it is increasingly funny to me that he's still listed as a host of Bad Faith
Has she ever addressed why he hasn't been officially removed from it?
Men who's entire job and personality is built off of trying to affect material change by releasing audio clips of themselves online debate the merits of Just Playing a Fucking Game.
when you do nothing you fall into moralizing people's free time, whether that be their sex lives or their hobbies :vivian-shrug:
watching it at all is falling prey to the idea that The Chapo Boys are gonna have things worth saying. I could have a more productive conversation about this with my brother high off my ass
I'm not a gamer and if anything am a bit more sympathetic to Matt's argument. However, I think Virgil won the debate. Matt was really funny though, I can't help but think he doesn't even believe his own argument but was at least having fun with it.
Like, if there was an debate about anime, I would be the "Matt" in the argument because making fun of anime is fun, but ultimately I don't care what you enjoy and I don't think anime is problematic beyond what anime fans themselves say is problematic about it.
Gaming with your friends is false communion, it ain't real like what me and by parasocial buddy :matt-jokerfied: have got.
Seems like videogames do sort of work by hijacking your internal reward system. Instead of being proud of myself for working out and losing ten pounds or something, all that energy is going into leveling up a character that I’ll just discard eventually
I hate to break this to you, but we're just simple carbon based life forms, and everything that feels good "works by hijacking your internal reward system." and humans have always had frivolous pursuits that feel good. they're most commonly refered to as "resting"
I hate to break this to you, but we’re just simple carbon based life forms, and everything that feels good “works by hijacking your internal reward system.”
This isn't a "gotcha". That's the premise of their point.
I think what they're pointing at is that this system can be taken advantage of in ways that are negative (e.g. addiction). A lot of games, especially ones monetized around micro-transactions, are designed specifically to exploit people's "reward system".
you right i like pointing out when people make dumbshit say nothing statements
Gotta have something to talk about between screenshots of Twitter posts :shrug-outta-hecks:
So, assuming that "gaming" refers exclusively to live-service online games that have no end, like lol, cs, wow, etc. otherwise this argument is just some weird nerd-shaming thing.
Online gaming is a good way to spend time with your IRL friends, it's how I kept in touch with most of my high school friends. I suspect thats how most people engage with this stuff, I don't know why we have to assume that everyone that plays online is some sweaty MMO player with no social circle. I just don't think it's a big deal.
In individual cases gaming may promote socialisation and community-building, but in aggregate, gaming is counter-revolutionary.
Is this a different debate from the one they did on a news channel or is it the same one?
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.
super-easy to think of games that don’t fit the mental-addiction/escapist model, but those are almost never popular games
loot at how people criticize Nintendo games
jesus christ, even leftists are hell bent on felating Nintendo in the west.
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.
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 saw it live, went in more sympathetic to Virgil but he seemed to take the subject much less seriously, and Matt laid out his argument clearly and reasonably in a way that Virgil wasn't prepared to rebut. Also worth checking out Matt's previous appearance on No Cartridge where he goes more in depth into his reasoning. It's interesting to note that he's since become a lot less hardline against gaming, despite his distressing experience of Fortnite
