Game Shame

[entrerix]

Most gamers at some point develop feelings of shame around the hobby, either shame that it takes up too much time, shame that the hobby is so often childish, or shame that they spend too much money on frivolity.

 

well this thread is a place to voice such feelings and more

 

my own personal shame is a weird one, it's the shame of not liking a game I feel I SHOULD like, either because it looks like my kind of game, or because I have heard so many great things about said game. How is it I can feel pressure to enjoy something when the only people saying I MUST enjoy it are online blogs and gaming sites? is this something wrong with me or do others feel the same way on occasion?

 

Here are the games which I feel most wrong for not loving. In no particular order:

 

Okami: I love zelda. flat out love it. one of my favorite games of all time is Zelda OOT. I bought okami on release, got halfway through it, then put it down and haven't picked it up since. I just got bored with it. Yet I cannot compel myself to remove it from my backlog of "must play games", because I hear it referenced still as being a wonderful game.

 

God of War: I actually beat the first game and when it was over thought to myself "this game kinda sucked, why is it so popular?" sounds like the end of the story right? wrong! I proceeded to buy part 2, never play it, and now have part 3 on my amazon wishlist.

 

Devil May Cry: I loved the first one. now I have part 4 and can't bring myself to play it for more than 5 minutes without shutting it off in frustration. the game is not fun at all, its boring as hell, just mashing attack over and over again against badly designed enemies. why do I feel this way? how come everyone talks about this game like its awesome?

 

Alan Wake: I JUST got this, played it for 3 hours, and am already insanely bored with it. I LOVE silent hill 2, its one of my favorite horror games. Alan Wake just feels lame and simplistic, shadow enemies that need to be flashlighted to death? sounds kinda neat right? wrong it sucks. but I really want to experience the game because I love horror stories so much... I SHOULD love this, I love stephen king, i liked the xfiles (seasons 1-3 anyway), and I love silent hill

 

Persona 4: am I the only person on the planet who gets hella depressed playing this?? the main character juggles time between studying, playing games, making friends, karaoke, and saving the world. I meanwhile am just sitting in front of my screen watching this guy experience a full life. This game makes me want to stop playing video games. the strange part? Persona 2 is one of my favorite rpgs.

 

Dawn of War 2: this game is boring. I played it for about 10 hours and am just bored to death by how repetitive it is. I LOVE warhammer 40k, it rocks, I really liked company of heroes. Why don't I like this?

 

CoD: world at war: unplayable dreck. I love CoD 4 and Modern Warfare 2. LOVE THEM. I bought this game a few weeks ago and can't play it for more than a few minutes without wanting to stab myself in the eye. the level's are so linear I can't even flank the people Im fighting against. Why do I only notice it here and not in ANY other shooters? I don't even notice linearity in ME2 and yet in this game it is incredibly distracting.

 

The Longest Journey: ok, this one is a bit different, the only adventure game I had ever played was the recently released monkey island remake. I really liked it but relied heavily on the hint system cause I don't have the patience to figure out some of the very random obscure pixel hunting trial and error puzzle solutions. well, longest journey was intriguing to me for about two levels when i got frustrated by how ridiculously complex something as simple as getting a cop to turn around for 30 seconds so I can walk into any alleyway is. It didn't feel realistic or immersive at all, instead it felt arbitrary and forced. interest was totally lost.

 

and now for the king daddy of them all:

 

Metroid Prime. This game is considered by many to be one of the best gamecube games of all time. I hate it. the controls suck, the levels are ugly and repetitive, and the story is non-existent. I don't want to explore these ruins because I have no reason to and they are not nearly compelling enough on their own to inspire me. I feel like I'm speaking blasphemy though when i read about other people's thoughts on the game. Resident evil 4 was a gamecube game that I played nonstop for hours and hours and loved every moment of it. metroid prime? i think i lasted about 6 hours before giving up on it.

 

 

and one counter example: Halo. I have played halo 1-3. I hate them all*. The level design is uniformly bland or outright bad. the colors are garish, the designs for enemies is either silly or uninspired. the rest of it feels like a ripoff of other sci-fi stuff that i actually like. I used to feel strange for not liking halo, now I don't care, I have given the series WAY more than a fair shake, and still hate it. So now I am guilt free in my dislike for Halo, and only felt a MILD compulsion to buy reach, which i was able to overcome by buying a bunch of other games that I can now feel guilty about not playing for a year while I chip at my backlog.

