which I have recently convinced John to buy, after convincing him to buy a PS3 so he could play Rock Band. John's says "I'm not a gamer, dude, but man, LBP is cool." Inwardly, I do my best Dr. Horrible laugh. Practice. Practice.

1:00—3:00: Sacred Writing Time. Decaf.

3:15: Jessica drops me home from the coffee shop, and heads back out to pick up the kids for their overscheduled afternoon.

3:16: The PS3 is looking at me. I can hear it breathing. I can smell its black plastic miasma choking the productivity out of my sleep deprived ganglia. I resist, banishing myself to the basement.

4:00: An intense bout of productivity in the quiet of an empty house. Childhood smells mix with the caffeinated mustiness of the basement in a brew of creative, impulse-denial amphetamines. Seven hundred and fifty good words in 45 minutes.

4:45: Ammo management in Fallout 3 is a pain in the ass.

5:00: Ammo management in Left 4 Dead is awesome. Bottomless pistols are the best idea since the bottomless coffee at Sanctuary.

5:01: Must not think about bottomless chaps if I feel like eating. Ever.

5:10: Kids return home. Sacred Family Time begins.

6:00: “Yes, Jessica, playing LittleBigPlanet with Todd in San Francisco counts as sacred family time if I have the kids on the couch with me. Sackboy wrestling does not count as violence.”

6:15: Sackboy wrestling is pretty violent. Especially since Todd has a sword.

6:45: Article topic: “Montessori Pedagogy And Piaget’s Stages Of Cognitive Development In The Generative Play Of LittleBigPlanet.”

6:46: Salable article topic: “How To Make A Penis Level In LittleBigPlanet.”

6:47: Thinking about gin.

7:30: Kids asleep, I realize how much work I didn’t get done. I write, email, take notes, and edit.

10:00: Feeling like I’m almost done, I fire up World of Warcraft and get in cue. Make martini.

10:30: Done writing. 30 minutes left in cue.

11:15: Out of cue. I shut down the Xbox 360. Gears of War 2 is way more awesomer than i thought it would be.

1:00: Bleary eyed, I stumble upstairs. Before turning the light off in the kitchen, I check the pile of mail on the counter. DeadSpace has arrived from Cory in Seattle. Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise finally showed up from Gamefly.

November 15th was a light day. It was a day where I managed to find some semblance of balance between getting paid and getting play. Throughout most of the year, gaming is distraction and entertainment. November separates the proverbial patriarchs from their upstart offspring. In November, the Gamer! and the With Job! blur. I spend my ill-defined work hours thinking, talking and writing about games. And the time I'm playing games become a form of work - a struggle to keep up no less frenetic than that of the clock-manager in Metropolis.

Looking at DeadSpace and Viva Pinata on the counter, I console myself with the thought that there's always tomorrow.

Except, as the clockwork daemon on my shoulder reminds me with manic certainty, it already is.

Comments

Nyles wrote:
Spaz wrote:
stupidhaiku wrote:

Write it and I'll buy it! (How're you going to get Piaget in there?)

Schema theory and the acquisition/accommodation of skills as they relate to object interaction in LBP, possibly with a side-focus on motor skill development.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

And that's how you bring it, people.

You all can take your typos and shove them up your collective pie holes - Spaz has laid down a whole new level of smack.

And, in case you were wondering, I was really thinking of Piaget's theories of class inclusion (and all of this is big in Montessori. So you've got the basic class of "string" connectors, but then the subclasses of "elastic" and "spring," and there's a process of hierarchical learning that goes on - where you can only learn the more complex after mastering a level of the simplistic.

'n' stuff.

nihilo wrote:
MacBrave wrote:

You send your kids to school on a Saturday?

This is a very good point. Who goes to school on a Saturday?

I used too, 8:30am-12:30. Utterly miserable thing to have to do, but it's common for schools that have a significant number of boarders to make the day pupils come in at the weekend as well.

This is the only gamer community in which I have to exercise my mind when reading someone's blog write up. The rarely used vocabulary of the English language is for some reason used less rarely and more frequently here. I find myself consulting an online dictionary for words now and then. Strangely I find that refreshing.

So many games and so little time.

kilroy0097 wrote:

I find myself consulting an online dictionary for words now and then. Strangely I find that refreshing.

No! Do NOT start a dictionary discussion again! Lara Crigger will have to open a vein in despair for not having an OED. Again.

rabbit wrote:

No! Do NOT start a dictionary discussion again! Lara Crigger will have to open a vein in despair for not having an OED. Again.

Let's all hope and pray that she has more interesting things to do on her honeymoon than read our inane musings!

rabbit wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

I find myself consulting an online dictionary for words now and then. Strangely I find that refreshing.

No! Do NOT start a dictionary discussion again! Lara Crigger will have to open a vein in despair for not having an OED. Again.

God, I wish I had an OED. When I got married the firs thing my wife and I registered for was an unabridged OED. Of course we didn't get it, but I got to spend a few months dreaming about the possibility that my rich uncle would take pity on his least favorite nephew.

