Here's something that'll shock a lot of people my age - I rarely play video games.
It seems weird because I seem to fit the typical demographic of an avid gamer - but I'm not. Although I have played a few games I have never got fully hooked on them, therefore never completed an entire game - except The Simpsons: Road Rage. I was an artist who drew a lot, so I never really needed the electronic stimulation to keep me occupied between homework assignments. I had TV for that.
It's easy to think of me like an intellectual in the 1950s-60s who regularly boosted that he never watched television. But that is purely wrong. As a piece of story-telling technology - I like them.
I get why people play them. People need something to do to pass the time. People need escapism, especially people who don't have the patience to read traditional prose fiction and the imagination to picture what the author is saying. People need stress relief and squeezy balls and bubble-wrap can only go so far. A similar argument could have been made about TV back in the 50s and 60s.
Video games are an interesting story-telling medium, considering what they involve. They require interactivity and instruction from the player to move the plot forward. But what makes it more interesting is that the creators can make the story go multiple ways depending on the actions and decisions of the player. A video game can be as challenging a read as Ulysses. But even the idea of making a game you play an exercise of storytelling can be made a choice. The player can just choose to explore the creator's fantasy world - and cause havoc.
I'm in the cause havoc lot, judging my past history with GTA.
Much of my education about them was during my days studying multimedia creation (i.e. making games) at college and computer animation (a job highly linked with video games) at University. So I got a kind of insider's look under the hood of them (and learned how computers work in accurate detail).
With video games been prevalent in the 21st century (and my insider knowledge), video games do feature a bit in my work... especially Pokémon (for some reason).
Here's a list of posts linked to the subject of video games.
The Pokémon 20th anniversary special BIG act of Cultural Vandalism (so big its worth highlighting)
PETA vs Pokémon?
Advertising the Personal Computer
Pokemon Snowmen
A small survey I made about Nintendo (you can take part in it on your left)
The Ash Connection by I am Lu (book cover design)
A PowerPoint for school: Pokémon by Joshua Wallace (With some assistance from Uncle Gordon)
The Big Alphabet Comic Draw of 2015
A Cultural Vandal's Favourite Things
Redo of Nintendo Survey (or click here)
The Knife is Getting Blunt Now Gamers (My final answer to the question "Do video games cause violence?")
Inktober 2015 - Pokehumans
Virtual Reality Comes of Age
