Video Discrimination

There are two kinds of people.  Those who play video games, and those who don't.
...
OK, yeah, right.

Just like any group of people, people who play video games are often lumped together as a demographic with just as many stereotypes as any of the more prominent.  This frustrates me very much, for two reasons:

One, I am a member of that group and face subtle discrimination from people who forego video games for "higher" forms of entertainment or more "wholesome" ways of spending time.  I'm not exaggerating, it's discrimination that has the same implications as any other nonviolent and watered down discrimination you see in progressive places all the time.

Two, video games are evolving in a way that is intensely ambitious, following a path that will ultimately branch into video literature, video poetry, and video art.  There is massive potential for there to be created, anon, computer program-based simulations of fantasy and the world as we know it, each of which could provide an incredible medium for the communication of the valuable experiences that are contemporaneously the domain of codex literature, poetry, film, and academia.

Can you see the literary merit of a medium that incorporates visual art, soundtrack, narrative, character development, and [reader] engagement in a developed product that has an enormous amount of space to develop?

Contemporary video games are not literature, and they are not art.  Almost unanimously, they are still games that have yet to develop past the threshold into what academics would study and analyze with theory.  What reason do we have to believe they will change?  Well, we have no reason to believe they will ever be any better, unless the people who delve into the complexities of literature expand their pool of media and work with the "game" producers and software design teams who create these epics. Video games actually have a ton of potential, only to be realized if people are willing to look beyond the negative media image that the "shocking" and "vulgar" games have wrought for the medium as a whole.

I play video games because I am completely drawn to that intersection of intensely engaging style and emotional, philosophical depth.  And yet, when I tell people that among my other, ostensibly more respectable hobbies, I play video games like Mass Effect, Dead Space, and Final Fantasy, the interest drains from their face, regardless of what me may have been talking about.  It's almost as bad as bringing up philosophy in a conversation with any normal person.  I don't know what assumptions they have about video games they have, but the effect is always the same to non-gamers.  Immediate dissatisfaction.  Sure, they may claim their opinion of me hasn't changed, but it is definitely a subject to steer away from.  Change the topic, immediately, PLEASE.  It's also often the end of other, more worthwhile conversations.  'Oh, you've been playing video games?  Well, I'll let you get back to that,' as if I can't have multiple interests, or else the other interests I do have must be inherently limited to those that are inane and unrefined.

Frankly, I spend a lot of time on the gaming PC I built with a chunk of my scholarship money, so when somebody asks what I've been doing for the past couple weeks of my summer, I really have no other answer than that I was playing through my favorite blockbuster video game trilogy.  'Really,' they may ask, 'is there no better way for you to spend your time?  Aren't video games just bloodbaths that encourage delinquency and short attention spans?'  I try to elucidate the mystical experience in a way that would appeal to them, connecting the game to something they find a valuable use of their time.  And these aren't exaggerations or lies; as with good artwork, many video games provide material that facilitates a variety of experiences, depending on whether you want to watch a person adapt as they face a series of tribulations, or analyze the coalescence of many social and religious and political factors into a greater conflict, or even just an amalgam of aesthetically innovative art and music.

It seems impossible to communicate about this subject to a wide variety of people.  I think what I'm trying to say is that people are never going to be receptive to new thought, and will always be conservative.  Being open-minded to changes in cultural paradigms is not the same as being politically liberal, evidenced by its distinctly greater rarity.

To drive this point home, I'll address specific reasons you may believe you should refrain from video games.

"They require too much time and energy."  Really, this an incredibly weak argument to refuse doing something that is rewarding both emotionally and intellectually, AND that offers you entertainment.  You most likely partake in less rewarding/challenging activities with just as large of an investment of time.  Take reading a book, for example.

"They're expensive." I'm betting you have a friend who's fanatically offered to share their games with you as any other friend would share a good book.  Granted, this is harder with PC games, but this is a problem that leads to a specific advantage of video games:  if you frequent your friend's residence to play a game on their HDTV or their handmade monster computer, you're building a friendship in a unique way, such as you would in a pickup game of basketball.

"I don't have the attention span." That's because you watched too much TV, and is a problem you should amend if you hope to sustain long-term, fulfilling relationships or any other living conditions.

"I'm too old." It's terribly sad when people give up on life by relinquishing contact with the newer generations.  Are you dead?  If not, then you're not too old.

"I need to spend my time on academics." Please, I played over a hundred combined hours of Skyrim and the entire Mass Effect Trilogy in my last semester at college, and I got a 4.0 for all of my 20 credits.  I'm not better than any other hardworking student, and I'm not special.  I do, however, choose entertainment that's mentally stimulating and keeps me at peak intellectual capacity 24/7.  If you don't think about things creatively, you're not going to be a much better student.  If not video games, you should absolutely have a stimulating hobby to keep you happy and to alleviate stress.  Perhaps surprisingly, violent video games do a great job at releasing tension, as do massages.  If you're cognizant of the need to keep that behavior confined to games, you circumvent the proposed psychological damage over which the uninitiated invariably fret.

"They don't appeal to me."  No, the ones you've heard about don't appeal to you.  If you've ever enjoyed a good read, then you'd have an incredible time with a Final Fantasy game, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, etc.

"They're pointlessly violent."  Celebrity effect.  Many of the games that are becoming increasingly popular are those that stress other production elements, such as appealing graphics, stunning plot, and thorough character development.  Others only use violence as a device to further a point.

"Sure, you CAN think about it... but they don't MAKE you think."  Portal.  The subtlety is incredible, relying on ambiance, concise dialogue, and genius puzzles that demand you have the full experience that is their video game.

And now, the one that I'm sure you're weighing subconsciously, if not overtly and explicitly:

"I don't want to be lumped together with those other gamers." What you mean to say is that you're prejudiced against a demographic because of how you were raised and in part due to the celebrity effect of mainstream media.  Do some research, and you'll find that, besides being incredibly diverse, gamer culture, as one may call it, is largely comprised of very passionate people with very loud opinions, many of which are valid and interesting to consider, if not entirely developed.

Many of the people most opposed to video games are those most capable of forcing their evolution towards a more sophisticated domain of human experience.  Their extensive versatility, combined with their inherent multidisciplinary nature, make them the ideal spearhead for a richer communication of genuine, universal, and personal experience than any media before.  The consumer-producer relationship is one that must evolve positively, towards an enlightened culture, or else there will remain an unfortunate divide between people who devote their intellectual capacity to a beautiful but limited medium, and those who put stock into entertainment.  By looking at the recent history of the world's increasingly globalized cultures, it's easy to see how this divide will inevitably fall to a state with less dissonance.  Why not hasten that advancement today, rather than wait for generations down the road to do it on their terms?  It is in liminal epochs like these at which the lay person can have the greatest effect on the future.