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Addiction? I think they mean practice? An athlete doesn't become a professional by going to a Wizard, it requires dedication, and hard work, I guess that's an addiction though.
There is a reason why gaming in America is handled so weirdly, and it's the media turning things into what they aren't.
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i guess the only thing that bothers mean is they don't clarify pro scene and non-pro scene well enough. And if they're going to talk about non-pro scene, maybe they shouldn't use Starcraft as an example...becoz most people that play starcraft i gotta say isn't Addicted the game, we just simply enjoyed it. There is barcraft or tournament events and many social aspect brought by sc2. And I think that's what angered this community, like Tasteless say, don't compare SC2 scene with WOW which are play by two different type of players and different mindset going into playing the game.
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On August 06 2012 01:55 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 01:46 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 06 2012 01:29 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. Aw, cute. Prove your shit. 1) What is art? 2) What is "productive"? 3) Do you know every pro player? 4) How do you define addiction? 5) How is making money playing video games wasteful? 1. A media through which the artist has a conversation with the recipient of the art. Usually these conversations cannot be had unless framed by a narrative or portrait or what have you. Video games are made by hundreds of people to be played with, by, and against millions of other people. Art exists in video games--music, models, etc.--but the product itself is not art, and can never be art, just by its very lack of deep, penetrating artistic vision. (Obviously I'm talking about AAA blockbusters. The indie scene might be different.) What? This makes literally no sense. Your second sentence is just asserting that anything other than a narrative/portrait (????) can't be art. Literally nothing you have said here disqualifies video games from having meaningful narratives or stylistic art. What you've essentially said is akin to saying that sentences are artful but novels are not. Show nested quote +2. Productive is advancing yourself in someway, I.E.: learning, creating, reading, writing, pretty much anything that doesn't involve wasting time, which may I remind you is the exact opposite of productivity. Playing a video game obsessively is, in general, not productive, for obvious reasons, chief among them because it's a video game created not to teach or advance an artistic principle but to entertain and waste time. Now, if you're truly devoted to becoming a professional Starcraft player, then fine, great, play it every day all day. However, if you're like 90% of the "I'm going pro" blogs on Team Liquid, then you're probably just wasting time. This is moronic as well. I feel like you have a very immature understanding of what artists are. Whether something is a "waste of time" is not exactly something that can be objectively determined for all people. If I were to spend my entire life learning how to paint frescos, I would consider that a waste of time, because I don't like painting, nor am I talented at it. Similarly, I have absolutely no interest in geology, and becoming a renowned geologist would be an utter waste of time from my perspective. But going back to your first sentence, video games satisfy your measure, because they do advance the player in someway, namely, in skill at the game. Show nested quote +3. Common attributes of professional sports players: love of the game, good work ethic, obsession. See: Kobe Bryant, Bobby Fischer, Roger Federer, MKP, Boxer. Even if I don't know every player, I can make an educated guess. And you think obsession and addiction are the same thing? Show nested quote +4. Addiction is obsession. I know something about it because my personality is addictive. I obsess over things. I was addicted to WoW, addicted to Starcraft, and I'm perpetually addicted to people. When I work on an artistic hobby I get obsessed. It's thinking about the same thing for days and days. Oh, I guess you do. They aren't. I'm sorry that you think they are, but they aren't, and I'm telling you this as someone who has suffered from addiction as well as OCD. The psychological meaning of addiction is entirely different from intense interest or obsession with a subject. The two might be related, but they're not the same. Obsession can often be positive, whereas addiction occurs when the addictive subject controls the agent; obsession is just really intense interest. Addiction, on the other hand, is not. Gambling addiction, for example, is something which takes over a person's life. They may appear obsessed with gambling, but only because they are addicted to it. Similarly, someone who is obsessed with, say, literature, is probably not addicted to it, because literature does not control their psyche in a direct sense. Show nested quote +5. The people who are truly dedicated, the professionals making money, and those who are actually, fully, no-bullshit committed to the game are fine. I speak for myself, and people like me, who've obsessed over this damn game to avoid doing work or anything productive--not to advance ourselves in the game, mind you, but just to waste time--those are the people who shouldn't play video games, and to which the activity is harmful and detrimental. Then that has nothing to do with video games. That has to do with escapism, of which video games are simply the most modern means. Escapism is, firstly, not the same thing as addiction, although it can lead to addiction. And escapism generally has less to do with the subject of escape and more to do with dissatisfaction with the rest of life. Rather than blaming Starcraft, or video games, or whatever, for "wasting time," consider that the true culprit is probably that you actually don't really care about whatever work you're avoiding doing.
