From: stxtnt@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov (Nigel Tzeng)
Subject: Re: Dumb Moves By Game Companies
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, USA
	<1992Dec31.100135.24184@samba.oit.unc.edu> <18575@borg.cs.unc.edu>
	<24528@alice.att.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 22:30:16 GMT

In article <24528@alice.att.com> jj@alice.att.com (J. Johnston) writes:

>(Bill Oliver) writes:
>>(Ricardo Sedan) writes:
>>
>>>of the american mind than of MB per se. MB is selling what the typical
>>>mass market will buy; unfortunately, the unsophisticated mind of the
>>>average american can entertain itself best on the likes of home alone 2,

>>What sophomoric elitist crap this is.

>Perhaps. What do you call what follows?

Yes.

[MB games used in social situations deleted]

>And this is where you have an important point. SIMPLE games
>have a social use quite divorced from real "gaming".

>Real gamers, on the other hand, are few and far between.

Real Gamers?  Gee and what might the definition of real gamer be?
Someone who plays some narrow subset of games you approve of?

[people play UNO for fun not because they are mindless Americans deleted :)]

[Parlor games doesn't imply bo brains deleted]

>While playing "parlor games" is not at all incompatable with having
>an active mental life, it doesn't support the premise that most
>people have an active mental life.   Given that most "cerebral"
>game companies are under constant economic pressure, that most
>"high normals" I know of can't read hierarchical rules, and 
>"normals" consider them beyond attepting, proves, I think, that
>most US Citizens (wny speak for the whole continents?) do NOT
>appreciate mental acitivity, and, perhaps because of our
>school systems who teach that "thinking is work", resent having
>to apply any.

Maybe "cerebral" game companies are producing products that aren't
"cerebral" but simply convoluted...chess and go have damn few rules
but are considered by most as far more "cerebral" than say ASL or SFB
that has volume after volume of rules.

Simply because mainstream America doesn't appreciate the types of
games you feel are "cerebral" doesn't support any of your premises
either.  That some people cannot or probably more accurately will not
spend the time to learn complex rules for pleasure proves nothing
other than they don't like wasting their free hours working though
poorly written convolutions from some game company for "fun".

Maybe these "normals" have a point eh?

>What I find odd about good gamers is that they come from all walks
>of life, not from "professional" or "advanced mental" sorts of
>occupations.  Any number (one of the best FRP'ers and puzzle-solvers
>I've met, for instance is terminally dyslexic) are from occupations
>that might be considered mentally marginal, but who show their
>ability to think quickly, carefully, and correctly, while making
>good strategic and tactical judgements on the fly, every time they
>play a war game.

Everyone has a talent somewhere...it's nice that he or she can game well.

>I think thte fact that such people are so often in marginal employment
>positions proves a point related to the poster's original point,
>namely the point that the ability to think is NOT appreciated,
>and that most people do not WANT to think.  

You know...some of the best PD programmers aren't programmers by
trade.  Why?  Because like a lot of other programmers I know I have
zero motivation to go home and sit in front of my computer and expend
the mental energy to write programs when I've just spent 8 hours doing
it at work.

Does the fact that so many good, even brilliant PD products come from
non-programmers imply that programmers are not appreciated or inferior
in some way to non-professional programmers?  No...I don't quite think
that follows.  Likewise the fact that some brilliant gamers are
non-professional and in marginal employment does not imply that
society does not appreciate thinking or that professionals are in some
way less "cerebral".

Perhaps American society rewards productive brilliance over gaming
brilliance.  I'll worry more when we run out of scientists, engineers,
generals, businessmen or even politicians and laywers than when we run out
of brilliant gamers.

>This is unfortunate.  While it does not justify an attack on
>entertaining games, the attack on the thinking ability of the
>US public is quite justified, and more so now than for
>many years past.

Perhaps...but attacking something is trivial...no thinking required.
The American public may not be as bright as you might like but you
certainly have not shown that thinking ability (wrt gaming) is of
benefit to society (more than any other hobby) or serves as a useful
indication of general intelligence.

Perhaps all the truly "thinking" folks have decided use that "thinking
ability" in the "real world" solving real problems as opposed to
solving fantasy problems in a fantasy world.  Certainly moving
cardboard counters around a board is a ton less difficult than moving
real troops across a battlefield.

Now that's an elitist statement for you.

Nigel Tzeng

>-- 
>Copyright alice!jj 1992, 

Well...I hacked out portions of the text including the rest of the
copyright to save bandwidth...which I am promptly wasting on this
line...
--
Nigel Tzeng
.sig under construction