I grew up in a very athletic family. My parents would play soccer no less than once a week and watch it on TV no less than three times a week. I even tried getting into the athletics when I was younger, not because I really liked the sports I tried out for but because I wanted some way to bond with my parents. I played soccer for several years and wasn't too horrible at it but I had no passion for the game. I tried swim team for a year and was among the worst on the team. I gave that up the next year. Senior year in high school I ran a marathon and trained for a year with the high school team. Since then I've decided that sports are just not my thing.
When I was growing up, gaming wasn't really a part of my life until middle school. The first game I ever played was Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I played this in grade school by going over to a friend's house and playing for hours on his SNES. I was enchanted by it right away. Growing up, I was into fantasy and most of my fantasy came out of books. Here was a story as good as any book that came to life in full color at the pace my fingers took it. I was able to make decisions for the character, interact with all the npc's I wanted, and explore the landscape rather than just passing through it on the shoulders of the main character of a book. For years the only gaming system that my family actually owned as an old game boy and the only games we had were a football game, a nascar game, and tetris. Needless to say, my folks weren't fans of games.
They still aren't, but over the years they slowly conceded to allowing us to earn our way to getting game systems and games. In order to get a N64 I had to get straight A's on my report card. We got The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nicky's birthday. In-between the "big consoles" I earned games through hard work. I would collect bottles and cans from around our small town and turn them in for money every day during the summer just so I could afford pokemon. I traded a lot of my cards so I could get a gameboy color. I suppose this made the games more meaningful to me because I wasn't just handed them- I earned them. Pokemon got me through some especially rough times when we first moved to Oregon. Most of my early collage years were spent playing Suikoden with my then-best friend. They were good times for me.
Sadly, games are still a point of contention in my family. My parents see them as a waste of time, they produce nothing and have a laundry list of bad side-effects. While I can't deny all of their reasoning, I thought about it a little more and came to realize that aside from how they are played- sports and video games aren't so different.
For the record, I really can't stand sports. I understand that they're a great way to work out and keep fit and that's fine. What I never understood is watching someone else play sports. Basketball bothers me because it's constant squeaking and the sound of a ball echoing on a court while fans scream and players swear. Soccer is watching a ball being kicked back and forth while fans scream and refs argue. Football is huddle, gain a few feet, drop the ball. Huddle, gain a few feet, drop the ball. And while I'm at it- I'm exceedingly baffled by sport video games but that's another blog for another day.
Then I thought about it- watching sports is kind of like playing a video game. You're not making anything, you aren't doing anything, you're sitting idle eating junk food, screaming at a screen, and getting upset at what little people are doing on your screen. You discuss sports with your friends and people around you after the game, you come up with dream team scenarios and argue about the choices made by coaches and refs alike. It's...really not that different from gamers. Yeah we're sitting around eating junk food while screaming at the screen. We discuss the games with friends and perfect strangers after the game, we come up with theories and ideas about the games and what we hope to see. We argue about timelines and implications in game. Looking at just brass tacks- it's not so different.
One thing my mom observed during the world cup is that no matter what's going on in the world or what tensions sit between nations- the people can come together to appreciate and enjoy a game. They cheer together, they sit in a stadium together, they wave their flags, and open up to perfect strangers over something as little as kicking a ball into a net. Thinking about it, it's the same way for gamers. I've struck up more conversations with perfect strangers over games than over anything else. Regardless of politics, religion, or anything else, two Zelda fans can talk like old friends about timelines, mechanics, and the games themselves. Wearing a pokemon shirt to the cafe has gotten me more warm smiles and cheerful conversation than wearing a pair of cute jeans and shoes have.
Granted, there are downsides that both games and sports have.