You're entitled to your opinion. I'm not going to sit here and argue over semantics. Novels have one unifying artistic vision; video games are a hodgepodge of collective work to the expressed motive of creating a piece of entertainment, not something intellectually or spiritually or emotionally engaging. If you're trying to tell me that Starcraft has much of a moral or point as, say, 1984 or Things Fall Apart or Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest or Neuromancer or Through a Scanner Darkly or literally any great work of fiction, I have to respectfully disagree. And before you bring up the fact that great fiction is entertaining, I concede that yes they are, of course they are, and why wouldn't they be? But they also contain something that video games lack, which is a point (and the point of this discussion, as it happens), the point being the author's perspective and ideas, singular, unifying, that construct his worldview and narrative. When I say author, narrative, I think you can think of the analogous terms for other forms of art (painting, music, etc.) on your own and go from there.
Addiction can both be psychological and chemical.
By the way, I despise the line by line forum argument. It's really everything that's wrong with internet anonymity in a nutshell. I can read how it's going to go from the outset. This is the part where I chastise you for calling me moronic and whatever. Then you're going to call me insensitive. Then I'm supposed to get riled up. Anyways, we have different opinions, and for once, just for once, you can let that go.
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oh and dont forget all the olympic sport addicted players ... now there is a drug thing in london for all this addicted poor guys ... what a waste of lifetime this read was ...
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On August 06 2012 02:11 Rah wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 01:41 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:38 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. It's truth that there's no difference between grinding SC2 12 hrs a day and any other game or MMO out there. There's a pro scene but that's a huge amount of time wasted for someone who never ends up being a pro. On the other hand pro SC2 does have a place in the world and the top few players will always be revered by some. For people who don't care about the game though they're more likely to form an opinion similar to CNN. I believe gaming is a bad habit more than it is an addiction. If you could go pro at biting your nails all day it would be comparable. If anything, this shows you've been infected by some sort of pragmatism rather than that videogaming is 'bad.' I always laugh when people criticize gaming on the grounds of 'productivity' while failing to consider that productivity for productivity's sake is completely arbitrary, and is only something that people have argued for in the post-narrative era we live in. Seriously, productivity is probably the god of this generation (i.e. last 20 years). It's sad, and it's arbitrary, and I wish people would shut up about it. I'm just being real here and looking at things without Hotbid's E-Sports glasses over my eyes. Getting so mad about my opinion shows your own bias. The truth is there's a small amount of success going around compared to the time people have invested into this game. Many on this site have given up even and don't even play the game anymore, they just watch events to feel like they're part of a grassroots movement or something. To outsiders it comes across as weird to invest your life and passion into a game that they don't understand. Especially when popular opinion suggests our exposure to them should be limited. So there's nothing surprising about this article to me, but I'm surprised about some of our reactions to it. I agree with you that you shouldn't fill your life with only productive activities, because then you'd miss out on a lot, but be a little open minded and don't take your hobbies so seriously. You're guilty of the same thing CNN is.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm angry.
Popular opinion, is, quite frankly, fucking moronic on virtually every subject. I think popular opinion is a pretty good yardstick for measuring what not to do, to be honest.
I take my hobbies seriously because I take my life seriously. I wouldn't do something I don't think is worth doing, or at the very least I certainly wouldn't defend doing it. I think people who go out clubbing, for example, are wasting their time, but I can't think of a strong argument that could be used to convince them not to go, so I don't try to convince them. I just don't think it's for me. On the other hand, I really like competitive gaming. Be it chess, poker, or Starcraft 2, I enjoy it, and I do it, and I like watching other people do it. Who are you to decide that that's a poor way of living my life? Is there some objective standard for living that you've managed to find?
