fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4762 ]

[ SECRET POST #4762 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4762 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 44 secrets from Secret Submission Post #682.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It is great that you have a hobby that you enjoy. As I've said before, there is value in it. But pressuring people to like it is silly.

All media has varying degrees of accessibility hurdles to overcome. Some are physical (ballet, immersive gaming), some are intellectual (reading level, background knowledge and theory), some are psychological (I'm a completionist, and neither choose-your-own adventures or interactive novels hold any appeal for me because of that). When we are interested in those media, we take the time to overcome those hurdles if possible (I could never be a ballet dancer, I could probably read Deleuze and Guattari if I joined a study group or took a class, and I could overcome my aversion to multiple-choice stories if the story interested me enough). When we are insufficiently interested in that media, we do not devote that time to mastering the skills needed to consume or participate in it.

This isn't a dichotomy; this is the acknowledgment that media consumption requires a skill set that we can choose to acquire or not.

Yoga's another example where people who are into it get very defensive. I have physical disabilities. There is accessible yoga that I could do. Many people with physical disabilities enjoy doing accessible yoga. I don't. Before I became disabled, I didn't enjoy it either. People who like yoga will swear up and down that I'm not doing it right, that there is a type of yoga out there for me, that I am not giving it a fair chance (despite months of effort!) but the point is that the types of yoga I am physically capable of doing don't give me the pleasure of mastery that it does people who like yoga.

That's it. That's all.

For the last time, I don't care what you do with your spare time or what you find fulfillment in. It's your insistence that people who don't enjoy the thing are hating on the thing that is undermining your argument.

No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time. No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time. No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time.

But, your fox-and-sour-grapes argument about ballet is elitist, ignorant, and ablelist. There are many more modes for participation than becoming a ballerina. Expecting mastery in yoga is Missing. The. Fucking. Point. So is demanding it of gamePLAY. Throughout this entire argument you've been bagging on casual games, accessible games, story-based games, and just about every game except the impossible one that scratches your itch but is impossible for you to play.

No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time. But that's not enough for you. You have repeatedly voiced "criticism" of contemporary game design that are factually incorrect and grounded in a complete ignorance of the field. And continuing to shift attention from your expressed negative opinions about game design onto something that NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT is blatantly dishonest.

You seem to be very distressed that I don't play videogames in my spare time. Perhaps rather than shouting, you should examine why you feel this way.

No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time. No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time. No one fucking cares about what you do in your spare time.

Cool, we're good then. Go enjoy your games.

Sure, until you make your next post explaining how gaming is REALLY analogous to the statistical analysis of dark matter as visualized through gravitational lensing as translated in esperanto.

Why does it matter so much to you that strangers on the internet play videogames?

If you're going to compare casual games to kindergarten reading, and other games to ballet, surely your logic behind those claims can be challenged.

I'm going to try this in simple sentences.

There are different types of media. Video games are a form of media.

Different people like different forms of media for different reasons.

Personal engagement with media is not a value judgment on the artistic merit of that media.

Various types of media require different skillsets to consume. Some require a very low skillset, others a higher one, but all of these skillsets are acquired, not innate. Again, this isn't a judgment on the value of the art.

(At this point I'd normally include a visual art analogy, but you seem to struggle with analogies so I'll leave it out.)

I am not claiming that your hobbies are not valid.

I am not claiming that your media is not art.

I am not coming to take your videogames away.

My enjoying or not enjoying videogames has zero impact on whether or not you enjoy them.

The fundamental issue at hand here: I support (through dollars, design, AND advocacy) diverse, player-centric, and accessible game designs. That includes learning objects that get five minutes to games that people will live in for hundreds of hours.

I honestly don't care if you play videogames. My goal is to create and advocate for the broadest possible audience. So yes, I disagree that The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar is a good analogy for small and elegant games that do one thing really well. I also disagree that one of the most demanding and elite professions in the performing arts is analogous to learning to play larger videogames. Since the traditional gamer market is saturated, survival of the industry depends on developing new genres and providing instruction within the game for old genres.

I think if a game fails to teach the player its language and mechanics, that's a design failure rather than a player failure. I suspect you wouldn't bicker about the same movements happening within tabletop and pen-and-paper games. For that matter, the classical arts have also taken on the burden of teaching newbies. I've done some of that work as well.