Awesome article rabbit. I've been listening to the podcast for over a year and almost every episode I think to myself, "how the hell do [the ones with kids] have the time to play so many video games?"

Now I've read this article, and I have an answer. "Oh, I was right, they don't sleep."

If I stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning I'd be a Left 4 Dead zombie every day. I mean, I go to bed between 10 and 11 (almost) every night as it is and I'm still incredibly tired all the time. And I'm not playing video games until that time... I'm doing the dishes or working on the home business stuff or something along those lines. I'm lucky I have a DS that I can play when I'm sitting on the damned toilet!

Also I'll agree with all those who mentioned that they thought Gamers with Jobs meant "Gamers Who Are Not Kids." That's how I've always thought of it too

rabbit wrote:
Nyles wrote:
Spaz wrote:
stupidhaiku wrote:

Write it and I'll buy it! (How're you going to get Piaget in there?)

Schema theory and the acquisition/accommodation of skills as they relate to object interaction in LBP, possibly with a side-focus on motor skill development.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

And that's how you bring it, people.

You all can take your typos and shove them up your collective pie holes - Spaz has laid down a whole new level of smack.

And, in case you were wondering, I was really thinking of Piaget's theories of class inclusion (and all of this is big in Montessori. So you've got the basic class of "string" connectors, but then the subclasses of "elastic" and "spring," and there's a process of hierarchical learning that goes on - where you can only learn the more complex after mastering a level of the simplistic.

'n' stuff.

So if you're going to go this far with Piaget and constructivist teaching, and I think this is especially apropos for LittleBigPlanet (both the game itself, and particularly the level creation tools), you might as well bring in Seymour Papert's work and the application of the principles of things like Logo (although Logo itself is obviously a different beast) into the mix as well. Logo and turtle graphics introduced countless young people to computing, but more importantly, also provided a safe and interesting sandbox for learning how to learn by doing. LBP seems to have more than enough power to enable a similar experience for, arguably, a much broader audience, while also being a fun game.

For the other programming language/CS nerds and constructivist teaching fans lurking, LBP might also be seen as a better (or at least different) ToonTalk or Alice.

Now that I've definitively killed the thread, I return you to your regularly scheduled forum discussion.

Bravo, well done

Really nice read! It's time for the next-gen sitcom, yeah! rabbit does the writing

For almoust a year i checked this site for only reason - to look through new posts on Post picture, intertain me forum topic.
This very article made me do two things: Register&Read more. This is just beatiful. Thank you Rabbit for saving my soul from unnesesary various job tasks! Sincerely, freshly made russian bookworm. (Pardon my english).

gamekata wrote:

Logo and turtle graphics introduced countless young people to computing, but more importantly, also provided a safe and interesting sandbox for learning how to learn by doing.

Wow that brings back a lot of memories. My first exposure to the PC was exactly this at school on a Apple IIe back in 1985 I think. From there I took interest in BASIC which I some how managed to do elementary programing on with my Dad's old TRS80. Damn I'm old.

Bodun wrote:

For almoust a year i checked this site for only reason - to look through new posts on Post picture, intertain me forum topic.
This very article made me do two things: Register&Read more. This is just beatiful. Thank you Rabbit for saving my soul from unnesesary various job tasks! Sincerely, freshly made russian bookworm. (Pardon my english).

And Rabbit brings in two virgins with one article! Welcome to the forums!

gamekata wrote:

Logo and turtle graphics introduced countless young people to computing, but more importantly, also provided a safe and interesting sandbox for learning how to learn by doing.

I used to love that stupid turtle. As I recall, there was also a 'robotics' kit you could hook up to it as well. It was a fun way to get my tender young hands dirty with programming, motors, building kill-bots, etc.

beeporama wrote:

My take on "Gamers With Jobs" is that we've transitioned from not having enough money for the games we want to play to not having enough time for the games we want to play.

Beeporama nailed it.

When I started university I invested in a proper dictionary, a Chambers dictionary. I was crestfallen when my friend took one look and said 'didn't they have any OEDs then?' I can never open that dictionary without feeling like a co*k.

Bodun wrote:

Thank you Rabbit for saving my soul from unnesesary various job tasks!

Been a while since I had a new sig. Just a wee bit of context pruning ...

Bodun wrote:

Thank you Rabbit for saving my soul.

Brilliant.

P.S.:

Dictionary Porn. Weep suckers.

beeporama wrote:

My take on "Gamers With Jobs" is that we've transitioned from not having enough money for the games we want to play to not having enough time for the games we want to play.

Thirded.

kilroy0097 wrote:

This is the only gamer community in which I have to exercise my mind when reading someone's blog write up. The rarely used vocabulary of the English language is for some reason used less rarely and more frequently here. I find myself consulting an online dictionary for words now and then. Strangely I find that refreshing.