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On August 06 2012 02:12 Thallis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 01:56 IRL_Sinister wrote:On August 06 2012 01:44 Klipsys wrote:ANYONE UNHAPPY WITH THE ARTICLE AND TWEET/EMAIL THE AUTHOR DIRECTLY. I won't post his email address, but his twitter is https://twitter.com/jdsutter and he has his email in one of his tweets. \ PLEASE DON'T EMBARRASS ESPORTS You think a whole bunch of nerds tweeting the guy is going to make your case any better? Especially when the article is pretty clearly presenting the case that Professional gaming is not addiction. Its kind of funny that so many people don't understand this is a positive article because it talks about addiction. The people the article is supposed to be for would have a hard time distinguishing between the two. The article pretty clearly show why Esport isn't addiction, while not just brushing away a very real issue. There's no reason for anyone to be upset about this article.
but when you present the subject with two different type of "gaming" is misleading to audience. that's just a tactics they use to draw more attention is starcraft is more well known and bigger scope out of all.
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On August 06 2012 02:17 jeeeeohn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 01:55 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:46 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 06 2012 01:29 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. Aw, cute. Prove your shit. 1) What is art? 2) What is "productive"? 3) Do you know every pro player? 4) How do you define addiction? 5) How is making money playing video games wasteful? 1. A media through which the artist has a conversation with the recipient of the art. Usually these conversations cannot be had unless framed by a narrative or portrait or what have you. Video games are made by hundreds of people to be played with, by, and against millions of other people. Art exists in video games--music, models, etc.--but the product itself is not art, and can never be art, just by its very lack of deep, penetrating artistic vision. (Obviously I'm talking about AAA blockbusters. The indie scene might be different.) What? This makes literally no sense. Your second sentence is just asserting that anything other than a narrative/portrait (????) can't be art. Literally nothing you have said here disqualifies video games from having meaningful narratives or stylistic art. What you've essentially said is akin to saying that sentences are artful but novels are not. 2. Productive is advancing yourself in someway, I.E.: learning, creating, reading, writing, pretty much anything that doesn't involve wasting time, which may I remind you is the exact opposite of productivity. Playing a video game obsessively is, in general, not productive, for obvious reasons, chief among them because it's a video game created not to teach or advance an artistic principle but to entertain and waste time. Now, if you're truly devoted to becoming a professional Starcraft player, then fine, great, play it every day all day. However, if you're like 90% of the "I'm going pro" blogs on Team Liquid, then you're probably just wasting time. This is moronic as well. I feel like you have a very immature understanding of what artists are. Whether something is a "waste of time" is not exactly something that can be objectively determined for all people. If I were to spend my entire life learning how to paint frescos, I would consider that a waste of time, because I don't like painting, nor am I talented at it. Similarly, I have absolutely no interest in geology, and becoming a renowned geologist would be an utter waste of time from my perspective. But going back to your first sentence, video games satisfy your measure, because they do advance the player in someway, namely, in skill at the game. 3. Common attributes of professional sports players: love of the game, good work ethic, obsession. See: Kobe Bryant, Bobby Fischer, Roger Federer, MKP, Boxer. Even if I don't know every player, I can make an educated guess. And you think obsession and addiction are the same thing? 4. Addiction is obsession. I know something about it because my personality is addictive. I obsess over things. I was addicted to WoW, addicted to Starcraft, and I'm perpetually addicted to people. When I work on an artistic hobby I get obsessed. It's thinking about the same thing for days and days. Oh, I guess you do. They aren't. I'm sorry that you think they are, but they aren't, and I'm telling you this as someone who has suffered from addiction as well as OCD. The psychological meaning of addiction is entirely different from intense interest or obsession with a subject. The two might be related, but they're not the same. Obsession can often be positive, whereas addiction occurs when the addictive subject controls the agent; obsession is just really intense interest. Addiction, on the other hand, is not. Gambling addiction, for example, is something which takes over a person's life. They may appear obsessed with gambling, but only because they are addicted to it. Similarly, someone who is obsessed with, say, literature, is probably not addicted to it, because literature does not control their psyche in a direct sense. 