Saying, "I am not claiming ..." doesn't really mean anything compared to the rest of what you've written. You put the burden of arts and game literacy firmly on the audience, and then set a high bar for entry. As designer and audience, I think that's regressive bullshit.

That sounds really cool and good luck with that. I’m not being sarcastic.

This said (and I don’t know at this point how many anons I’ve been arguing with tonight, some arguing in better or worse faith that others), I hope you understand that insisting that anyone who doesn’t enjoy the things you enjoy is a gatekeeping elitist is not helpful either in securing new customers for your product or helping gaming gain respect as an art form. (Both are inevitable, which just makes shouting about it sillier.)

If you will allow me one more highly offensive analogy, on reflection what these threads remind me most about is arguing with religious people. I respect people’s religion but whatever they get out of it emotionally is lost on me. Yet generally when I’ve tried to explain this to believers, they insist 1) I’m being close minded 2) I haven’t found the right faith 3) I haven’t found their faith 4) I’m just not trying hard enough 5) I’m a smug elitist who thinks I’m better than they are. When you’re swimming in your own faith, it’s almost impossible to imagine that someone else couldn’t connect to that experience.

It’s clear that you and the others love your games and it’s important to you. And I sense that for whatever reasons my comments feel threatening, because it’s hard to empathize with someone who doesn’t share your passions. But if there’s any threat to the ascendency of videogames to the predominant form of cultural expression of our age (gamers aren’t a special persecuted identity and it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t play games), it’s not coming from outsiders like me. It’s coming from large commercial interests and no small way from mainstream gaming culture, which frequently makes a piss-poor account of itself in public.

No one in this discussion has given a flying fuck about your media choices. That's been said repeatedly. No one has told you to play games, no one has told you to play the right games, no one has told you to try harder.

I don't care about your views on religion either.

But if you're illiterate in religion, you don't get the privilege of lecturing at me about the levels of commitment my congregation requires.

If you're illiterate in videogames, you don't get the privilege to of lecturing at me about the levels of commitment different games (some designed by me) require.

I'm illiterate in both Catholicism and romance lit, and I have the minimal self-awareness not to lecture about the requirements for Catholicism at Catholics or romance lit at romance writers.

Funny how that works.

If you don’t care, you could, I don’t know. Let it go.

My point is not that I’m ignorant of religion. It’s that religious people assume that I’m ignorant of religion because I don’t share their faith, and it’s too hard to imagine someone who might have a different reaction.

Good luck with your games. I hope you’re on the design end and not the sales end.

Can you, without consulting any sources, describe the organizational structure of Unitarian-Universalist organizations, the organization of volunteer ministries and interest groups, the process of re-certification as a welcoming congregation, and the process of ministerial search? Because those are the things that I deal with as a church member and committee leader.

I don't expect outsiders to know how my church works. I do expect outsiders to refrain from condescending at me about my own commitment of time and skill. I'm ignorant about religion myself, I have very little idea about what goes on in other congregations, and I let members of those congregations talk about their own experiences.

No, but based on the UUs I know, I could probably estimate the time commitment it could take in order for it to be a rewarding experience for me. I would have a harder time conceptualizing around the faith aspect.

Catholicism, which you referenced earlier, is a more interesting case, because I live in a place where Christianity is the dominant religion and Catholicism occupies a place of special privilege (to the point where I'm barred from a third of publicly funded jobs in my field because I was born Jewish and would not convert to another religion even though I'm a non-believer. Also because I'm queer, but that's easier to hide). It is impossible to live in this culture and not come away with a basic grasp of what Catholics do and believe, the range of commitments from "baptized, haven't thought about it since" to "serve in a convent as a nun." So while I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholic theology, anyone who assumes that I'm not a Catholic due to ignorance of the faith would be making a whole whack of incorrect assumptions about me.

You've stated several times that you believe I'm an elitist (despite my repeated assertion that I'm not making judgments about the validity or artistic merit of your games) but I don't get an opinion about playing games because you're a game designer? Okay. You have your credentials, I have mine, and I'm not particularly interested in comparing which are more relevant to the discussion. You sound like you do some interesting stuff and you're clearly passionate about it, so perhaps you should be content with that rather than getting upset that other people have different passions.

Oh, God, you're one of those atheist-splainers as well.

You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to reject opinions that do not demonstrate sufficient understanding of the subject to be informative.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4762 ]

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