For one- they're both very expensive. Just soccer alone requires a pair of shorts, a shirt, a pair of good cleats, shin guards, water bottles, and soccer balls. None of these things are cheap. You'll drop $80 for one jersey and you'll need at least two! You'll pay $80-300 for cleats alone. Games aren't cheap either. You'll drop $150-300 for a system alone- same as a pair of cleats in most cases. You'll pay $30-60 for just one game. There's a new pair of shin guards or a new soccer ball. Then there's team fees, ref fees, the gas money, going out to eat, etc. Gamers will often get accessories for their games, junk food for game nights, etc. All and all- they're both exceedingly expensive.
They both have been known to spike aggression and desensitize those involved. Personally, I don't like violent games or shooters, but a lot of people do. But there are sports like boxing and cage fighting, there are cases where in football and soccer the viewers witness bones being shattered, bloodied faces, and a good deal of swearing and crude body language. Yes, sports are an active thing but when there's pain it's on actual, real people. In most games you are sitting idle on your backside but the injuries are on characters rather than people. In both cases there's crude language, violence, and the potential for harm. I won't deny that some people take things too far in gaming- but they do over sports too.
There are riots and looting following sporting events, fights break out in the stands, people are injured during these confrontations and property is destroyed. Gamers take their anger to internet forums. We don't get riots and looting but the debates get rather heated and sometimes very personal, especially when you're interacting with rabid fans. Gamers have perverts twisting the games into something sexual, but sports have that too. There's sex rings and all sorts of dirty practices going on. There's politics on both sides, there's debate on both sides, etc.
On the other hand, there's benefits to both. Yes, games have benefits. Sports' benefits are far more obvious as it's an active thing and encourages a good, healthy lifestyle. I won't deny that. I wish like crazy I could get into a sport so I would delight in being active but the bottom line is I have no love for sports. I see it as a chore to have to learn all the rules behind kicking a ball or jumping into a pool of water. Some people just can't find anything that interests them about sport participation.
With games, you are challenged on a mental level. Take my favorite three games- Zelda, Pokemon, and Suikoden. In Zelda you are always met with puzzles. You have to solve these puzzles before you can progress in the game. There is hacking and slashing, yes, but that's just one little part of the game and Zelda has always been careful to be 'gentle' in the way of putting you against opponents. They're always monsters, not people, and you're always fighting for the right reasons. In the new game, Skyward sword, fighting even has strategy. You have to adjust how you slash in order to break past defenses or to counter your enemy. And as a side note- the wii motion controls for that game were amazing. At the end of the game my arm was actually sore from the workout the final boss gave me. In pokemon, you can play it pretty casually or you can take it to a competitive level. You figure out individual values and train your pokemon accordingly. There's strategy, math, and a good deal of patience that's required to breed the right combatant. In suikoden, there are TONS of puzzles and the game is dictated by your choices. You have to learn what to do in dueling situations, there's strategy during the full scale armies where you are in charge of several units and territories, and there are easter eggs that you have to hunt and put together to get the full story of the game. Where sports work the body, games can and do work the mind.
Take five minutes and look up theories on youtubes. We go beyond the confines of the game and really work on understanding the mechanics of the games we play. We look at the geography, we do math to figure out the speed that sonic runs at, we come up with complicated philosophical theories regarding timelines and character relations through these timelines, and we do all of it as a community.
We aren't kicking balls into nets or running down someone that's making a break for our goal, but we are still actually exercising something- it's just not our bodies. Our minds and our creative sides are being fed by the games we play. The games include artwork, music, and story. Those that aren't good at sports are normally good at less physical things like artwork, writing, and composing music. Games appeal to this crowd. Saying that the games aren't producing anything, that they're useless or that they're a waste of time and money is a little harsh. Like anything there is a bad side but like anything, it does have its redeeming factors. There's no difference between someone sitting on a couch trying to get through the water temple and someone sitting on a couch hoping that their team can make a comeback late in the game.
Sports motivate people to go out and get active.
Games motivate people to go out and get creative.
I think rather than putting eachother down we should appreciate that we have something that can open the lines of communication between perfect strangers and something that inspires us in some way. You grab your cleats and I'll grab my controller.
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