NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Gaming is a Social Activity, Goddammit

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Gaming is a Social Activity, Goddammit

This last weekend, I delivered the keynote address at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle.

PAX is a huge gathering of gamers of all sorts: table top gamers, retro gamers, FPS gamers, handheld gamers, and every other type of gamer imaginable.

I was excited to deliver the keynote, but also terrified. The average age of a PAX participant is around 26, which is significantly younger than me at a crusty old 35.

I worked my ass off to come up with something relevant to this crowd, and settled on a brief history of arcade and console gaming before I hit the real point I wanted to make. You can hear the entire keynote (and read some of my personal highlights from PAX) here, but this excerpt illustrates one of the main points I wanted to make: gaming is a social activity, and gamers are not anti-social freaks.

When my Wii arrived, I named it “Wii-ton” (HA!) and from the moment I plugged it in and started playing Wii Sports with my kids, I felt the magical excitement and pure joy of playing a video game that I haven't felt since my brother and I spent every waking hour playing NES twenty years ago. I knew I’d come across something, uh, Revolution-ary in gaming. When we got Warioware, and had way too much fun making total asses of ourselves jumping around and posing, I understood why: the Wii is about playing games together. The reason I play Wii games more than anything other than Guitar Hero is that it’s a social gaming experience, just like playing Combat or Dodge’Em on Atari, all of those games on NES, or getting friends together for an MKIII or NHL Hockey session on Genesis.

This is the thing that drives me crazy when I hear Jack Thompson, Hillary Clinton, LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillio, or any other opportunistic, pandering, condescending politician lecture us about the alleged dangers of video games as some sort of anti-social activity. Gaming. Is. A. Social. Activity. Whether we’re playing an analog table top game in someone’s dorm room, a console game in our living rooms, or meeting up in an Online MMORPG with Leeroy Jenkins, we are engaging in an inherently social activity.

The only thing anti-social about gaming are those few people who are so perfectly described by John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, and while they’re annoying, at least they aren’t trying to tell us what we can and can’t play.

The social activity of gaming is part of the foundation of my outstanding relationships with both of my stepsons, too. When I bought Super Mario Bros. on Virtual Console, I asked my seventeen year-old stepson to play with me, eager to share with him some of the joy I'd experienced when I was just a few years younger than he is now.

As I entered level 1-4, he said, "Wil, remember: you have to jump over the chain of fire and onto the top of the box."

"Listen here, sonny," I said, in my best Very Grumpy Old Man voice, "I was playing this game when you were in short pants!"

"Yeah," he said, "so was I."

"That's funny," I said, "because it's true."

We’ve had countless moments like this one, whether he’s owning me in Guitar Hero or Halo, kicking my ass in MarioKart, or asking me to help him make MAME work on his MacBook. I’ve heard parents complain that video games are bad for kids, or harmful to their emotional development, but I’ve never seen a video game reduce a kid to tears as effectively as one of those screaming, hyper competitive little league dads. I’ve never known a kid to feel like crap about himself because he can’t win a Pokemon battle, but I’ve known plenty whose parents make them think they’re worthless because they don’t want to play football.

Speaking of parents and children and video games and opportunistic, pandering politicians: it’s none of their fucking business what I choose to play with my kids, and I wish they’d stop trying to tell me – and everyone else by extension – what my kids can and can’t play. I didn’t let my kids play violent or graphic games when they were too young to understand what the game was about because I’m a good parent who is involved in his kids’ lives, not because some idiot politician tried to score easy political points with the authoritarian 20 percenters who think censorship is totally awesome.

I wouldn’t let my kids play Vice City – even though I loved it and played it nightly for months after they’d gone to bed – because I felt it was too graphic and explicit for them. When my son turned 17, he wanted to know if he could play it, and called me while I was in Las Vegas for business to get permission.

"Mom wanted me to call you and find out if it was okay for me to play Vice City,” he said when I picked up the phone. “I think it's okay, because I'm seventeen and everything, but mom said she wasn't sure and wanted me to talk to you about it since you've played it."

Ryan is 18 and in college now, but even at 17 he was an incredibly mature and responsible person. I knew that he understood the difference between reality and video games, and I was actually more concerned about the time he spent playing them, than the content of the game.

"Well," I said, "you're seventeen, so you're able to buy yourself tickets to rated 'R' movies, and Vice City isn't much different than, say, Scarface or Goodfellas, but hold on a second and let me think about it, okay?"

