Gamer: the ideal conformist?

by James Ransom-Wiley on Jan 10th 2007 11:43AM

The provocative cover story in the latest issue of Utne Reader, an alternative journal that primarily digests works published elsewhere, proposes that video games train us to conform. The article concludes: "don't worry that video games are teaching us to be killers. Worry instead that they're teaching us to salute."

You can read the full argument here; the gist being that to succeed in games we must conform to their worlds (there isn't room for innovation outside of the rules and patterns designed by the developers). The author suggests that experienced gamers are then better equipped to navigate the various laws and institutions created by societies. This might indicate that, on average, gamers tend to be more successful (following predetermined means), but also implies that we don't think outside the box. We simply accept. Follow. And salute. Pshaw!

[Via GameSetWatch]

Source

Tags: Utne Reader, UtneReader

Reader Comments (42)

True. For example, in GTA, if you shoot an old woman and take her money, there are consequences...if you get caught. Just another example of The Man trying to keep us in line.

Yes, Joystiq! We accept your opinion! (salutes)

There is something to it, tho. Beware.

Uhh... No. I'm about as nonconformist as they come, and I've been gaming since 1976.

Try again.

You may have had me, until it was from Utne Reader.

Not to mention games are usually about breaking the law (GTA), living outside boundaires (Prince of Persia, and FF game), or simply rebelling against the government (MGS).

Or take WoW. You can be a complete ahole or a decent person.

And Yes, you do have to conform to SOME standards in life. Not everyone can partake of the mary jane while we preach free everything from our parent's basement. Some of us have to go out into the REAL world.

No, education does that. Teachers don't teach anymore, they just read out of a textbook and present tests that the writers made. They use answer keys for multiple choice tests. Most schools in the US don't really teach kids critical thinking schools, even through high school.

I've written large essays on this topic and I don't care to go into it on a video game blog. Don't be looking for scapegoats, video games aren't the problem.

Yeah, no. Most gamers tend to be pretty nonconformist. At least those that I know. I propose that the author has never actually played a game. Thinking outside the box, and thus expanding said box with accumulated knowledge and wisdom, however applicable in the real world, is huge in video games.

Here's a good article on the subject of behind-the-times education.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html

i think the amount of glitching in halo 2 and Gears can debunk this ridiculous claim.

I hate conforming. I don't wear brand name clothes. I don't jump on stupid fads. I am what I am, most motherfuckers don't give a damn.

(Tell me where I got that line for a cookie.)

Gamers aren't conformist for a key reason - at the end of the day they walk away and play a different game.

Gamers are good at taking a system, understanding it, and mastering it. They'll tweak out the details, do research, and spend hours honing their skills to the point of undisputed mastery.

But at no point do gamers feel tied to that structure.

If you want further evidence, look at MMOs - patches must be rolled out constantly not only to take into account gamers finding advantageous ways of breaking the system, but simply recalibrating the system to account for gamers finding unexpected ways of using the system as it stands.

Gaming is a subversive act!

Well, you could argue that within the bounds of any system, you're learning to conform. Can you read? Well, that's because you learned to conform to the rules of written language. Driving teaches you to conform to a set of rules. Working teaches you to conform to a set of rules.

Virtually any structured experience/hobby/pastime does the exact same thing. The Utne Reader just noticed that a basic factor of human intelligence is the ability to structure your leisure time in a way that allows you to explore a set of rules in a way that tests their boundaries and limits and subsequently master them. New rules equals new experiences equals new fun (or new frustration, depending on how the rules are designed).

Good job! I can't wait until they write this same article about fly fishing. And knitting. And car repair.

Reading the article, only the last paragraph makes dire predictions about conformity.

The rest of it is a well-researched investigation into what benefit the skill of mastering systems has in the real world.

He also quotes Ralph Koster as saying that the goal of a game is to "become boring", which is freaking hilarious - he's like simultaneously incompetent and frustrated!

Apparently the writer hasn't heard of the modding community? Modders don't conform to game worlds, they reshape them as they see fit.

Oh, we all conform to something. It's just a question of what we conform to.

It's actually what makes society function. To some extent, we all have to conform to basic societal norms - don't kill, don't steal, and so on. In fact, it's programmed into our basic instincts - the movie Dead Poets Society illustrates this perfectly during the scene where Keating takes his students and tells three of them to walk in a circle.

Generally, I find that those who complain about conformists aren't complaining about the inherent human desire to conform to something. It's that they complain about what people choose to conform to. It comes down to an old opinion - I wouldn't mind pop culture if it conformed to my tastes.

