FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT GAMES - Doãn Quốc An Nhiên

Facts & Myths About Games

It was a Sunday night and my family and I were going out on our weekly night out, having some fun, and spending sometime together. But this Sunday, one of my family’s friends decided to join us. I was supposed to take her son to his SAT exam, since the lady was busy on that day. She wanted me to say hello to her son and to get some contact information. The meeting started out slow, for my family friend’s son was awkward and shy. I tried starting out with small talk like name asking or asking about his day, but it went nowhere. It was quiet for about five minutes, then I ask “do you play League of Legends?” It was immediately after this question that the guy opened up and became a chatter box. After that day, I thought to myself, people kept demonizing the video game culture for isolating people, and yet it just did the exact opposite by bringing people closer together. Perhaps video game culture is a lot better than most people think.

To understand video game culture, one must go back to the beginning of it. Most people say that video games started in the 1980s, the time of arcade video games. But in reality, actual video games started in the 1950s, with the birth of simulations and artificial intelligence. Scientists were in the middle of developing computers and simple programs were first made to test out their devices. Their graphics and movements were extremely simple, but it was still very much innovation for its time. These simulations were first used by the military for training purposes, since they were the ones who owned the most advance computer systems.

Then the idea began to spread out to different groups of technology innovators. MIT students were at the fore front of this design. They created the first computer based game called “Spacewars!”, and it was very popular among the group who operate computers. Alex Bernstein created the game chess in 1957. We may take this simple flash game for granted today, but it was a lot more awe inspiring back then. The AI was created to be smart enough to predict for moves ahead and create a counter strategy of their own. As time went by, electronic devices became more and more advance, and so does video games.

It was in 1964 that programming was made easy with the invention of the basic programing language of Dartmouth. Everyone was able to create their own simple video games, and people took full advantage of this innovation. But one thing still stood in the way of video games becoming a mass phenomenon. Video games were still limited to computers, and not everyone owned or knew how to function one, since home computers weren’t invented yet. It was here that a man named Ralph Baer envisioned something that would soon earn the title of “father of video games.” He wanted to have video games played on televisions instead of computers. He created the first video game console called the Brown Box. The device could play tennis and other games, and it was connected to a television to be played. Baer then patented his work, and soon the first official home video game console called the Odyssey was released by Magnavox, based on Baer’s design.

After the Odyssey, more and more people began to develop interests in video games, as it was now called. Soon, the first arcade game, Pong, was created. It was a cultural legend, and people in the 1970s played it so much that a lot of arcade game machines jammed from having too many quarters inside them. After the success of the Odyssey and the arcade game Pong, more and more video games were developed, mostly on the arcade system. A first person shooter called Maze Wars was developed, and it was believed to be the first game of the first person shooter genre. An open world game called Adventures, although a text based game, gave players the choice to explore anywhere they wanted instead of following a storyline. In 1977, following the legacy of the Odyssey, the Atari 2600 was released, featuring interchangeable game cartridges and dedicated game controllers. It made millions of Americans into home game players, competing with the arcade culture. The Arcade then hit back with Space Invaders and the all-time legend Pac-man. Pac-man was to become the first video game franchise to have a female lead character with Ms. Pac-man. Video game icon Mario was created after Nintendo’s success with Donkey Kong, and Mario would soon to become Nintendo’s official mascot and the most famous video game character of all time.

After Mario and his sidekick Luigi, or green Mario as people used to call him, developers began to tap in the idea of multiple people playing video games against each other. Different people simultaneously play the same scenario with each other. M.U.L.E. was the first multiplayer game, pitching people against each other, creating another aspect of the video game culture. Nintendo then went out of its way to create a hand held video game system called Gameboy, and its first game was none other than Tetris. Nintendo even saved American’s fledging game companies in the 1980s with their new NES gaming system. As the video game industry grew more and more powerful, it evolved with existing computer technologies, creating more and more ground breaking games. Soon, Nintendo would have competitions in the form of Sony and Microsoft. They released their own consoles, the PlayStation and Xbox, and even their own games. Home computers were invented and soon game developers were making games for different gaming platforms. Video games became more artistic and their characters became more active with different movements instead of the same repetitions.

After the introduction of the internet, game consoles and computers all over the world for the first time were able to interconnect, creating the multiplayer communities. Different game genres were born, like strategy, first person shooter, or role playing. Now, the video game industries were the giant in entertainment culture. It rivaled, and sometimes even edge ahead, movie industries in their size and scales.

But inevitably, video game culture, like any new mainstream entertainment culture, became the center of criticism. From central media to everyday people, people loved to criticize video games, and video games did cause a lot of controversial. A big controversial was violence, and they were correct to be concerned. Just like a lot of movies. If video games wish to be a bit better, they rely on chock tactics. They would show something so strange and horrifying that it can catch the players’ attention and curiosity. Shock tactics can be a jump scare in horror game, suggestive images, or blood and gore from living beings in action games etc. Parents have always feared that their kids will try to imitate something that they saw on video games, causing serious injuries. There was a famous incident with a game called Mortal Kombat, one of the most influential fighting games. Its gameplay footages show a man pulling another man’s spin out and crush it with his bare hands. Thanks to the amount of violence in video games, a code of safety for video games was implemented, requiring the player to be the right age to play some certain games.

Another controversial was that video games show too much sexual images. A lot of games regularly show women in tight clothings, or sometimes half naked. Other games have men and women outright make love with each other on screen.

The biggest complaint from parents was that video games separate people from the real world. They say that kids will spend all day at home playing video games and nothing else. Feminists attack video games because they constantly show male dominance. The media even says that video games will be the death of social moral. Throughout the history of video games, gamers are constantly being portrayed as fat, geeky, nerdy, and living in their parents’ basement.

But what most people do not get is that people who play and develop games are smarter than what they are given credits for. Unknown to most people outside the culture, the video games that are being criticize are the extremely well made, mainstream ones. They have their own characters, their own beautiful worlds, and their own unique stories that most people look past just to get their point across. Lazy made games are outright reject by the gaming community. Games that are violent just for the sake of violence, or sexually suggestive just for the sake of sick minds, can never get past their customers, thus never make it into the mainstream to be criticize by the media, which can only look at the surface of the situation.

As for the arguments of video games ruining social lives, there are evidences that show how wrong they are. At first, everything seems to be true. In a lot places, people actually sell their belongings and even their houses just to have money for their gaming habit. People spend endless days on the computer screen without leaving their room unless it is dinner time. But as time goes on, people naturally get smarter. Video games are actually brining people closer to each other. By sharing the same interest, people can open up to talk to one another easier. Even the entire world is becoming smaller because everyone in the world is able play with each other. Friends online may not be real, but what if they have a chance to come together to talk about their common interests.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, big video game conventions became more and more common as people gather from all over the world, meeting each other face to face to share their interests. Strangers connect with each other, using their common interest in video games to break the social ice barrier. Even peace treaties signed by politicians are not as an effective peace keeper as the idea of just two people sharing the same interest, thus not wanting to hurt each other.

Parents can both recognize the entertainment value of video games and still encourage their kids to have a social life. Video games are not much of the demons as people try to make them to be.

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