My 80th level Ranger will pwn you, n00b!

My experience with the Irgo2 Unconference got off to a rocky start, but I managed to shake of my frustrations and enjoy the workshop: Are video games the ultimate training camps for resistance?

The panel chair Christine introduced a slide from the top rated games of 2010, many of which had themes of resistance along with the idea that video games help increase children’s cognitive, problem solving, and special orienting skills. She also introduced the US Armies recruitment and training video game America’s Army. which has been freely distributed to teenagers in malls and has had some accusations of the morally and ethically ambiguous  practice of placing real soldiers in the game world to converse with the young players. 

America's Army 3 (Youtube)

The next panel member Sarah, who is a regular player of the game Lord of the Rings Online  enjoys the Player vs. Player (PvP) aspect of the game.The experience for her is aesthetic, as well as competitive, and she finds a sense of community with the other players with which she interacts.

The Last panelist Ben Phear discussed how many gamers hack their consoles and games to allow them greater freedoms. Ben commented that hacking was in essence resisting the control of the large companies, who monopolize and dictate what can and can not be done with a game, or console.

PVP Fail? (Very De-motivational)

In my opinion a rather vital part of the topic of the workshop seemed to be underplayed: the aspect of video games as a training camp for resistance.  While it was shown that video games can and are being used as training grounds; otherwise the US Army would not have invested in the video game franchise of America’s Army, I would suggest that this is a tool for conforming to, rather than resistance to control!

So do games actually train us?  Large companies (Fedex, Microsoft) etc. require team members to play games like WoW to build teamwork, and bviously, the US Army feels this is a valuable exercise as they have put a percentage of their budget into America’s Army, and using it as a training tool. However, games are imposing forms of control of their own, players typically sign a ToS agreement (for example WoW), which will include an acceptable behavior code, not to dissimilar to societies.  These ToS agreements have preprocessing for violating them, which again making resistance.... um... futile.

Resistance is futile (lolcats)

The effect of violent video games on youth has long been debated but in the aftermath of the Columbine high school massacre the media was fast to blame violent video games for contributing to Harris and Klebold’s psychological issues. Lt Col. (Ret) David Grossman co-authored a book called Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill : A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence in which the author comments that violent media (including games) are exposing out children (some as young as 10 or 11) to “training” in violent or criminal acts. It is interesting to note that in the early 1980’s roleplaying games like Dungeon and Dragons were blamed for the same things, as were comics in the 1930’s (and this produced the ultra restrictive Comics code). 

A danger to the very fabric of society? (Roleplayers at Gen Con)

During the group discussion, it was mentioned that games like the Grand theft Auto series encourage rebellion against social norms (viz. stealing cars). I would debate that however as modern media has portrayed the “bad boy” and "anti-hero", in a positive light. So are we really resisting society, if many of the characters we see positively portrayed in our media, are the antithesis of what society claims to aspire to?

Heroes don't Kill? (X-men #132 Marvel Comics )

I  suggest that, as with violence, video games are only a training ground for resistance if a person has a predisposition to wanting to resist. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I feel I’m living proof of this….

My Age of Conan Ranger Enech

"Random freak "   

   (Dunedin (Feb 2003))

......Ummm, perhaps not!