Culture: the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Within many cultures there are arbitrary groups, or rather groups whose actions are subject to individual will, judgment or preference, based solely upon an individual's opinion or discretion. One such arbitrary group is 'gamers' and the 'game culture'.
Two cultures in my life that I've devoted healthy portions of my life within are gaming and Electronic Dance Music (EDM). One has completely eroded into a bland mix of mass-produced material trend and regurgitated Billboard Top 40 'artists' - the other... may at times be in grave danger of falling into the same pattern, but its cultural members are a bit more resistant, vocally skeptical, and with fast-paced ambition (probably because there are far less drugs in gaming than was in the formative to golden years of EDM). And, while I realize in truth no one, including myself, can be a 'gamer 'till death' due to cultural devolution and dwindling resolve when things turn in directions we’re not fond of, though we do love the idea of it. We're passionate about games and almost everything about them. Our culture contains people from all walks of life; people who got their start on the Nintendo GameCube to people that dumped quarters into Pac-Man machines. I came from the starting point of the Atari 2600 around the age of 3 in 1980; it was my fathers system, but I used it the most. My favorite games in those days were Berzerk and Cosmic Ark on the Atari 2600, Starglider and Rouge on the Atari 520ST, Pole Position on the Amiga and Spy Hunter on the Commodore 64. When Nintendo put the NES on the market I discovered a more evolved style of gaming. Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt quickly evolved into titles like Iron Tank and Metal Gear, then into Micro Machines and Dragon Warrior, and so on and so forth; games evolved to be innovative and in creative play styles.
It was this era that gaming saw what I feel was the greatest evolutionary gains, the ‘golden age’ if you will, but not from Nintendo. The PC market was still very much on the forefront and DOS was where it was at: Wing Commander, Crusader: No Remorse, Rise of the Triad, Day of the Tentacle, Bioforge, and Phantasmagoria are just a few titles which linger in the back my mind as definitive ‘hardcore’ gaming titles of that era. Developers were using a more robust platform to create more robust games and until the past 3-5 years, the PC caliber of gaming was unmatched every way (and it’s still hard to hold a candle to it standing next to a console). PC’s had better graphics, faster processing, tighter usability, but retails stores weren’t keen on taking them back due to piracy (not that one wasn’t able to pirate the hell out of any generation Xbox game), so it sort of stifled the practicality of owning PC software and in a way helped promote piracy.
In my earlier years I was optimistic and hopeful, even enthusiastic about the coming years of gaming. Watching the growth and evolution of great experiences such as Stryder, Phantasy Star, Tecmo Bowl, U.N. Squadron, etc., I used to rally against restrictive video game legislation and would spend weeks researching and making appeal in written letter to members of Congress (sometimes getting positive response, for what little it’s actually worth). There was a profound level of potential within both the industry and the culture but, as time passed I have become skeptical and at times loathsome towards the things that have transpired. I find that now I often sit and feel that I would rather watch it burn or maybe even light the match, that for the most part it’s all been mishandled; not by anyone, but everyone. And, as I sat for weeks trying to write this essay, I found myself falling back to the most basic of questions: why? Why have I lost hope?
The short answer is that over the past 28 years I’ve watched ideas and proposals become reality and the cultural aspects that were once full of originality shift to being ‘out of touch’ and seemed self-serving; generally vapid. I desperately tried to see through the blinding assumptions of cultural ideology and game politics, including my own and still find myself questioning it all.
The long answer to the question is what follows in that as a culture we are:
