The Game Anthropologist - Great Moments in Video Game Failure: Fox News vs. NEA

[ShaolinDeadlyGamers]

The guy they brought on only talks about money during a hard economy. If schools would buy a "Game" based on the dissection of worms, cats, frogs, and everything else the school wastes money on they would save thousands of dollars a year for each school that is federally funded to purchase those objects. Not only would the student learn more by being able to see further then their eyes allow but you're not handing a prepubescent student a razor sharp blade and you are saving the states money.

[getbuttkik]

wow that guy just sounds like a stupid stubborn asshole. And guess what? Only assholes make it in this world.

[ResidentEvilSpore]

is the bald guy high?

[HBninjar]

this video was interesting until the end when it said "tax cuts to the rich" Keep playing video games and STFU about politics bro. Thanks.

[blee427]

@HBninjar Hmmm. No. I'm going to keep making videos about what I want to "bro" so sorry.

Besides, the whole point was the guy was brought on there to make a cheap shot at the president and a secondary shot at video games.

[BuddytheRat]

@HBninjar You're a dumbass, sorry.

[Gigamyt3]

I love how Neal Asbury made an *ahem* ASSbury of himself when he missed the point of the debate at hand and just used it to attack Obama, so he could kiss Faux News ass in order for him to get more views for his half assed radio show from right wing liberal nutcases who blame Obama for their small genital sizes.

[laughingfurry]

Wow, the balding numbskull completely misses the point.

[chafenhimer]

serious response though, that guy obviously isn't an expert on games, or even art in general. he's just using the issue as an excuse to get on his soapbox and complain about government spending (though somehow i doubt he complained about it when bush was president)

on the other hand it's fox news *audience laughter*

[Retardretroguy]

I think the ping pong analogy is pretty valid. Ping Pong, basketball, poker or monopoly etc. are games like video games.

[blee427]

@Retardretroguy I disagree. Ping pong is a sport. At the most, it could be described as a craft.

Video games span a wide range of spectrums from simple games to tests of endurance to artistic expression. What this gentleman was presenting was a dismissive tone towards an entire medium, just to take a cheap shot at an administration he doesn't like.

[Retardretroguy]

@blee427 The way you described video games just prooves the point that they are games. I think it's quite silly how some gamers think games become totally different things when they're played with some sort of computer. They still are games just like sports, cards, etc. I think it's a good point why video games should get special treatment. What wasn't mentioned was why video games should be different from any other business.

[blee427]

@Retardretroguy Actually I'm not in the camp - necessarily - in saying that video games are art. But they are not just games. The most apt comparison would be that of movies. Games can equal the might of movies in terms of story telling, atmosphere, writing, and the like. People just can't dismiss them as "just movie", try as they might at times.

It seems that you are missing the point of what makes up a medium such as games. There's much more to them than just mild amusement.

[Retardretroguy]

@blee427 I'm not missing that point, and I don't think it's relevant point at all. It's that games are games, no matter if they are party -, computer -, board -, card games or sports.

Video games aren't like movies. Usually that comparison comes from the fact that a lot of them use movie medium to tell the story that sets the game. The game play itself is rarely if ever part of storytelling (some RPG:s almost go there, but are at best comparable to interactive novels).

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Actually their are many games that use video game mechanics to express a story. Half-Life is sent entirely in the first person, and yet it remains to be considered having a great story. Adventure games like Grim Fandango also express storytelling through interaction. Silent Hill and other survival horror games use game play elements to invoke fear on players. Hell, Missile Command even had storytelling through game mechanics. There's a bunch of them.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

And to top if off, there are shit loads of Indie Games (which, by the way, is where all this funding is going to) that utilize story through game play, they're just not recognized. Video games are still expanding. We've only touch the surface of what video games can do to tell a story, but you know what? So did movies. Movies began as just entertainment, but blossomed into it's own art form. Video games just need time to expand, just as other forms of art needed.

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 The movie analogy never works for several reasons. First of movies started out as science, turned into art that later turned into entertainment. Art first, entertainment last. Secondly movies are combination of several older art forms, like literature, photography and theatre, where as video games are games, just like any other type of games, in new format. Video games really don't bring nothing new to games.

[Retardretroguy]

@Retardretroguy Games have been decorated in different ways for millenia and storytelling has been used to enhance the gaming experience, and even successfully embedded to the gameplay itself for centuries. Just because games can be played with multigame machines and cost a lot to make, doesn't change the fact that only thing new in it is technology.

[blee427]

@Retardretroguy True. But those same elements implemented by movies can also be implemented by video games as well. It might not be for every game, but there is definitely a dynamic there.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Um, I gonna have to call bullshit on the whole, films were recognized as art before they became entertainment. Film was thought of as entertainment before it was considered art. Also, video games started out as science, too. The first video games were missile simulators made around 1947. Games also use older forms of art as well, such as animation, music, literature, etc. Hell, nowadays most game developers use actors for motion-capture in game animation.

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 CAll what you will, but you're simple wrong. First of all entertainment and art weren't really separated until much later. Secondly "art films" were done when films were way too short to entertain anyone. Thirdly, it doesn't matter how it was, because Motion picture was completely new thing, and video games are just games in with tech.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Well I'm sorry if I offended you. I was just trying to point out that movies may have been artistic at first but artists refused to consider them art until much later, similar to video games.

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 It's not offending, and in fact I kinda see your point. Even there still lies a big difference, since back in the days on early cinema art meant mainly classical arts, and considering something new was always a big deal. Video gamess on the other hand had their rise after Andy Warhol's time, and at this modern age a lot of crap gets automatically called art. Video game art debate basically rose from apologies for them (as seen in the video BTW).

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Also, I can see where you are coming from, and I respect your opinion, for you make some valid arguments, but I have to disagree. I don't think video games are just games with new fancy tech, that would be like saying films are the same as plays, just with new fancy tech, regardless of the unique art techniques it uses that simply can't be done in plays.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Video Games can create immersive worlds, that no board or card game can do. I don't know of any board or card game with three-dimensional characters and are heavily story-based. A game can use a story to enhance it's experience, but video games can use an experience to better tell a story. Some games have story-telling, that just wouldn't work in a non-interactive medium, because they have such big, detailed worlds.

That's what makes video games so unique.

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 Can't argue with that. However that uniqueness really isn't anything more that lack restrictions computer give the creators. Most types of video games (excluding basically only action games) are varioations of older forms of games. The rest are in same class with child's play (not referring to childishness, but type of playing - English doesn't seem to make difference between playing poker and building legos. Silly language).

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Well, most movies nowadays are made mostly with computers, sadly, and even back then, directors still had restrictions due to the technology of the time. Also, I'm not sure what variation FPS, platform, and adventure games are of any older game. Unless that's what you're referring to when you mean action games. If you are, than that would mean most games are action games and therefore not really any variation of older games, just like you said.

Lol.

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 Well save adventure games (which have their weird predecessors), that's what I meant with action games - games centered around action. But that's where the child's play part games in.

I'll call it quits now, since I think everything relevant has been said and I predict repetetion.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Yeah, I agree.

Also, it's nice for once to have a debate with someone on YouTube who actually has valid arguments. :)

[Retardretroguy]

@rockinsparzy105 I'm no fan of bitching either, so ditto

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Anyways, I think video games have the ability to move a person's emotions, or convey an idea, question, or moral, similar to a lot of art, and can be appreciated in the same way as art. I mean, they certainly have that effect on me. A lot of people have some games that have touched their life one way or another, whether it's Portal, EarthBound, Mother 3, Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Grim Fandango, Half-Life 2, Marathon, Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill, and etc.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Regardless, a lot of game designers (especially indie game designers, who are the people getting this grant), put a lot of passion into making their games. The only reason a lot of games are generic and cash ins, is because their publishers and producers have to cut content out so they can make sure a game sells, since they are so expensive to make. Again, similar to the movie industry.

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

I think it's rather unfair to consider people who put so much passion and love into their art, and not call them artists. A true artist sacrifices for their art, and their are many game designers who do so. I think promoting funding for more artistic games, will motivate game companies to make more "life-touching" games like the ones I mentioned, and further push the boundaries of what this medium can do.

[Retardretroguy]

@blee427 Also board games had art (images and stories) in them, but it didn't make them anything like paintings or literature. Chess in many cases had small sculptures in it, but it made it nothing like sculpting. Don't let hacks who ruin good games with too long NP parts divert you; the decor doesn't make the game, game play does.

So I think the question is pretty valid - why would one form of games be supported when others aren't (though I'd be surprised if Ping Porn already isn't)

[blee427]

@Retardretroguy Art is subjective, no matter how you put it. So the argument is irrelevant. 

[Retardretroguy]

@blee427 It's not irrelevant, because the argument had nothing to do with it. If anything that makes video games more like other types of games. It just proves my point

[rockinsparzy105]

@Retardretroguy

Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others."

By this definition, video games are considered art. Why? Because they require imagination to create. They are virtual worlds that we experience, and a lot of games can mess with our emotions, which is what sets it aside from other games like sports and card games.