5. The people who are truly dedicated, the professionals making money, and those who are actually, fully, no-bullshit committed to the game are fine. I speak for myself, and people like me, who've obsessed over this damn game to avoid doing work or anything productive--not to advance ourselves in the game, mind you, but just to waste time--those are the people who shouldn't play video games, and to which the activity is harmful and detrimental. Then that has nothing to do with video games. That has to do with escapism, of which video games are simply the most modern means. Escapism is, firstly, not the same thing as addiction, although it can lead to addiction. And escapism generally has less to do with the subject of escape and more to do with dissatisfaction with the rest of life. Rather than blaming Starcraft, or video games, or whatever, for "wasting time," consider that the true culprit is probably that you actually don't really care about whatever work you're avoiding doing. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm not going to sit here and argue over semantics. Novels have one unifying artistic vision; video games are a hodgepodge of collective work to the expressed motive of creating a piece of entertainment, not something intellectually or spiritually or emotionally engaging. If you're trying to tell me that Starcraft has much of a moral or point as, say, 1984 or Things Fall Apart or Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest or Neuromancer or Through a Scanner Darkly or literally any great work of fiction, I have to respectfully disagree. And before you bring up the fact that great fiction is entertaining, I concede that yes they are, of course they are, and why wouldn't they be? But they also contain something that video games lack, which is a point (and the point of this discussion, as it happens), the point being the author's perspective and ideas, singular, unifying, that construct his worldview and narrative. When I say author, narrative, I think you can think of the analogous terms for other forms of art (painting, music, etc.) on your own and go from there. Addiction can both be psychological and chemical. By the way, I despise the line by line forum argument. It's really everything that's wrong with internet anonymity in a nutshell. I can read how it's going to go from the outset. This is the part where I chastise you for calling me moronic and whatever. Then you're going to call me insensitive. Then I'm supposed to get riled up. Anyways, we have different opinions, and for once, just for once, you can let that go.
I didn't say that Starcraft 2 has as much of a "moral point" as do [insert arbitrary list of literature]. But I don't think video games as a medium are necessarily incapable of possessing it. Shadow of the Colossus, for example, is a masterpiece in the sense that it creates a very powerful experience for the player.
By the way, there are plenty of works of literature that are utterly meaningless (funnily enough, postmodernist literature practically defines itself by that notion, and it's far and away the most popular form right now) but that doesn't mean literature in general isn't meaningful.
Addiction is certainly psychological and chemical, but to say that obsession and addiction are synonyms is simply false in light of modern psychology. Even the psychiatrist interviewed by CNN said that progamers aren't generally addicts.
It seems like you've created a definition of "video game" that isn't exactly accurate (the intentions of developers are entirely their own) by extrapolating from AAA developers, who have never asserted that they are creating arthouse games, much in the sense that, say, the Harry Potter series can't seriously be taken as deep, meaningful literature.
In addition, while I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of what constitutes true art to some degree, you can't really assert this very Modernist understanding of literature as if it were self-evident. There are a lot of aesthetic philosophies, ranging from nihilistic to existentialist to romanticist to art-for-art's sake. Take a look at your average Nabokov work, for example. Here we have a man who bluntly stated that he thought a unifying philosophical "big idea" simply does not belong in literature, and yet he wrote some of the most beautiful novels of the past century. You can argue that he's wrong (I'd certainly say he is) but you can't say that a motive of just wanting to create something that is simply entertaining or beautiful or aesthetically pleasing denies something status as art, because it just doesn't. I don't think being designed by a collective as opposed to a singular person matters at all (plays involve many actors and helpers, movies have an entire staff, and even some novels are collaborative) because artistic vision is not destroyed by collaboration.
So in summary: do I think Sc2 s a piece of high art? No, not really, but I don't think it actually matters or implies that playing it is a waste of time. I like listening to vapid, repetitive music sometimes for no other reason than that I like the sound of it. Is that a waste of time? Why? It certainly serves a purpose for me.
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On August 06 2012 02:17 CoR wrote:
oh and dont forget all the olympic sport addicted players ... now there is a drug thing in london for all this addicted poor guys ... what a waste of lifetime this read was ...
Olympic atheletes have absolutely nothing to do with whether addiction exists within gaming or not. I do not understand why people think this is relevant.
