I am a student, a brother, a sometime poet (as we are all poets sometime in our lives), a trash-talking gamer whose volume of words are inversely proportional to his level of skill, an eager reader, an (over)thinker but not an intellectual, a non practicing atheist. I am an aficionado of cold weather and warm blankets, a terrible serve but a good rally with a tennis ball, a thumb for a two month kitten to lick, an enveloping hug in a small bed, and a set of silent words on a yellow blog.
And so, to continue said words, I offer my observations and experience as an online gamer.
Five years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Counterstrike, an old but well known first-person shooter, and competitive gaming, which differs to casual gaming as much as an Ithacan winter differs to a snow flurry. Despite the stereotypes of lazy gamers and anti-social computer users, competitive online players are the sports players of the web: they are driven, dedicated, proud of their community, and absolutely, positively passionate about their game.
Like any established sport, there are rising stars, established powerhouse teams, endless hours spent practicing, and an adoring fanbase. (For anyone who knows anything about the strategy game Starcraft, it’s no surprise to see crowds of girls in
As a whole, e-sports has become a growing phenomenon. In
This was perhaps completely unexpected by Wallace, who described the asynchronous discussion forums and the synchronous chats like IRC that the gaming community uses, but those are merely tools that many organizations, communities, and companies use nowadays. The closest online space would be a cross between a metaworld and interactive video and voice, where players could interact with each other in the game, and in the case of team games, talk and coordinate with each other. I offer the term game space.
2 comments:
I thank you for making your introduction a creative one, Thomas. I was starting to get tired of the "hey guys!" that seemed to begin every other blog.
I think you did a great job explaining the online world of gaming in your post. I personally knew little about it and now find myself much more informed.
I first found it fascincating that people become as absorbed and entranced in the virtual world as gamers often do. After reading your blog however I am able to make more sense of it.
Online games seem to offer an escape from reality that not many other things offer. Spending hours upon hours of time with strangers in some sort of foreign land allows all thoughts of the sometimes monotonous outside world to vanish. It really is a fascinating concept. Each gamer can come from such far away places in the outside world yet upon entering the virtual world they are all in the same place.
One of the interesting things about the way people view online games is the idea of anonymity. People who are unfamiliar with these games probably don't realize what a community online gaming really is.
There is an incredibly developed sub-culture associated with games such as counterstrike. Experienced players form clans with other players, and strongly value their online persona. The clan develops rules for its members to abide by as well as a command structure based on skill level and seniority. Even the community as a whole self-enforces certain social standards. Anyone who has been accused of “camping”, or waiting in one area of a game map for enemies to come to them, understands how serious this self-policing is.
It is interesting to see how the development of a community in the online world mirrors that of a developing community in the real world. It was really interesting to read about how online games are becoming accepted as a new form of sports, that's something I hadn't really heard anything about before.
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