Article about how euros erase international game culture from Euro narratives about gaming
The Gentrification of Video Game History
I'd never really seen it all laid out nearly like the author does int hair article.
For example, one of the most iconic images of gaming in the ’90s and ‘00s were LAN parties. A bunch of people taking their computers/consoles to events or friends' houses to play games like Doom, Halo, Quake, Unreal, etc...
There [in the Global South], unless you came from a wealthy background, it’s likely that you instead went to places called LAN houses, Cyber Cafes, Locadora de Jogos, PC Bangs, Game Clubs, etc. There, you would pay hourly to play, either on PC or consoles. In US media it’s an image often associated with Korean e-sports, but it’s far more present globally than LAN parties ever were.
Even within the U.S., LAN parties were never that common. The images have become romanticized in recent years, but back then for every LAN party there were dozens, if not hundreds, of “hey such and such got that new game, let’s go over other house and play it on their [insert 90’s console].” The rose-tinted glasses have caused people to see them as more prevalent and important than they actually were.
Overall, this is something I’ve thought about, mostly in the context of mobile gaming, although the Western core bias isn’t surprising. Sure, there’s a lot of slop in the mobile space, but there’s no shortage of slop in the console or PC gaming space either. It seems that’s just a rationalization for the underlying reason, that the demographics of mobile gaming aren’t the real gaming demographic.
Same deal with youth gamers. I find it wryly ironic when zoomers and younger millennials complain about Roblox not being real gaming, it’s brainrot for gen alpha kiddies. Meanwhile, I’m old enough to remember when their beloved Minecraft was the not serious, no point “game” for the young’uns and not a game for real gamers.
until the rise of broadband cyber cafes were prominent in the US too
We used to go to one in our mall to play counterstrike.
same lol
Meanwhile, I’m old enough to remember when their beloved Minecraft was the not serious, no point “game” for the young’uns and not a game for real gamers.
My experience was that Minecraft started out as a game played primarily by adults and adult turbonerds that built 1:1 replicas of the Enterprise or Middle-Earth before it became wildly popular among kids and primarily associated with them.
Now it's an adult game again when those kids became adults
Sure, there’s a lot of slop in the mobile space, but there’s no shortage of slop in the console or PC gaming space either.
I don't know, I've been binging Vinesauce's mobile game ad streams over the holidays and am increasingly convinced the whole industry is a truly Lovecraftian nightmarescape
The mobile games that are good aren't discounted by "Serious" gamers as far as I can tell, honestly. Infinity Blade, Downwell, Crayon Physics, Jelly Car, Monument Valley, Alto's Adventure, Pokemon Go (sorta'), etc. all seem fairly respected when they're brought up. The mobile gamespace, for whatever reason, just sucks fucking ass and people trying to vindicate it seem out of touch. I found some Japanese game called Pythagoras' Perpetual Motion on iOS that's a fully featured singleplayer puzzle platformer with a nice soundtrack and decent visuals and no one's heard about it because games like that are impossible to find due to whatever factors.
Candy Crush by comparison sucks ass. The closest non-mobile-ish equivalent to it I could think of is Peggle or any of those drop-'em'ups like Puyo, etc. and they all offer way better experiences.
I found some Japanese game called Pythagoras' Perpetual Motion on iOS that's a fully featured singleplayer puzzle platformer with a nice soundtrack and decent visuals and no one's heard about it because games like that are impossible to find due to whatever factors.
Isn't iOS just a fucking nightmare when it comes to game preservation? Old games stop working between iOS versions and get completely memoryholed and purged. From what I understand tons of great iOS games are now lost media
The game's about to become literally impossible to find in a year or two
IIRC Infinity Blade isn't available to buy any more.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Meanwhile, I’m old enough to remember when their beloved Minecraft was the not serious, no point “game” for the young’uns and not a game for real gamers.
I'm a younger millennial and I remember this and still feel this way lol (also roblox is fun as hell and would've loved to have had it growing up)
minecraft never had a point or objective, it was just the sims but blockier
yeh people complained about minecraft having no end game for so long that when Notch finally added a final boss it was in a dimension called The End.
Even within the U.S., LAN parties were never that common. The images have become romanticized in recent years, but back then for every LAN party there were dozens, if not hundreds, of “hey such and such got that new game, let’s go over other house and play it on their [insert 90’s console].” The rose-tinted glasses have caused people to see them as more prevalent and important than they actually were.
Throughout the 80s and 90s, people just went to the arcades, and you didn't necessarily had to play the arcades to actually hang out with people or watch other people play. There's a bit of rewriting of history where gaming is viewed through a console/PC lens when arcades were the dominant form of gaming until the late 90s/early 00s.