[Se7enBeatleofDoom]

Ping Pong is a Olympic Event! Fox news you fail at attacking video games and Olympic sports yet again! 

[yutzwagon2]

God damn it Fox news... Just stop.

[blee427]

@yutzwagon2 I wish, but honestly their credibility is zilch. 

[chafenhimer]

fox news is the authority on video games because all of their anchors and people working there aren't 80 years old and have actually played games besides pac-man *audience laughter*

[blee427]

@chafenhimer I always thought Fox News should provide a laugh track. 

[CrazyCheeseMagee]

OMG! GIVING VIDYA GAIMZ FUNDEEN AZ ART IZ SOSHULIZM!

(Going through the mind of that right-wing talk show host.)

You know, from what Fox News says about Socialism, I guess that makes me and millions of other Americans socialists.

Hopefully, Fox Propaganda and the Teabagger/Birther Movement will die down like the Know Nothings and the KKK.

I do wonder how many people have killed in the name of Fox News, Limbaugh and Glen Beck.

There was an episode of Law and Order based on that.

[ThisIsEDX]

@CrazyCheeseMagee I cannot understand why that right-wing alarmist has any credibility. He does the whole patriotic schtick, but this is a man who called 911 victims "a bunch of whiners". It shows that people who watch fox religiously don't give a damn about the credibility or integrity of those who they lend their eyes and ears to, as long as they drone out the repeating mantra of how Obama is the antichrist, or a marxist, or a cyborg from the future, because it's what they want to hear.

[CrazyCheeseMagee]

@ThisIsEDX I might like Obama better if he was a bit of a socialist, though from my experiences with socialists, a lot of them I've met are too caught up in petty differences between their ideologies to form a broad coalition with each other and the progressives and social democrats they seem to hate so much to exact much change.

To me, Obama's a naive coward who didn't realize how our political system is rigged against serious change. Though it also disadvantages the crazy right too luckily.

[blee427]

@CrazyCheeseMagee The problem with Obama is that he's too much of a pragmatist at a time when radical change is needed. Hopefully he changes his tune as time goes by.

[blee427]

@ThisIsEDX Fox News is converting anyone. They preach to their own. It's still annoying though.

[blee427]

@CrazyCheeseMagee It's already dying down. Because when you bitch and complain to get in power and then find yourself in power, you actually have to do things; of which they are NOT doing.

They're still bitching and whining and the people will tire of it.

[HBninjar]

cry moar

[heymrk]

I say rip off every piece of content Newscorp has. If they sue, argue in court that they're a propaganda machine, and propaganda is public domain.

[blee427]

@heymrk Ha, I could probably make a case for that.

[dekuscrubbyfan888]

@blee427 Doesn't your intro eerily resemble the Doug Walker's Bum Review intro?

[blee427]

@dekuscrubbyfan888 Not to me. I'm emulating Masterpiece Theatre, which is probably what he does too.

[dekuscrubbyfan888]

@blee427 Do you have any more of these "Great Moments in Video Game Failure"?

[blee427]

@dekuscrubbyfan888 I do. Check my channel and see.

[bigglou]

Another reason I'm happy to no longer have cable to listen to this mess.

[blee427]

@bigglou Yes, be glad bigglou... be glad...

[LarryBundyJr]

Have you ever seen the UK Alan Tischmarsh debate about how evil video games are? Well worth checking out for a laugh.

[AtticusMJ]

@LarryBundyJr I take it you mean the "'Video Games Promote Racism, Sexism and Hatred' - The Alan Titchmarsh Show " video? I recall that being big topic on youtube long time ago Maybe Idea for New Ep of game fail? xD

[blee427]

@LarryBundyJr I just finished the video. That guy is a buffoon. I hate to say it, but it is comforting to know that there are idiots all over the world who chime in on this subject.

[LarryBundyJr]

@blee427 Oh, yeah. These anti-technology Luddites exsist the world over!

Any chance of doing it in a future GMIVF? :D

[blee427]

@LarryBundyJr I hate Luddites (heh heh)

I might have to give this guy a whirl. It'll probably be a 3 parter at least. 

[LarryBundyJr]

@blee427 lol, really? :D

[blee427]

If anyone can guess the music used in this video, I might give you something.

[xBlueBlastxX]

@blee427

Well I know the music used at the end is the title them from Bionic Commando Rearmed 2.

But during the rest I don't really know.

But this guy is so bad it's funny. (Not you the bald guy)

[Stehmdawg]

@blee427 I believe it's Nobuo Uematsu's "On That Day, 5 Years Ago" from Final Fantasy VII but in piano version.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg Ehhhh... technically you're right.

