Task 16

Time to talk about something more real lifey, perhaps maybe. Today's all about Gaming Cultures.

It seems that in my generation, each one of us internet-faring types go through a phase of joining a forum and getting really into it. There are plenty of poor, member-saturated busy forums out there, things like GameFAQs and the official forums of most games. However, there are also very much more interesting ones out there. There are forums with a real, true sense of community.

A while back when I was about 14 or 15, when the internet was a very different place, I joined the forums of one of my favourite games, Skies of Arcadia. It wasn't an official thing, rather a third party 'fansite', hosted by Gamespy so it was of quite high quality. Certainly, the game was discussed in its respective forums, but if you strayed into the 'General' boards, the world came to life.

Everybody knew each other, could relate to events that had happened to each other, crack jokes about this and that, engage in some pretty serious debates. It really was a community, it was excellent, always moving ahead with no 'dead days' as what commonly happens in these places. It was here I really became part of game culture.

It's a hard thing to explain to a lot of people, especially since 'video games' causes most to recoil with a feeling of 'Oh that's unimportant'. This is, of course, down to ignorance; people don't consider gaming culture to be of importance because they can't grasp the scale and significance of what it is. Since it exists primarily through the internet (But spills out increasingly into real life these days), if you don't use the net, you're not going to know anything about it. Even if you do use the net, you have to know your games.

What IS gaming culture? I can imagine legions of cynical journalists with designer glasses massing up to pick me apart, because there's probably much more to it than I realize. Essentially, as far as I can explain, it's a whole bunch of people who play a who play videogames, all over the world, meeting together on the internet through chat rooms, forums and of course games. Because many gamers share common interests, jokes are born, people 'nerd out' over things (Such as the "All Your Base" phenomenon) which form the main landmarks of the culture. Game music is widely listened to by gamers, giving us something else to discuss and follow. In fact, Game music has spawned events such as Video Games Live which are very serious events. Yet it's amazing that this (at the moment) internet culture exists with friends and communities without most people ever having met their online friends in real life.

It's possible to draw parallels to this very course. I think it's safe to say we pretty much all get along with each other really well in Game Art Design, and I think this is a lot down to game culture. Since we've all been a part of it, we share that common interest, we have our own opinions and favourite games, hence we can share knowledge and refer to jokes and events that most other people won't know about. (Also everyone's a nice person which also helps)

I'm glad to be in this community, it's interesting, relevant to me and is growing each day. I only hope it doesn't become shallow and mainstream, and keeps its unique personality.