The article never said that all pro-gamers are addicted to gaming. It only talked about the experience of marineking, who seems to have struggled and may still struggle with a level of addiction to SCII. The story about him screaming in his room after having the electricity cut off i think is very convincing of that.
With the level of time that pros need to put into SCII to become top players it is inevitable in my opinion, that some pros will suffer from gaming addiction. It's not a knock against SCII though. It's an important reminder to every gamer, in my opinion, that addiction is something to be aware of.
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Addiction is such a weird subject when its about gaming.
Please correct me if i am wrong but as far as i know gaming does nothing addicting with your body/mind compared to lets say smoking or coffee.
With coffee if for one day you don't drink it compared to every other day you will feel it even if you don't exactly want coffee
With gaming however it is different, since no such thing like that exists can you truly call it an addiction?
Imo its more people that can't control themselves rather then being actually addicted.
These same people also can get addicted to anything else rather then just gaming.
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I'm pretty shocked at all the e-sports and pro sport comparisons with the whole "addiction" controversy and all. Seriously guys? The world already knows the risks and low success rates of professional sports. No need for articles about it. Gaming is relatively new to the world especially when it comes to making a living out of it so of course there's going to be some skepticism. Happens with anything. People don't know the difference between grinding games like WoW versus competitive gaming like sc2. WoW and MMOs have influenced how the world thinks of gaming.
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Conventional media so often connects gaming to the topic of addiction.. fear of the unknown is my biggest guess. Their traditional middle-aged readers that more often than not have a hard time criticizing that what has been written, have connected the two ever since gaming grew more popular. Can't blame them as the professional scene was too insignificant at that time and there wasn't much else to write about this 'obscure' hobby to a general audience. As the stories that 'The sword of a thousand thruths' later parodied gained attention, the hype on the individuals that starved themselves because they were too caught up in a virtual world obviously was served well to unknown and uninformed minds.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's addiction amongst professional, conventional sports athletes, and with that many others that are addicted to kicking or smashing against a ball. The fact that 'athletic' sport is generally seen as something healthy (which could be questioned about top athletes) would probably overshadow the 'addiction' part, similar to how alcohol is widely accepted while in fact, it is one of the most damaging and addictive drugs out there.
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On August 06 2012 02:20 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 02:11 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:41 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:38 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. It's truth that there's no difference between grinding SC2 12 hrs a day and any other game or MMO out there. There's a pro scene but that's a huge amount of time wasted for someone who never ends up being a pro. On the other hand pro SC2 does have a place in the world and the top few players will always be revered by some. For people who don't care about the game though they're more likely to form an opinion similar to CNN. I believe gaming is a bad habit more than it is an addiction. If you could go pro at biting your nails all day it would be comparable. If anything, this shows you've been infected by some sort of pragmatism rather than that videogaming is 'bad.' I always laugh when people criticize gaming on the grounds of 'productivity' while failing to consider that productivity for productivity's sake is completely arbitrary, and is only something that people have argued for in the post-narrative era we live in. Seriously, productivity is probably the god of this generation (i.e. last 20 years). It's sad, and it's arbitrary, and I wish people would shut up about it. I'm just being real here and looking at things without Hotbid's E-Sports glasses over my eyes. Getting so mad about my opinion shows your own bias. The truth is there's a small amount of success going around compared to the time people have invested into this game. Many on this site have given up even and don't even play the game anymore, they just watch events to feel like they're part of a grassroots movement or something. To outsiders it comes across as weird to invest your life and passion into a game that they don't understand. Especially when popular opinion suggests our exposure to them should be limited. So there's nothing surprising about this article to me, but I'm surprised about some of our reactions to it. I agree with you that you shouldn't fill your life with only productive activities, because then you'd miss out on a lot, but be a little open minded and don't take your hobbies so seriously. You're guilty of the same thing CNN is. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm angry. Popular opinion, is, quite frankly, fucking moronic on virtually every subject. I think popular opinion is a pretty good yardstick for measuring what not to do, to be honest. I take my hobbies seriously because I take my life seriously. I wouldn't do something I don't think is worth doing, or at the very least I certainly wouldn't defend doing it. I think people who go out clubbing, for example, are wasting their time, but I can't think of a strong argument that could be used to convince them not to go, so I don't try to convince them. I just don't think it's for me. On the other hand, I really like competitive gaming. Be it chess, poker, or Starcraft 2, I enjoy it, and I do it, and I like watching other people do it. Who are you to decide that that's a poor way of living my life? Is there some objective standard for living that you've managed to find?
