Shoes at the Door

Category: Classic PC Games

  • Have You Ever been Affected by Negativity… ?

    Have You Ever been Affected by Negativity… ?

    Here at shoesatthedoor, we talk a lot about how contemporary social media algorithms affect our view of reality. But I usually think about this in the context of either searching for or consciously receiving new information. When we consciously form opinions on the state of things in the world, we sometimes think uncritically about the apparent data algorithms are presenting to us. This is to say nothing of how the volume of selected content coming down the pipeline affects us on a more subconscious level.

    For those of us who are making these connections, I think the tendency is to unplug. But we’ve still got a job to do. Some of us have got to put on the hazmat suits, wade in, and curate the material, separating the chaff from the chaff we like. Then how can one know, you may ask, what can be safely regarded as that upon which one may carve an informed opinion? Well, perhaps forming an opinion on the state of things is overrated. But perhaps there is some good advice out there for vetting material such that some opinions will be slightly better than others.

    As you may know, I began this exploration into blog curation with video game videos on YouTube. I wanted to explore why I liked the videos I liked, and why I didn’t the ones I didn’t. Today, I want to share another piece of that puzzle, but previously unbeknownst to me, it turns out to operate on a more subconscious level. At this point, I must say that I usually don’t want to admit when I’m being affected on a subconscious level. I’m a little too proud for that. But right now, with the all the apparent data in front of me, I find no better explanation for the ennui I now feel toward video games than that which accounts for the sheer force of the overwhelming quantity of negativity about gaming being uploaded every single day.

    I don’t think it would be overly simplistic and small-minded to point out here that it wasn’t always this way. When I was young, my favorite publication, PC gamer, did nothing but get me hyped about every single game coming out. The negativity just wasn’t there, except when certain releases were obviously crossing the line in their lack of quality control. Gaming publications of yesteryear doubled as your excited friends and as your guardians watching out for wolves in sheep’s clothing. And the excitement didn’t just come from my having been young. In 1994, PC gaming and its magazines, including PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World, were made by and for more mature audiences. The video above rightly points out that old games are not necessarily better than games today (though there are good elements that have been lost). And if they are better, where has the excitement gone? Perhaps a little bit of hype is not such a bad thing, especially when handled by a third party. But don’t forget that some gamers used to get so hyped that they would issue death threats to these publications for negative reviews even before playing the game. Well, I guess they won. The publications of yesteryear are no more. Sure, some of them are around in name, but they have been bought out to the degree that they can no longer serve their original purpose. Now, hype has turned to hate, and no doubt by the same people who were issuing death threats for negative reviews.

    This brings us to our headlining video. I’ve been watching NeverKnowsBest‘s videos for a while, ever since he made one about how the classic video game RPGs of the 90s were more fun because they were more imbalanced and exploitable. He’s not in the running for my hall of fame, however, because he’s doing what I’m doing, editorializing curated material. And he’s doing a great job. I don’t agree with all his conclusions, but that’s not the point. He’s helping and encouraging people to have more informed, thoughtful conversations about the topics he covers, which is exactly what I want to do here at Shoes.

    Watch the video and hopefully it will complement what I’ve written above. But I do want to make a couple of comments on its observations and conclusions. First, the situation is not really that bad. Though I feel sorry for those who have been laid off, I feel as though I have to feel just as bad for those who have been chewed up and spit out by Hollywood. This is an industry based on entertainment technology, and it is about as predictable as the fickle human beings that provide its custom. I don’t think that it is very caring to act as if people don’t have to think about their career paths, encouraging them to follow their dream. If we really want a world where everyone is simply following their dream, we really shouldn’t be getting angry at the fact that nobody’s dream is to make my dream come true. Funny how, conversely, anger is the primary emotion that pursuing dreams seems to produce. And in terms of demand, I think it would also be rather uncaring not to remind people that they really don’t need the entertainment they think they do. You can do your own research, but you might easily believe that links have been shown between the crazed demand for entertainment and the social isolation that stems from postmodern consumerism. Gaming used to be so much smaller, and it was never better regarded than before postmodern dialogues began to reconstruct the meaning of “community”.