* ok hate is a strong word, i just think they are the very definition of mediocre console fps gaming. The only thing I genuinely like about halo only applies to the first game, the advent of regenerating health in fast paced action games. I think it moved the genre forward and a little to the side.

 

i'm sure no one has answers for me, as this is all very much my own problem and is built around very subjective thoughts, but I figure that other people here might have similar feelings about some games and maybe some discussion of the phenomenon would lead to some catharsis.

[Purkake]

Right...

 

Thanks for sharing, I guess.

[Tigranes]

In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I suggest that Purkake is a personification of gamer cynicism as a whole.

 

Actually, same kind of 'should be' exists in every other cultural sphere, so it's no surprise. It's probably a "should-be-snobbier" kind of thing that drove me to try older and more 'classic' games, but ironically, I haven't regretted it, most of them have been great. Sometimes posturing can be productive.

[Purkake]

But I like Modern Warfare(1)!

 

What now?

[Tigranes]

The inner web of contradictions will slowly tear you apart, until you explode in a shower of LittleBigPlanet plushies.

 

Sorry, it's a terminal condition.

[Purkake]

I find it easier to just like what I like and dislike what I dislike.

 

Why feel false shame over feeling you should like something more? Do you really care that much about fitting into some super specific stereotype? It's video games(insert other applicable medium here), who cares?

[entrerix]

thats the whole point though, I do care, but I don't know why, and was curious if anyone else felt similarly. obviously you don't (probably too cynical to care about anything...

[Purkake]

Yup, you know me!

 

Good old cynic. ha-ha

[Slowtrain]

I think many developers and publishers should feel shame over the bug-ridden crap they foist off on the public and the grotesque PR that surrounds it.

[Thorton_AP]

Was that post on the main board an alt of you?

[Monte Carlo]

I'm old enough to know better, but I'm telling you now that gaming is a great hobby and perfectly valid.

 

Evidence?

 

* I'm a technophobe, but since I started gaming I've learnt how to install mods, use compression tools, install / update drivers, had advice on free anti-virus / spam / clean-up utilities, can now optimize my rig / ave got into and understood high-end PCs a bit better. If I'd never gamed I'm telling you now I'd never have done this.

 

* It's a stress-buster. My work can get on top of me sometimes, but when I'm trying to pin down waves of enemy infantry on the Hochwald Gap or de-buff a lich with a gimpy character on uber-modded BG2 guess what? I'm kind of not bothered.

 

* It's fun. You don't need to validate fun.

 

* It gives me kudos with all the early twentysomethings I know because I might not look like I understand web culture and humour but I do. And that, by and large, is down to gaming.

 

* If it weren't for gaming I'd never have known who Olivia Munn was.

 

* The community here might have it's fair share of asocial pedants but I kind of like them and enjoy wasting my time online with them. That's down to gaming too.

 

So the O/P needs to chill out.

[Hell Kitty]

I sometimes think it's a damn shame that a particular game isn't what I'd hoped it would be, but I can't say I've ever felt ashamed for not liking a game.

 

Monte is right, you need to chill out man. Take off your pants and have fun.

[Morgoth]

I kinda feel like that when I played Starcraft 2.

 

Man I had such high hopes for it, being a SC1 and Blizzard nerd, I thought SC2 could evoke the same excitement and feeling I had when I first played SC1.

 

But I was wrong.

 

Sure it was a nice game, but completely forgetable and I don't even care for Battlenet.

 

There you go, guess Diablo 3 will be the same "letdown".

[HoonDing]

OP is right to feel wrong for not loving TLJ. It's the best game of all time, after all.

[Purkake]

I think many developers and publishers should feel shame over the bug-ridden crap they foist off on the public and the grotesque PR that surrounds it.

I see what you did there

 

OP is right to feel wrong for not loving TLJ. It's the best game of all time, after all.

It's the character(s) and the story that make TLJ, not the gameplay or puzzle design.

Edited December 23, 2010 by Purkake

[Azure79]

I never played System Shock 2. There I said it.

