[Previous entry: "Derivative works and copyright"] [Close Window] [Next entry: "Speaking of Bejewelled"]

07/13/2003 Archived Entry: "The irony of meaningless gaming"

This isn't new, but I didn't catch the last bit in my previous go-around. It's an interview with Talmadge Wright, from February, about Counter-Strike gameplay:

Before now, he said, many studies of game playing have been skewed by hidden agendas. "There's a cultural motif that underlies the critiques that go on around this," he said, "the idea of mindless activity is given short shrift in culture where productivity is given the highest praise."

I think this needs to be underlined. One thing I'm wary of in game and play research is the need for everything to be educational, or meaningful, or social or productive. What about games doing nothing? If I can't be doing absolutely nothing productive when playing a game, when can I? I have to say, a lot of my media consumption is more Hermes than de Certeau: the TV goes on so I can get used to hearing human voices at 6am, I couldn't tell you why I purchase trashy ladies magazines for the plane, except that I find them somehow calming. I once had one of those infamous dot-com jobs at which for all intensive purposes I was paid to play Bejewelled for 8 hours a day. I couldn't even describe how to play the game now-- I don't remember. I don't think I was paying attention...

If I haven't linked to it before, Wright (Boria and Breidenbach)'s paper is in Gamestudies: Creative Player Actions in FPS Online Video Games:
Playing Counter-Strike. It's one of my all-time favorites.