I'm not saying anything like that so why are you acting so insecure about it? I've been playing SC2 every day, and watching events to pick up on strategies. All I'm saying is I understand why CNN looks at pro gaming the way they do, and maybe with more exposure it would become more acceptable to people who don't understand it right now, but I can't see that happening if the community is full of uptight nerds who get up in arms every time the game is displayed in a slightly negative light. You'd think CNN printed out a picture of Mohammad or something. Settle down and take negative press with a grain of salt like everyone else with a hobby in the world. All I'm saying.
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I enjoyed the read, don't see really anything wrong with it.... it was all about marineking's story and his parents were really concerned about their son being an addict for quite a while so of course they would talk about this, in the end he proved to them he wasn't just addicted. He had goals he was striving for something and he succeeded and his parents support him now
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On August 06 2012 02:30 BobbyT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 02:17 CoR wrote:
oh and dont forget all the olympic sport addicted players ... now there is a drug thing in london for all this addicted poor guys ... what a waste of lifetime this read was ... The article never said that all pro-gamers are addicted to gaming. It only talked about the experience of marineking, who seems to have struggled and may still struggle with a level of addiction to SCII. The story about him screaming in his room after having the electricity cut off i think is very convincing of that.
I don't actually think that's evidence of addiction at all, to be honest. It's more like immense frustrating at being denied something you really enjoy doing. If someone took away a novel I really liked halfway through my reading it, I'd be pissed off.
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I seriously thought I misclicked when I saw MKP on CNN. Must have typed tl.net instead...but nope there he is! SUPER!
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On August 06 2012 02:37 Rah wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 02:20 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 02:11 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:41 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:38 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. It's truth that there's no difference between grinding SC2 12 hrs a day and any other game or MMO out there. There's a pro scene but that's a huge amount of time wasted for someone who never ends up being a pro. On the other hand pro SC2 does have a place in the world and the top few players will always be revered by some. For people who don't care about the game though they're more likely to form an opinion similar to CNN. I believe gaming is a bad habit more than it is an addiction. If you could go pro at biting your nails all day it would be comparable. If anything, this shows you've been infected by some sort of pragmatism rather than that videogaming is 'bad.' I always laugh when people criticize gaming on the grounds of 'productivity' while failing to consider that productivity for productivity's sake is completely arbitrary, and is only something that people have argued for in the post-narrative era we live in. Seriously, productivity is probably the god of this generation (i.e. last 20 years). It's sad, and it's arbitrary, and I wish people would shut up about it. I'm just being real here and looking at things without Hotbid's E-Sports glasses over my eyes. Getting so mad about my opinion shows your own bias. The truth is there's a small amount of success going around compared to the time people have invested into this game. Many on this site have given up even and don't even play the game anymore, they just watch events to feel like they're part of a grassroots movement or something. To outsiders it comes across as weird to invest your life and passion into a game that they don't understand. Especially when popular opinion suggests our exposure to them should be limited. So there's nothing surprising about this article to me, but I'm surprised about some of our reactions to it. I agree with you that you shouldn't fill your life with only productive activities, because then you'd miss out on a lot, but be a little open minded and don't take your hobbies so seriously. You're guilty of the same thing CNN is. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm angry. Popular opinion, is, quite frankly, fucking moronic on virtually every subject. I think popular opinion is a pretty good yardstick for measuring what not to do, to be honest. I take my hobbies seriously because I take my life seriously. I wouldn't do something I don't think is worth doing, or at the very least I certainly wouldn't defend doing it. I think people who go out clubbing, for example, are wasting their time, but I can't think of a strong argument that could be used to convince them not to go, so I don't try to convince them. I just don't think it's for me. On the other hand, I really like competitive gaming. Be it chess, poker, or Starcraft 2, I enjoy it, and I do it, and I like watching other people do it. Who are you to decide that that's a poor way of living my life? Is there some objective standard for living that you've managed to find? I'm not saying anything like that so why are you acting so insecure about it? I've been playing SC2 every day, and watching events to pick up on strategies. All I'm saying is I understand why CNN looks at pro gaming the way they do, and maybe with more exposure it would become more acceptable to people who don't understand it right now, but I can't see that happening if the community is full of uptight nerds who get up in arms every time the game is displayed in a slightly negative light. You'd think CNN printed out a picture of Mohammad or something. Settle down and take negative press with a grain of salt like everyone else with a hobby in the world. All I'm saying.