Its not like gamers have to learn the rules of multiple games therefore expanding their mental capacities and teaching them adapt to new situations and come up with completely different solutions for problems. No way.

"Well, you could argue that within the bounds of any system, you're learning to conform. Can you read? Well, that's because you learned to conform to the rules of written language. Driving teaches you to conform to a set of rules. Working teaches you to conform to a set of rules."

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Our society places way more emphasis on thinking "outside the box" than most other cultures, and what applications have we used that sort of thinking for? Mostly in finding new ways of marketing and new types of ads.

If you look at a place like Japan, you'll see both a major gaming culture and a major conformist culture, but you'll also see a pretty successful economy, extremely low crime rates and a higher "happiness" rating than us (by whatever organization that measures that; I'm sure you've seen those yearly happiness ratings in the news). And it's not as if they can't be innovative regardless; look at the Wii. Maybe our problem is we're not conformist *enough*.

Procedurally generated content has the potential to allow us to be even more free than we are in the real world, to do things we couldn't imagine possible, even more so than we've already experienced within games, within fantasy worlds, and especially within the meatspace.

So I suppose it's also the fault of video games if I say the word's "Under God" especially loud during the pledge at school today.

Or wave a flag, or something.

Damn you, game developers, for making me do stuff I already did. It's ALL. YOUR. FAULT.

A very well-written article. I agree that games can teach skills - such as learning teamwork through WOW. However, I'm not sure that video games are making kids want to "climb the ladder of success". I think that our society is already structured to reward kids who follow the rules (ie go to the "right" schools, score well on tests, etc), and that the popularity of video games reflects this type of thinking. It's a chicken-and-the-egg argument.

Very good point, but the problem isn't that we are becoming slaves, but that games are canned and not fun. I think, and I believe that designers are trying to do this, that the future of games is some sort of added complexity to the process of completing a game. Kind of a Chrono Trigger + Elebits + GTA + a true physics engine for games where there is a end goal, and multiple ways to get there; not just through the storyline, but by manipulating the environment.

Take Grim Fandango, Beyond Good and Evil, or older like King's Quest or Police Quest... possible solutions are there, but you are trapped into what was the programmed solution.

Just like any model or simulation, a good one can only appear to have every solution, but gameers will always come up with their own. Allowing them to follow through with their ideas and implementing a truly robust world in which the games occur is the holy grail of games.

I think you could only say gaming teaches to people to be submissive and conformist if you have never played very many games yourself.

What games taught me was not only to learn how systems work and how to adapt to them, but also the fracture points where the system has funny and usable results, as #9 points out. The same person who found that staying at the very edge of the screen during a boss battle gives guaranteed victory, could/would also be the one to find that being in circumstance XYZ means you never ever gets picked for an IRS audit. This would not be obvious to someone who just 'sees someone mindlessly push buttons over and over'.

#13 also makes a good point. The overarching principle "Thou shalt not conform" only comes into existence in some circles if they dislike the specific thing that is conformed to. If not, no overarching principle. Funny that. A fracture point of a system that encourages us to conform to anything pronounced an "overarching principle for a good society" perhaps?

Not so sure about that....

Give your average gamer 'Oblivion', and the first thing they do is to find the boundaries and see how much they can be stretched- murder, stealing, etc...

Anyway, the general trend for games has to make the premises less and less confining-- sure you learn the rules, but these are just 'rules' like physics and things that are 'realistic'. If anything, games encourage us to question and investigate, since we don't tend to have fear of real-world punishment for our curiosity.

This is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. Honestly, you sully yourself as a publication for having reprinted it.

Actually, the real reason why gamers do not conform, is because we get bored. Most games are inherently extremely limited (seriously, the only exception I can think of is Nethack, but that game has been updated for longer than most, if not all other games), causing people to "buck the trend" to be different, to get more enjoyment. Examples of non-conformity: user mods, non-inherently-programmed game types (example: the many user-made game types from Worms 2), silly class builds. However, it also means that as games grow larger, gamers have less reason to "buck the trend".

Good to hear that Utne is still as pretentious as it was back when I used to read it.

You know those people that go to great lengths to tell you all about how they threw out their TV and only wear clothes out of hemp?

Yeah, that's Utne's readership right there.

I don't know about you, but I can tolerate just so little hippy BS, and with Utne Reader you'd best bring a pitchfork.

That's bullshit. I have two words that debunk this entire claim:

Game Genie.

I think there is some legitimacy there. You need to look at things more critically from a meta-level. Most non-disruptive media are used as an outlet to channel agression and people's problems with the world around them. When disruptive media is made available, it is immediately attacked, chastised, ridiculed, etc ... reinforcing societal norms. This has always been the way of art and music and literature, and now games.