    Second, the end of the video mentions elements of recent criticisms regarding what is being called “winner-takes-all capitalism.” Though this concept might be worth thinking about in some areas, I think it would be rather dangerous to give people the unqualified idea of clamoring for a marriage of government intervention with entertainment dissatisfaction. The fact that some games have such a large piece of the market might mean that a lot of people are actually having a lot of fun. Do less popular game projects need government protection for not being as fun to as many people, or because people simply do not have time to play all the games? Are the games of any such real value? Or is the ideal simply that the purpose of such government intervention would be to ensure that people never have to think about their career path and follow their dreams? Maybe if I lived in a country that taxed corporations and not its poor dreamless employees, this might not be the worst idea, but it certainly could not be too high on the list. It just seems like a bad idea to put the pitchforks in the hands of the angry mob, the very stupid angry mob who are now appearing on my YouTube side bar now that I’ve watched this video.

    However, I must also lament here the state of independent games. As the big game releases of the last five years have been a little rough for me personally, looking back, I find that I have been playing a lot more indie titles than previous. Like the video mentions, I do remember a time between 2008 and 2014 when you could simply browse for good and interesting games on Steam. But now, with Valve adding 16K games a year, they have effectively, like everything else, offloaded the curation duty onto publications that no longer exist. Who could have possibly handled it, anyway? And what could government intervention do here but somehow protect us from the natural consequences of evil so that the ship never has to right itself? Is that good? Exactly how many of these sixteen thousand projects deserve protection, anyway? Each year? Is capitalism bad because it can’t do that? Not that we don’t all suffer from it a bit, but I still think the questions must be posed.

    Like the video mentions, people have been predicting the death of gaming for a very long time. But despite all odds, some very special people seem to be drawn to make them, no matter the consequences to themselves. It’s always been that way. The sad truth is that we’re the ones who have changed. We’ve let the algorithms get under our skin so much that we can’t even enjoy what we enjoy. There is more to it, more than even what I and the video have stated. But if you want to get in on the conversation, you must respect what NeverKnowsBest has brought to the table. So check out these other two highly recommended videos.

  • Have You Ever Gone on an Adventure Game… ?

    Have You Ever Gone on an Adventure Game… ?

    Well, Dan Avidan has.

    So, in my last post, I reminded you about how I was putting together this internet hall of fame, but I didn’t elaborate on it much. The reason I want to bring this up again is because I somehow want to extend to you, the reader, the experience of how this sort of curation can yield certain dialogues that you might not have expected when starting out. For example, I started out with the kind of videos that I understand the most, that is, videos created by writing, editing, and performing. We started with video games and then we added movies, and there will be more stuff coming from other new categories, as well. But what about videos that don’t really require editing or writing? Obviously, the internet has a lot of those. Do we add to the hall of fame Sparks the kitty, that does that cute little thing with the box? It doesn’t really seem to fit. But what about Game Grumps, the YouTube channel that features a couple of guys playing video games – and that’s it?

    What do we do when we are observing something with a perhaps unidentifiable and unquantifiable quality that, although having no discernible label, is noticeable in both its presence and absence? Not only that, but how do you pin this quality onto something when it’s not always there?

    Sometimes, Game Grumps is pretty good, but not always. But then, I’m not sure if I fit into their biggest audience demographic. And that’s okay. They should be thankful for having an audience demographic, perhaps more so if that demographic is a little different from themselves. And they do seem to be thankful. But in terms of entertainment, some episodes really knock it out of the park for me. And maybe the simple fact is that these guys just are entertaining, except when they’re not. Perhaps the problem has something to do with the art of improv. I also tend to think that when the dialogue gets off of the game in front of the people playing it, the entertainment suffers. For example, in one of the most entertaining episodes to date, the P.T. demo (10 million views), the dialogue stayed on-game the whole time. At any rate, when deciding for the hall of fame, I want to see each candidate for their best. And for me, that’s going to be Dan’s solo adventure game series.

    Now, I usually go to Game Grumps for laughs, but these videos are special. I really wish Dan had kept going with these, but I’m not sure how big of an audience there is for this kind of thing. While playing through Sierra’s Space Quest adventure games, Dan shows himself to be quite the capable host, taking the audience on a tour of what might be a rather inaccessible experience for most, all while keeping the dialogue going with his smooth, mellifluous voice. And it’s a tour that’s worth taking. It is worthwhile to experience old PC gaming in its best possible light instead of complaining about its lack of modern conveniences because putting the games in this light helps us understand how they were first played and enjoyed. This is almost, if not equally, as important as game preservation by itself. How many books have been preserved in libraries without most people ever having known how to appreciate them? Of course, I do take that to be the bigger problem. Nevertheless, we may have learned something from Dan, here. And that makes Game Grumps good enough for the Internet Hall of Fame.