The Gaming Room

Nerd conventions, we need to have a talk.

As the culture of geeky-ness expands, fan-themed conventions are doing their best to grow with the times. What once was a comic book only venue may now host content for anime, gaming, cosplay, tabletop, LARP, and other nerdy content. All to attract more people to their event. And that's a good thing! The nerd cultures should mingle and expand their horizons by communicating with those on the other end of the fray. It brings people together and allows us to enjoy our fandoms without fear of retaliation from the outside world.

But one of the areas that I see fall flat year after year is the gaming room. You know them by now. Loads of conventions carry them. They're usually tucked away in a small corner, or lingering around on the tallest floor that a hotel has available, in the tiniest of spots. The amount of gaming content for consoles is always thread-bear. There might be 12-20 games available and 10 consoles in the room. There is always Smash Bros and Street Fighter. The rest is a concoction of dance games and, if you are lucky, Rock Band or Guitar Hero. There are few stations. More often then not there are more tables then there are consoles and chairs. This has been happening for years, decades even since I began attending conventions (anime, comic, etc.). Even gaming-centric conventions that offer free-play areas for consoles, or open arcades and tabletop, they tend to shuffle them to the smallest areas and rarely promote the content. When they do promote, it's always over-the-top compared to the products that are showcased.

When gaming tournaments are involved, unless it's a top-tier gaming convention, it's usually volunteer staff members handling the events. And in many cases, they don't know what they are doing. That's not a slight on them as volunteers. The gaming world can be tricky to maneuver when you have to handle tournaments. You need people who understand how the process works, from set-up to the rules to what happens if there's a disqualification. Few do. Those that know the process are being paid to handle tournaments - they don't offer their services to conventions for badge compensation (which doesn't cover food, hotel stay, or travel; let alone a check to cover the bills).

Fan conventions don't give the proper care to their gaming content. This was very apparent to me over the weekend when I saw the "arcade" room at an event I attended. It was kind of sad. I only remember seeing 8-10 console stations and a load of empty tables. It was a lot of Smash and one Rock Band. That's it. The games available were Smash, Smash, and Smash. I understand that Smash Bros. is a popular game for multiplayer but there are other games. The room was bare. The staff seemed less then impressed. Some of the consoles were dusty and worn. There was a thick layer of dust on a PS4 - it was disgusting. One system was running updates, making it unusable.

And yet we accept these adequate conditions. They have become part of the norm, and it's made the gaming sector at cons feel so lifeless. We're seeing fewer people sign up for tournaments, prize pools are dwindling, and donations are dropping.

Fan conventions. If you want the gaming crowd to return, you have to step up your game - pun intended.

Listen to the community. Ask them what THEY want and try to provide it. Get gamers on the gaming room staff so they can help the area grow. Don't cheap out and only accept donations. Invest in the gaming room. Buy systems and controllers that work. Keep them clean and up to date. Engage gamers by getting them involved in the process. Gamers are a big part of the fan community now, and giving them sub-par content will only push them further away.

The Attraction of Video Games

What makes video games so appealing?

Before you click away from this blog post, take a moment and think about why you play video games. Is it for the action? The adventure? Being involved in a different reality? Do you like the fantasy element of games? Do you enjoy the mental break from you day? Or is it the mental stress from puzzles and platformers that keeps you going?

For a seemingly simple question, there are a multitude of reasons on why video games appeal to us. I don't always get personal on this blog, but today I want to take a break from reality and talk about what appeals to me about video games.

I fully admit that I'm a TV and movie junkie. I have 3 degrees in film. I also love to read - novels and short stories, and prefer fiction and sci-fi over autobiographies. Movies like 'Star Wars,' 'Indiana Jones,' and 'Blade Runner' drew me in. Not because of Harrison Ford. I didn't like Han Solo much when I was growing up (I can hear the anguished screams of fangirls). But seeing such fantastical stories told on film - I was hooked from the start.

For me, video games were a natural progression of my curiosity with storytelling. The joke in the family is that my brother and I popped out of the womb with a controller in our hands. We've always had a console in our home, starting with the Atari 2600. We were born in the mid-80's and we grew up in the 90's, when everyone was figuring out how to incorporate technology into our homes. Our Atari was used mostly for Pong and Pitfall. Entertainment was the initial goal with video games, much like film and television were. The Nintendo Entertainment System was our first glimpse at games with stories. They were simple stories, like saving a princess held in a castle...somewhere. But they were stories that took on their own life beyond what a movie could offer. Instead of being a passive viewer, you were now an active participant.

Final Fantasy IV is what hooked me for life. The pixeliated characters taught me more about life, friendship, sadness, anger, hate, sorrow, trust, and redemption then anything I learned in my decades of schooling. It was a game that had everything I wanted in a movie or book, but so much more. Because I could be a part of it all. Yes the story was scripted, but I was more invested in the activities of Cecil and his cohorts then I was of Luke, Han, and Leia because I could direct the characters innate actions.

The ability to control the game, as much (Mass Effect) or as little (Super Mario Bros.) as the content allows, is what makes video games appealing to me. That level of immersion is something film has been trying to capture for the past decade as game sales continue to dominate the industry. The fact is, film will never be a video game. It just won't work - not until a movie is able to break it's 4th wall and have people control the story. Those experiments are not something that I see moving past short art-house films or temporary exhibition pieces. Mostly due to the nature of film, but the disconnect between film and the audience is much shorter compared to a game. With a game, we know it's digital. We know it's not real. Even with the most human of actions, we are still able to separate reality and fantasy. Film and television are different. Outside of animation, when one uses living people to portray characters, it takes on a new level of realism. We connect to actors because they are human. We understand their needs because we too are human. They have to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, go to work, etc. With a video game, characters can ignore all laws of logic and physics to do things. Even in a crazy action movie like 'Atomic Blonde,' where the impossible seems feasible, there is a grounding of reality by having human actors. This is why movies can't be games - we are unable to break away from the reality of the actors. Controlling a bandicoot to jump and spin doesn't hold the same weight as telling a soldier in a movie which bunker to explore. The bandicoot is a bandicoot. You have 99 lives and can try again if you fail. The soldier has 1 chance to make the "right" decision, and most of us would not be able to face the reality of the situation if s/he failed because of us.

So there you go. Those are my reasons for video games being appealing to me. I enjoy the fantasy; the ability to be swept away into another realm and ignore this one for a few hours. But I'm also fascinated at how the stories are told. How we can take those plot points and make them our own with a level of immersion that can't be beat.

How about you? What about video games appeals to you?