O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd
Nor the motion of a schoolboy's tongue,
Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
Nor woo in rhyme like a blind harper's song!
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affection,
Figures pedantical-these summer flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove (how white the hand, God knows!)
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yea's and honest kersey no's.

-Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

Bodun wrote:

For almoust a year i checked this site for only reason - to look through new posts on Post picture, intertain me forum topic.
This very article made me do two things: Register&Read more. This is just beatiful. Thank you Rabbit for saving my soul from unnesesary various job tasks! Sincerely, freshly made russian bookworm. (Pardon my english).

Welcome! Also, I find it amusing to think of Russians lurking in the Post a Picture thread.

rabbit wrote:

Dictionary Porn. Weep suckers.

Is that what you do with porn?

Sorry about the sword business! If I had known that was your 4-year old I was dragging around the screen, I'd have put the hook on instead. To be fair, it was a wooden sword.
Between that and decorating the backs of your sackboy's heads, it was a fun time. My son was sitting with us shouting: Want Bunny!! (that's my sackboy with rabbit ears) Want Max!! (his name is max, and that's what we call the default sackboy).

And I have woken up MANY times with my son sitting on my head, too. It's always an experience.

Very well done.
And Gamers With Jobs, for me, was a place on the internet that had nice, fun people that actually took the time to use grammar, be (mostly) mature, and put up a great argument on a subject.
Instead of the typical imbeciles that are making people my age look bad.

St.Hillary wrote:

Instead of the typical imbeciles that are making people my age look bad.

70?

kilroy0097 wrote:

And Rabbit brings in two virgins with one article! Welcome to the forums!

As one of the two forum newbs, thanks. I've been lurking for a while. Apparently what it took to get me to post was mention of Piaget and writing.

gamekata wrote:

Apparently what it took to get me to post was mention of Piaget and writing.

You too can be a pretentious vocabulary-intoxicated game snob like me!! God bless us everyone, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Welcome!

beeporama wrote:

My take on "Gamers With Jobs" is that we've transitioned from not having enough money for the games we want to play to not having enough time for the games we want to play.

Oh man, is that distinction ever true. I planned ahead for Fallout 3's release and told my professors I wouldn't be in that day or the next. I took a test and turned in homework early. For me, the transition was when I stopped playing games spontaneously (mostly) and started thinking of it as a part of my day.

"Okay, so school from 10-12, study til 2, meeting at the VA at 2.45, go home, murder every goddamn person in Tenpenny Tower, wait in the queue for WoW, come to my f-ing senses and play something I care about til dinner. This is game time, not wait in line time. Alright, we're good. We can do this."

I always figured the Gamers With Jobs thing implied this was a sort of online support group for gamers who are forced to make a living. As our time available for actual gaming dwindles we turn to the next best thing... Talking about gaming on a message board on the clock when we can slack enough to sneak in some posts between periods spent pretending to be interested in actual work. My dream is to someday have a slackhappy enough job to where those times are filled with actual gaming as opposed to simply talking about gaming.

Someday...

mven wrote:

I always figured the Gamers With Jobs thing implied this was a sort of online support group for gamers who are forced to make a living. As our time available for actual gaming dwindles we turn to the next best thing... Talking about gaming on a message board on the clock when we can slack enough to sneak in some posts between periods spent pretending to be interested in actual work. My dream is to someday have a slackhappy enough job to where those times are filled with actual gaming as opposed to simply talking about gaming.

Someday...

One can only dream...I wonder if my boss would notice if I kept a 360 under my desk?

Wordsmythe wrote:

Welcome! Also, I find it amusing to think of Russians lurking in the Post a Picture thread.

Thanks;) Btw, i found allot of russian funny pictures posted by Prederick.(like 50% or so of all his threads), tho his english is perfect, hence he must be russian hard-trained spy or something i suppose. So I'd like to greet my compatriot: Well done hanging out there unnoticed, friend, well done.;)

rabbit wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

I find myself consulting an online dictionary for words now and then. Strangely I find that refreshing.

No! Do NOT start a dictionary discussion again! Lara Crigger will have to open a vein in despair for not having an OED. Again.

for those despairing from lack of access to the OED, check your public library's online databases. Often they will have remote, electronic access to the OED. We don't do a great job of advertising our electronic holdings, so it is worth checking.

Great read.

Bodun wrote:

Thanks;) Btw, i found allot of russian funny pictures posted by Prederick.(like 50% or so of all his threads), tho his english is perfect, hence he must be russian hard-trained spy or something i suppose. So I'd like to greet my compatriot: Well done hanging out there unnoticed, friend, well done.;)

My jealousy at your mastery of Russian is an almost palpable force in the room. I want to speak Russian fluently, but I live in the centre of a nation (and indeed, continent) that is almost hostile to foreign languages. How, I ask you, am I supposed to work under these conditions? Of course, mastery of English is a gift I'll hold to my chest and fend off all takers with blazing eyes, but acquiring Russian would be a lovely addition.