I understand why CNN has the opinion of gaming that they do, but having the right to an opinion is not the same as having one's opinion be right. If nobody explains what's wrong with CNN's opinion, then it continues to be repeated as unchallenged and gradually grows into fact. People should be up in arms every time something misleading, poorly researched, or simply wrong is said, and it shouldn't require an explanation for that. Anything else is essentially complacence, and the idea that things change automatically with "exposure" alone is nonsense.
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Sidenote: This post was meant for the other thread that just got closed where every post was pretty much : FUCK CNN. I can see their is a much more level headed discussion going on in this thread.
Did any of you actually read the entire thing before stating how much you hate CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/08/tech/gaming.series/korea.html?hpt=hp_c1
First of all they are pointing out a real issue, one that is more prevalent in korea. Second of all they paint the picture of gaming addicts and progamers differently. For MKP it was a bit in the middle but the conclusion in the end was that he was not an addict just a prog gamer with a strong will to win. Close to the end of the article they talk with an expert in addiction who says that pro gamers playing habits etc borders on symptoms of addiction but the difference is that most of the time they are not addicts.
"After the tournament, I talked with the psychologist, Dr. Han, about gaming addiction in Korea. I described MarineKing's training habits, and his personal story. He said the number of hours and the intensity with which he approaches "StarCraft II" borders on addiction.
But there's one difference, he said. Pro gamers usually aren't addicts.
Addicts can't succeed on a higher competitive level, he said. The game takes complete control."
Although I dont particularly think this article paints pro gamers in a positive light i wouldnt say it paints them in a negative one, it shows 2 sides of a story and 2 different perspectives. For instance when MVP's parents saw he wasnt excelling in school they took him to an aftershool starcraft academy to train to become pro. Then their is MKP's parents who tried anything to get their son to stop playing.
By the end of the article I did not see MKP as a gaming addict out of control , I saw him as young man with a very strong will to win and succeed in something that he loves.
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On August 06 2012 02:13 v3chr0 wrote:
Addiction? I think they mean practice? An athlete doesn't become a professional by going to a Wizard, it requires dedication, and hard work, I guess that's an addiction though.
There is a reason why gaming in America is handled so weirdly, and it's the media turning things into what they aren't.
It is hard work if you make a living of it, or will make a living of it in the future. If it becomes clear that you will never make a living of it and you continue to play so much that it hurts your other activities (school, profession) then you are addicted.
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On August 06 2012 02:41 Sandermatt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 02:13 v3chr0 wrote:
Addiction? I think they mean practice? An athlete doesn't become a professional by going to a Wizard, it requires dedication, and hard work, I guess that's an addiction though.
There is a reason why gaming in America is handled so weirdly, and it's the media turning things into what they aren't. It is hard work if you make a living of it, or will make a living of it in the future. If it becomes clear that you will never make a living of it and you continue to play so much that it hurts your other activities (school, profession) then you are addicted.
That's actually not true, honestly. Addiction is not the same as refusing to recognize failure. Addiction is when you have a lack of control over what you do, and when you are compelled to do it by something other than a legitimate, reasonable desire to do it (from enjoyment etc etc).