[Orogun01]

I never played System Shock 2. There I said it.

Get 'im!!!

 

Serious now; I don't now why the whole game shame. No movie critic feels ashamed when they say that Citizen Kane it's the best film ever, even though most people think it's the most boring piece of **** ever filmed. I don't like that there is a double standard, dedicating yourself to music, movies, books or art it's seen as a more noble pursuit than games. Despite the fact that all of them are an equal waste of time and serve the same purpose of enriching your life.

[Purkake]

So music, books, movies and games hold no artistic value and are just entertainment?

[Malcador]

I think many developers and publishers should feel shame over the bug-ridden crap they foist off on the public and the grotesque PR that surrounds it.

 

But they're just soulless corporate husks. Don't get why you should feel shame over games, closest I get is just regret over wasted money (like Starcraft II, Civ 5 CE).

[Orogun01]

So music, books, movies and games hold no artistic value and are just entertainment?

In an intrinsic view, yes they are. Since they have no more value than how much they affect us it's up to the audience to assign that value and how much it affects them. That's its the nature of art, it's value is on the eye of the beholder.

[Purkake]

If that's the case, why does it matter which is seen as a more "noble" pursuit?

[mkreku]

I enjoyed the boobie cards in The Witcher.

[Orogun01]

If that's the case, why does it matter which is seen as a more "noble" pursuit?

Because they are considered more established and because we have grown to believe that they create a more integral person. Games and comics are relatively new and still have to prove themselves; namely produce remarkable work that transcends boundaries and breaks into the mainstream. They both share the same beginning since they both were conceived as children's entertainment that grew as the children grew into adults and sought more mature content.

Truth is that just because one person watches the whole Rambo movies, reads the Twilight series or listen to Vanilla Ice, doesn't make them any more knowledgeable or integral. There is work that should be taken purely at entertainment value and there work with serious artistic value. Same is true for games, problem is that it's a hard medium to promote and break into the mainstream. On the other hand there are very few games with real artistic value, so we may be lacking in serious content.

[HoonDing]

It's the character(s) and the story that make TLJ, not the gameplay or puzzle design.

You got burnt by the rubber ducky, didn't you?

[Amentep]

Comic strips and comic books are older than radio and television and arguably dramas in both of the latter two formats have a better chance of being seen as art than any in the former two. Comic strips didn't even start off as entertainment for children - it was that (oft forgotten) family entertainment. Adventure strips, romances, gag strips and dramas - they all populated the early newspaper page attempting to provide something for everyone. The comic strips' ties into panel gags in older magazines even belies a more adult origin.

 

"Comics" problem is that they marginalized themselves (in the US at least and partially out of necessity). Note that any book that originally was published in paperback form (a form arising in the 1950s and as opposed to being serialized in a magazine or appearing first in hardback) was considered "trashy", so the problem isn't really format but perception (nowadays, the $12 trade paper back is the ideal for anything but the most likely sellers as its a profitable product*).

 

Even still the classical arts have struggled with modern variations - there are many who wouldn't class an abstract artist as really being art, for example. I personally struggle with considering something like Duchamps' Fountain as art even if I intellectually understand the point of the piece, the emotive part of me that wants to connect with such a work refuses. I absolutely can't get behind the comic panel pop art of Roy Lichenstein because I don't think that portion of his work is properly transformative enough.

 

Which kind of leads me into games; most games visual representation doesn't match the dynamics of a painting, a photograph or a film. The stories aren't complex enough generally speaking to compare with other narrative arts. The very fact that - even if a game was of the highest artistic value - the experiencing person has to play the game in order to find the art** will make it a tough nut to crack in terms of artistic merit (at least beyond those already inclined to see/experience the medium).

 

In this sense I suppose I've never had any problem with spending my time and money on games provided I get something I enjoy out of it. So I can't say that I feel that I have "game shame", although occasionally the rare occasion I rather vitriolically dislike some game makes me think I'm spending to much time holding a negative passion against something.

 

*Arguably, the commercial & disposable intentions of a new medium work against the majority seeing it as art which may explain why the early (commercial) years of any medium are so sparsely populated with well regarded works

 

**interestingly, classical art has been slowly bringing in ideas of making the individual a part of the art itself something already achieved in a some way in games