[Stehmdawg]

@blee427 Then it's "Dear to the Heart". I chose "OTD, 5YA" because it's slower.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg Technically it's the overture from Advent Children, which I believe is a modified version of "On That Day, 5 Years Ago."

You should try to guess the others too.

[italianbubble]

Great Video, the background music sounding like a ringtone was a little annoying but other then that, Great Job!

[blee427]

@italianbubble Aww. I like that music.

[Stehmdawg]

I'll have a response video up by tomorrow.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg What will you be responding to if I may ask?

[Stehmdawg]

@blee427 Frankly this whole "The government shouldn't fund video games." argument and using Modern Warfare 2 as an example. The bald gentleman says he doesn't want his tax dollars going there, but he didn't do his homework (which means Fox didn't do their homework either). I'm not going to argue that I'm for it (which I am), I'm just going to expose the lack of knowledge on the subject the opposing parties have.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg I was going to do a two-part episode on this, but I thought it would be too fine a point on it. Though I look forward to what you're going to do with the subject matter.

[Stehmdawg]

@blee427 Seeing as how I keep popping into my microphone, I'll just put it here: They said that they don't want their tax dollars going to video games (with an emphasis on Call of Duty games), but their tax dollars already have funded a CoD-esque video game. It's called America's Army, and it's available for free on Steam. How dare they fund art right? America's Army can also be brought up in the, "Does violence in games make people violent?" argument, 'cause it exists to make people violent.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg That's true. America's Army was funded by the Dept. of Defense, and thus, the American people's tax dollars. It just shows no so much hypocrisy on their part, but where their priorities lie in terms of government funding.

[CrazyCheeseMagee]

@blee427 They think it's Socialism unless we're using government power for killing brown people overseas, preventing gays and nonwhites and women from having rights, and giving corporations tax breaks and subsidies that they don't need.

Hopefully, the American People will rise up and demand a government not made up of corporate-loving pigs.

[AtticusMJ]

So.....this guy have a book we can rate down? xD

[blee427]

@AtticusMJ Not that I know of. Just a hack who didn't have any business being in a debate such as this.

[AtticusMJ]

@blee427 It wont let me post the link but on amazon he has a book called "Conscientious Equity: An American Entrepreneur's Solutions to the World's Greatest Problems" ;D

[blee427]

@AtticusMJ Well I think think this case is a little different than the last one. Though he was basically judging video games in the same context,

But at the same time he compared art and ping pong. So...

[AtticusMJ]

@blee427 True it was alot more... eye for eye in last one due she shamelessly made claims on something she never played <,<

He seems have large back log of "I hate taxes I hate the Government"

[Stehmdawg]

Nice Reviewtopia logo there.

[blee427]

@Stehmdawg Thank Hybrid Rain. He did a good job with it.

[AniMerrill]

Yeah, I actually wrote a commentary about this on my blog the other day. I don't completely agree with the NEA, but I do realize this is a big step for video games. Fox is just angry because they have to take the rightest-wing stance and whine about wasted money. However, if they wanted to accomplish this, they should have brought up past things the NEA has endorsed... but no, video games. Because they're "scary".

[blee427]

@AniMerrill I didn't see it. You should link me to it.

Basically they brought on only one qualified person to discuss this. The other person was clearly a right-wing provocateur who's goal is to say "gov't bad, Obama bad, games irrelevant." That's the crux of what is wrong with this overall segment. And the fact that the Fox News chyron kept shifting with derogatory terms for the overall debate.

Not very good journalistic acumen, but it is Fox News after all.

[AniMerrill]

@blee427 I'll message the link to you, it won't lemme post it.

And yeah, its kind of to be expected. That's what 99.9% of all "Fair and Balanced" segments are like on Fox News. They don't care about balance, they just wanna engineer their opinion on air.

[blee427]

@Dxstroia It tends to be with them.

[g1TheIncredibleJeff]

Great view on really a pointless debate, Brian. The Way I look at it, it's true like Music, Literature & Film. Games Should Be considered Art, But NOT Every Game known to Man. For Example, Okami would be a perfect example due to the fact that it's art style is inspired by the Art of Feudal Japan. While the Modern Warefare franchise on the other hand (though i'm a fan, not a diehard), Should be based on mindless fun. Which ironically could be said of some Movies.

[blee427]

@g1TheIncredibleJeff The point is that the NEA is considering small developers and games would be on a strict criteria of story telling and other factors. Not the AAA titles or old school games that Fox News portrayed in this piece.

Basically they didn't read the report or the article that talked about it.

[michaelvaneckartiest]

Epic!! 

[blee427]

@michaelvaneckartiest Thank you.