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

[Brock Dubbels]

In reference to gaming as a counter culture--consider that every group
of youth has a counter culture. Punk rock as a counter culture was
driven by youth, just as the gaming counter culture may also be driven
by youth.

The part that is different is that gaming counter culture seems to be
driven by commercial producers. Games production is complex, whereas
punk rock, and i grew up in the punk rock scene of San
Francisco/Oakland, and most of the punk bands never had an album.
Those that did were suspect. Here were a few:
http://www.collectorscum.com/volume3/nocal/

Punk rock was easily accessible to kids who could get out of the house
at night to see shows, and had motivation to play their guitars loud
and push their social invective rather than becoming part of the
machine. Those who consumed it had a specific attitude they expressed
through skateboarding, clothing, and other semiotic domains that could
be observed as a counter culture.

I consider killing bankers in GTA subversive, but the guy sounds like
the epitome of MR. BUSINESSMAN.

I am interested in knowing what you all are basing your sub-culture
observation on--a few anecdotes?

What are these domains that are the PRODUCTION, the observable elements.

Games are consumed--very few are produced by this generation. Those
that do seem punk rock, are generally adult games consumed by kids.

How are games a sub culture, or counter culture?

It is very easy to create a subculture of anything and create
promiscuous theories from observation that are based in ideas and do
not deal in data.

Sorry to go to my punk rock roots, but is this topic about making shit up?

Also, when we are talking about this, what research traditions are we
connecting to?

I am not sure I see much from anthropology are ethnographic methods to
operationalize any of this talk. This seems reasonable since we are
talking about culture.

And when we do, are we going to sell these folks out as a subculture
so we can go and get a big grant from Mr. BUSINESSMAN?



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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>



-- 
--
Best regards,

Brock

Brock R. Dubbels
brock at vgAlt.com
612.747.0346
415.968.9072

The Center for Cognitive Sciences
The University of Minnesota
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Consulting
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One of the greatest mistakes of our day is to think of movement by
itself, as standing apart from higher functions . . . Mental
development must be dependent  on it. It is vital that educational
theory and practice should become informed by this idea . . . Watching
a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes about
through his movements . . . Mind and movement are parts of the same
entity.

Montessori, 1967, pp 141-142

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