[-empyre-] Punk and Games, messages by Julian and Gabriel

[Daniel Cook]

If you look at early gaming culture, specifically on the developer side, it
was driven by a visionary exploration of the new capabilities of computers.
See the early 'We see
farther<http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/3860428163/>'
ads from Electronics Arts as one of the better artifacts that describes the
culture of developers at the time.   The developers were talented misfits
like Chris Crawford or Dani Bunten Berry. To a large degree, games were the
Wild West that represented a glimpse into the future of what was possible
with a personal computer.

This culture thrived and evolved well into the 90's.  Parts of it became
more commercial and large businesses evolved, but the main drivers of the
industry were still visionary developers.  Lemmings, Doom, GTA, Dune 2 all
came from scrappy small teams pushing the boundaries of what was possible.

As publishers pulled money out of PC gaming and invested more heavily in the
walled gardens of the console market, the frontier began to close. By the
turn of the millennium, developers were considered cog-like commodities and
games were little more than business franchises.  It was around this time
that the 'nerd' culture became co-opted by the 'bro' culture.  Gamers were
now better described as frat boys with gun and sports fetishes instead of
hobbyist exploring the latest electronic miracles.  The money behind the
marketing fed the worst attributes of this audience.   See Xbox Live for an
example of the culture contained in this inbred generation:  Highly
competitive, misogynist, foul mouthed escapists.  And they love themselves
because this is their cultural identity, their tribe.   Though the end
result is a hair different, the recent Wired
article<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_icp/>on the ties that
bind the fringe Juggalos strikes me as eerily similar to
the ties that define gamers.

What happened to the visionaries of previous years?  Most are now painted as
foolish failures. The effusive Peter Molyneux is seen as a lying clown for
daring to dream.  The creative forces behind Lemmings and GTA were recently
bankrupted by the bizarro AAA production realities.  Top names from
generations past eke out marginal livings as consultants.  The damning
question is always "What was your last hit AAA shooter?" Will Wright isn't
even allowed to fail. In the mature markets, the frontier is dead and
explorers are no longer welcome.

What of game journalists and academics?  What of the well spoken game
developer?  Up until a few years ago, these were exceptions with almost zero
power or influence. At best, it is misguided PR for a cultural ghetto. I've
sat in the green lighting meeting at large publishers.  I've seen the market
analysis of who buys games and why they buy them.  It is a bro's market to
the core.  There is a reason we get a steady diet of thinly disguised games
about shooting minorities (the Other) in the head.  The existing corporate
machine exists to serve the real needs of the current audience.  The machine
is working wonderfully and gamers are pleasantly satiated.

Now, new markets are opening up.  New frontiers are emerging.  How do modern
"hardcore gamers" react to a new audience delighted to discover games for
the first time?  The same way that any established tribe reacts to newcomers
that make them question their identity.  With bigotry and hate.

Personally, I am ecstatic to escape the malformed standards of the current
gaming culture and run off to the new frontiers once again.  At least in
social games, mobile games and indie games, a developer is allowed to dream
once more.

take care
Danc.

2010/12/3 Julian Raul Kücklich <julian at kuecklich.de>

> Hi Mathias,
>
> I think you might be right about the antagonistic character of (early)
> videogame culture --- it's just that it was never made explicit to my
> knowledge. In terms of the paradigm shift from "passive" screen-based media
> such as television and film to "interactive" media, it should be
> acknowledged that videogames entered into a parasitic relationship with
> these media early on. Gaming consoles and early home computers plugged
> directly into the home television set, and many games aimed for "cinematic
> realism", borrowing techniques and conventions from film.
>
> Certainly, jargon and a shared (geek) aesthetic helped in carving out a
> subcultural niche, which could be seen as positioning itself against more
> mainstream lifestyles. However, I am not sure to what extent this exclusion
> was voluntary. But then again, that holds true for a lot of other
> subcultures as well. Maybe it's easier to see gaming culture as a subset of
> geek culture, which embraced technology, and a DIY aesthetic. But of course
> much of that was swept away when computer technology became mainstream.
>
> So that then raises the question whether we can only ever see gaming
> subcultures in the rearview mirror, and whether it is the nostalgic
> subcultures in particular that seem relevant. Retrogaming, speedrunning
> (with it's insistence of replaying games like Super Mario Bros. and Quake
> over and over again), the demo scene, and similar scenes seem to indicate
> that that is the case. The e-sports scene, which enshrines classics like
> CounterStrike and StarCraft, would be another case in point. These scenes
> also seem to be much more similar to punk with its insistence on a low-tech
> and low-fi aesthetic.
>
> Julian.
>
> dr julian raul kuecklich
>
> http://playability.de
>
>
> Am 02.12.2010 12:03, schrieb Mathias Fuchs:
>
>  Videogames and Punk Music
>>
>> There seem to be different opinions how "punk" early videogames were.
>> Julian suggests that "Gaming culture was never positioned against anything
>> else..." which I doubt. I can detect "against" on the level of
>> user-generations, jargon, embeddedness in a mediatic set-up, aesthetics, and
>> lifestyle.
>> Resemblances to Punk could be found in a preference of media that are
>> definitely not high-culture (Commodores and Ataris versus tv broadcast),
>> jargon (fragged, high-score, bots), geekyness as a lifestyle element. When
>> gamers refused to watch TV is was provocative agains a cherished media
>> environment that the parent generation identified with. Now it worries the
>> BBC, that gamers don't switch on Coronation Street.
>>
>> There are even unpleasant similarities of gamers' opposition to the
>> establishment and punk opposition against the establishment. The Sex
>> Pistols' use of the swastika was a  naive teen-age revolt against moderate
>> high-culture that reappeared in a lot of Nazi emblematic in early videogames
>> up to Wolfenstein.
>> "Strong language" is another thing that made videogame attractive and
>> opposed to the censored correct speech of the traditional media.
>> But also the generation divide and gender divide between 14 to 18 year old
>> boys and non-gamers could be interpreted as an enforced rebellious act via
>> cultural techniques (of jargon, lifestyle, fashion) and thereby be acoounted
>> for as "against".
>>
>> Mathias
>>
>>
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