They both made good points. I think Matt's right about games broadly but it's super-easy to think of games that don't fit the mental-addiction/escapist model, but those are almost never popular games and if they are people actively hate the good aspects and want them to be more like the addictive capitalist products. Look at how people criticize Nintendo games and how their criticisms generally fall into wanting Nintendo to just churn out slop like every other company. People could make decent, healthy video games that fit into a healthy life but the entire mode of production and social propaganda deny it from happening.
Also the No Cartridge episode (23 I think) with just Matt talking about this is really good too. I wish more people could talk about video games at the level Matt's able to talk about them. Too many people just take how games and the industry are as a given, particularly in how post-modern and treat-orientated they are.
I'm saying look at the specifics of the criticisms not that they criticize Nintendo.
Edit: An example.
valid criticism of Nintendo: They charge a 30% rentier tax on games to publishers/devs while still using dated hardware that's much cheaper to produce than the competition's and richly profit on it while they don't even have the dependability of the hardware anymore to attempt to justify the higher hardware costs. This is old-fashioned and "anti-consumer."
not-valid criticism of Nintendo: They're anti-consumer and old-fashioned because they won't put skinner box achievement systems into their console operating systems to make my brain tingle when I spend an hour walking in circles to get a digital trophy.
They both made good points. I think Matt's right about games broadly but it's super-easy to think of games that don't fit the mental-addiction/escapist model, but those are almost never popular games and if they are people actively hate the good aspects and want them to be more like the addictive capitalist products. Look at how people criticize Nintendo games and how their criticisms generally fall into wanting Nintendo to just churn out slop like every other company. People could make decent, healthy video games that fit into a healthy life but the entire mode of production and social propaganda deny it from happening.
Also the No Cartridge episode (23 I think) with just Matt talking about this is really good too. I wish more people could talk about video games at the level Matt's able to talk about them. Too many people just take how games and the industry are as a given, particularly in how post-modern and treat-orientated they are.
jesus christ, even leftists are hell bent on felating Nintendo in the west.
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I'm saying look at the specifics of the criticisms not that they criticize Nintendo.
Edit: An example.
valid criticism of Nintendo: They charge a 30% rentier tax on games to publishers/devs while still using dated hardware that's much cheaper to produce than the competition's and richly profit on it while they don't even have the dependability of the hardware anymore to attempt to justify the higher hardware costs. This is old-fashioned and "anti-consumer."
not-valid criticism of Nintendo: They're anti-consumer and old-fashioned because they won't put skinner box achievement systems into their console operating systems to make my brain tingle when I spend an hour walking in circles to get a digital trophy.