The Great Video Game Sport

This article was written back in September of 2007 before the Wii and PS3 came out. This was also a dark time before I got to wrap my brain around one of the most innovative and creative games of 2005, Psychonauts. The article says I never played it which is now a downright lie. I also complain about other people complaining about how people were disappointed when the Smash Bros. site announced they would be updating every day. Any way, I hope you enjoy this little rant entitled The Great Video Game Sport!

I always used to say a true gamer is one who reads more about videogames than actually plays them. Throughout the past ten years of my life I have savored every morsel of industry knowledge like Mario obsessively collecting 120 stars. From Doki Doki Panic and the Konami code to Rare being bought by Microsoft and of course Jack Thompson, I have followed every step and probably clicked the previous page button on GoNintendo approximately 400 mega-million times. So is there truth in this concept; should someone who spends four hours a day online acquire more gamer achievements than someone who spends that same four hours killing 237 enemies to acquire Xbox Live achievements (which are equally as worthless) consider themselves to be the greater, much more “hardcore” gamer? But in a way both the industry follower or “Industry Gamer” and the person who buys a bunch of games without knowing how good they really are or “Game Gamer” are both hardcore gamers.

Being an “industry gamer” has its faults. Through the internet we now have the ability to be part of the “cool click” in school and downgrade things we never even tried. Is Donkey Kong Country really that bad of a game? For some reason it gets a bad rap online by people who probably don’t know their “King K. Rools” from their “Kaptain K. Rools”. Just because Miyamoto spoke out about his dislike for the game does not mean everyone else has to jump on his bandwagon. The same is true for the reverse, I can talk about the wonders of Psychonauts like any other “industry spokesman” on the internet but as I have yet to sacrifice my finger joints to a moment of arthritic gaming pleasure with Raz and The Milkman I truly would be speaking out of my arse, much like Dr. Phil. And this is the problem with our industry; many people think they know what they are talking about when they simply have not played the game. And complain all you want about the lack of GCN games, but I still have plenty of games on that system I have yet to beat!

Both “industry gamer” and “game gamer” should be considered in the status of the hardcore gamer crowd. But then again our videogame industry is not treated like any other industry in the world; it is treated more like a type of sport. Imagine the hardware developers as the teams, IE. Microsoft = Wizards, Sony = Lakers, Nintendo = NY Giants. These three leaders try every year through mega-millions of dollars to get their newest revelation of gaming underneath or next to your TV screen. Try as they may they would fail if it were not for the players, the publishers and developers. EA is the Barry Bonds, *insert obligatory steroid joke here*, while Rare would be the… some dude in a sport that used to be good, sold out, and now is kind of horrible. E3 would be the Super Bowl and the individual games/matches would of course obviously be the games. And this is where game gamer really wins as opposed to not only the “industry gamer” but any sports fan alike.

Playing a videogame will always be ten to 40 percent more enjoyable than watching a tennis match or Nascars going around in a circle for 400 laps! Playing gives us the feeling and the enjoyment of a brand new world. And that is what all great art is supposed to do, create a new way of thinking. But then again there are so many games out there we will never have a chance to play all of them in one life cycle, especially with new stuff coming out every month. The internet gives gamers the ability to acknowledge games like Ninja Five-O and Dewey’s Adventure, games that are incredibly good but that we have no time to play. In a world where the industry gamer is obsessed with how many pixelations of blood can fit in a frame or gets angry at the Smash Bros. website because they promised something big and all they delivered were daily updates (and how is that a bad thing by the way?) there needs to be less complaining and more celebration. Nintendo is right, playing is believing. The industry gamer and game gamer both have their benefits, it is finding the right balance between the two that people need to accomplish. Gamers need to quit whining about droughts and anytime SmashBros.com updates about an item and do something with that time, like play Psychonauts… I heard it’s incredible!