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On August 06 2012 02:37 Rah wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 02:20 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 02:11 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:41 Shiori wrote:On August 06 2012 01:38 Rah wrote:On August 06 2012 01:27 jeeeeohn wrote:On August 05 2012 14:25 Itsmedudeman wrote:On August 05 2012 14:21 Wegandi wrote:On August 05 2012 14:18 Zzoram wrote:
Where are the articles about American Football addiction and how 4 players die each year from football on average, never mind the thousands of concussions that can lead to permanent brain damage? It's only an addiction when they disagree with your personal behavior. If you play a physical sport like say, football, or baseball for 5+ hours everyday, you're lauded. If you study math or science for 10+ hours a day, you're lauded. God forbid, you were a unique individual with their own likes and desires instead of some tabula rasa for them to mold to their own ends. Never ceases, does it? ? Dumb comparison. Most people can't play physical sports as long for as long as someone can play a video game (and addicts can play all day), and someone who studies actually benefits from it? Wtf? Are we really comparing the productivity of studying math and science to that of playing a video game here? Let me know how that looks on a college application. TL is really out of touch it seems these days.. Thank you for writing this because if I had I'd probably have gotten a warning or temp ban. TL is insane nowadays, which is really just representative of the culture in general wherein wasting time has somehow evolved into productivity. Newsflash: headline: every pro player is addicted to the game and video games are not art and video games are not productive, at all, ever, not now or in the future. You are not a special snowflake for grinding Starcraft 2 into the soft bits of your brain twelve hours a day. Go read a book or something. It's truth that there's no difference between grinding SC2 12 hrs a day and any other game or MMO out there. There's a pro scene but that's a huge amount of time wasted for someone who never ends up being a pro. On the other hand pro SC2 does have a place in the world and the top few players will always be revered by some. For people who don't care about the game though they're more likely to form an opinion similar to CNN. I believe gaming is a bad habit more than it is an addiction. If you could go pro at biting your nails all day it would be comparable. If anything, this shows you've been infected by some sort of pragmatism rather than that videogaming is 'bad.' I always laugh when people criticize gaming on the grounds of 'productivity' while failing to consider that productivity for productivity's sake is completely arbitrary, and is only something that people have argued for in the post-narrative era we live in. Seriously, productivity is probably the god of this generation (i.e. last 20 years). It's sad, and it's arbitrary, and I wish people would shut up about it. I'm just being real here and looking at things without Hotbid's E-Sports glasses over my eyes. Getting so mad about my opinion shows your own bias. The truth is there's a small amount of success going around compared to the time people have invested into this game. Many on this site have given up even and don't even play the game anymore, they just watch events to feel like they're part of a grassroots movement or something. To outsiders it comes across as weird to invest your life and passion into a game that they don't understand. Especially when popular opinion suggests our exposure to them should be limited. So there's nothing surprising about this article to me, but I'm surprised about some of our reactions to it. I agree with you that you shouldn't fill your life with only productive activities, because then you'd miss out on a lot, but be a little open minded and don't take your hobbies so seriously. You're guilty of the same thing CNN is. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm angry. Popular opinion, is, quite frankly, fucking moronic on virtually every subject. I think popular opinion is a pretty good yardstick for measuring what not to do, to be honest. I take my hobbies seriously because I take my life seriously. I wouldn't do something I don't think is worth doing, or at the very least I certainly wouldn't defend doing it. I think people who go out clubbing, for example, are wasting their time, but I can't think of a strong argument that could be used to convince them not to go, so I don't try to convince them. I just don't think it's for me. On the other hand, I really like competitive gaming. Be it chess, poker, or Starcraft 2, I enjoy it, and I do it, and I like watching other people do it. Who are you to decide that that's a poor way of living my life? Is there some objective standard for living that you've managed to find? I'm not saying anything like that so why are you acting so insecure about it? I've been playing SC2 every day, and watching events to pick up on strategies. All I'm saying is I understand why CNN looks at pro gaming the way they do, and maybe with more exposure it would become more acceptable to people who don't understand it right now, but I can't see that happening if the community is full of uptight nerds who get up in arms every time the game is displayed in a slightly negative light. You'd think CNN printed out a picture of Mohammad or something. Settle down and take negative press with a grain of salt like everyone else with a hobby in the world. All I'm saying.
To be honest I think they pointed out some similarities between pro gaming and addiction but then pointed out distinct differences of between addicts and pro gamers basically showing 2 sides to the story. I dont even know if I would consider it bad press. If you read the whole thing its kind of like the writer was telling a story and it asks the question "was MKP just another internet addict or was he a young pro gamer with a strong will to succeed in something he loved". And as far as MVP goes everything they covered on him was very positive.
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EPT