Look at the response to the Columbine game.

However, once you can look at something critically, and how it has subconciously been shaped by the culture it was created in, it loses that power. The fact that people are attacking and immediately dismissing this article without deep thought is a bad sign, I think.

While I haven't read the article (bookmarked 4 later) the post itself is interesting enough to comment.

Based on the post itself, I have to agree.
I work best under pressure and restrictions.
If I know all the circumstances, I can push the limits.
Given a "free" situation, I often find myself lacking direction, I need an open challenge to face and overcome rather than a vague obstacle.

Then again, this isn't neccesarily a bad thing.
Innovative solutions often come out of the most restrictive circumstances. While I mentioned the need for limits, pushing past those limits or fulfilling that which is required of me with minimal effort are the usual goals. Not exactly a terrible outcome either way.

Utne Reader, have you met Will Wright?

Gaming has developed an entire generation of young men who somehow think "pwn" is acceptable to use in conversation.

I'll be happier once that word and its variations go out of style.

Generalizations like this are a waste of time...

1. What is a "gamer"? I mean really.
2. There have always been games. Now they're on a screen.
3. Yes they're very realistic and in depth, and of course, they have absolutely nothing to do with creativity, narration and art.

Don't these kind of articles remind you of how they bashed movie-pictures when they came out? Reeking of no understanding at all.

"Games do not permit innovation," Koster writes. "They present a pattern. Innovating out of a pattern is by definition outside the magic circle. You don't get to change the physics of a game."

Reality is a "magic circle". You can't change the physics in reality if I'm remembering correctly. Surely, you can innovate in reality...

"That isn't to say that there aren't ways to innovate from within the system. Gamers are famous for coming up with creative approaches to the problems a game presents. But devising a new, unexpected strategy to succeed under the existing rules isn't the same thing as proposing new rules, new systems, or new patterns."

This explanation makes no sense either. To someone playing the game, in that moment, the game is the world. So those innovations made in the game ARE the new rules, systems and patterns. Like a new strategy in warcraft for example.

Utne Reader? Who cares what they say? It's crazy leftist tripe!

Did I mention that I'm a proud and true liberal?

#24, I couldn't agree more, I'm the exact same way. It's almost scary how well you just described me, unknowingly of course.

Oh come on. No one's mentioned Missingno?

So if this person thinks that video games produce a subversive user, I wonder what they think of such things as the Game Genie, and hacks available in emulators (save state, etc).

Interesting article, but just because a person knows that to succeed in a game they must follow a set series of actions doesn't mean that they'll apply this to try and succeed in everyday life.

The idea that games work in some way to socialise us forms the basis of a lot of debate, but ignores the fact that people can actually tell the difference between the 'game world' and the real world, and so our behaviour (including how we try and solve problems or strive for any kind of success) changes accordingly.

You would expect that this would come out. The Postmodern Marxist are always looking for reasons why people are not yet the perfect socialist man they envisioned so many years ago. There is no "The Man" or society there is only individuals. People making games that I use my hard earned money to buy. Second if games teach us to conform then why do none of my friends game collections look remotely the same.

If video games teach us to conform why don't evil dictators make games to control their citizens. The only organization that teaches us to conform through coercion and force is the government.

When the US military is using games to train soldiers, you know there has to be some truth in this argument. I agree that games can teach us certain skills and types of thinking.

After all, nobody would debate that chess teaches us to think logically. Why not the same with video games?

Who has not experienced the rat-in-a-maze feeling when playing a first-person shooter, for example? Find the key, open the door, progress to the next room - sound familiar?

However, one thing not covered in the article is that most video games involve solving puzzles that require creative problem-solving - a mental skill that is very non-conformist.

Even chess, with its rigid rules of movement, requires creative-thinking and imagination in order to become a master.

vidGuy, I have no intent to attack you, but the "Time" editorial piece was utterly absurd in advocating such a base level of education for all citizens on the basis of easy access to facts and the stunning reality of global cohabitation.

Gamers are limited to only the predefined rules that are granted within a game? Pshaw I say. Tell me that again after I reflect Ganon's energy beams back at him using my BOTTLE.

Some gamers mite be more likely to conform than other people. But i believe that games force people to think out side the box or conform. An example of people having to think out side the box to express them selves are online shows like red vs blue, the stranger hood and the spartan life. all these things were created through manipulating game play and not conforming like the author suggests gamers do and people that watch these shows aren't conforming either but are attempting to express themselves in their own way.

Gamer: the ideal conformist?

Reader Comments (42)

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