"Okay," he said.

I put the phone to my chest, and explained the situation to my friends.

"Does he know that it's not okay to hit beat a hooker with a baseball bat and get his money back in real life?" my friend Ryan said.

"Good question," I said. I put the phone back to my ear and said, "I have to ask you one question: if you pick up a hooker in real life, is it okay to hit her with a baseball bat to get your money back after she gets out of your car?"

"Well, since hookers are empty shells and not real people," he said, "then yes. Yes. It's okay to whack her with a baseball bat."

I relayed this to the table and added, "I think he's mature enough to handle Vice City."

"Tell him that he he also has a future career in Hollywood," Ryan said.

That was a year ago, and even though he played all the way through the game, he never did whack a hooker, or do a drive by, or blow up a mall, or go for an INSANE STUNT BONUS by jumping over a canal in a stolen car. He did, though, get emotionally invested in the characters and their stories. He was sad when the game was over, because he wouldn’t get to spend any more time with them.

I had a similar reaction when I completed San Andreas. I knew these characters, I cared about these characters, and I was genuinely sad when their stories came to an end. I frequently feel this way when I finish a long novel, and occasionally at the end of a movie, but never so acutely as I did after over 100 hours of San Andreas. Whenever I hear one of these aforementioned douchebags pontificate about how dangerous and antisocial and devoid of redeeming qualities video games are, I get a little stabby, because these games we love to play are much, much more than the simplistic bloodbaths Mass Media likes to portray them as during May sweeps.

Just as the multiplayer games are social activities, so are the single-player games narrative works of art, and they should be treated that way.

And incidentally? They’re fun! And isn’t that what all this is about? We play games because they challenge us. We play games because they distract us. We play games because they give us bonding experiences with our friends and families. But most of all, we play games because they bring us joy.

Wil Wheaton says, "Don't be a dick!"

woot! nice article. i love video games and probably wouldn't play them nearly as much if it weren't for the social aspect of them.

Oddly enough, I brought up the social/anti-social question of gaming with my friends last weekend. You see, we were all home (or, at least, at my home) on a Saturday night. And by conventional wisdom, being home on a Saturday night is kinda pathetic and anti-social. But, at the same time, there were 8 of us. We were talking and laughing and drinking heavily. A couple of guys were sitting in front of computers and would point out interesting things that happened in the games, and the rest of us were crowded around a table slapping down chits and making general asses of ourselves.

It's just interesting how you can be in a situation where you're constantly interacting with other people, but still be classified as anti-social.

as always good stuff

I loved this article so much. I called up my gaming buddy in NY to read it to him. He loved it and gives you big props for it Wil. I greatly appriciate your views on it and whats even funnier about it is me and my friend in NY had a conversation about this exact same topic last month when he came to visit. Thank you for brightening up my day.

Thanks for putting this so succinctly Wil. I have a hard time explaining this to some of my peers when they find out my son has an Xbox (and I have a 360), and that we play games together. No Halo for him yet (he's 7), but Lego Star Wars, Sonic, and all of the Disney games have provided us HOURS of dad + son time in the last two or so years. He even spends time with his 3 year old sister trying to explain to her how the games work. My son is introverted by nature (because of a speech impediment and learning disability), but he's now making friends in the second grade *because* of the video games they have in common. So the social aspect of gaming is already helping my son have friends, and have a somewhat normal childhood. Take that, opportunistic, pandering politicians!

I was there, and it was a speech to be proud of. Touching on all of the best aspects of gaming, and incorporating a good deal of humour in as well.
And a special thanks to Wil for signing my DS

the guys at penny arcade have had a few thousand people on board with don't be a dick for a few years now. i think it's easily the most important rule out there.

i don't even know where to start on the rest of the article... it's so dead on. the best way i can describe a truly great story in a game, book or movie is that somehow, somewhere in the back of your head those characters really lived. when i camped out in front of Gothic for five days straight because i just had to know what the sleeper was and how my character's story would end, my character wasn't just some random collection of data moving around within a physics engine. he was, in the way of all characters that you truly immerse yourself in, alive. i wasn't sitting at a computer, i was living his life for those few days, and it boggles my mind that people could condemn an art form as rich as engaging as videogames.

with regards to the social element, i can attest to the fact that absolutely anyone who picks up a wiimote and plays wii sports will get into it. i'm an ex hardcore gamer, and i loved it instantly. my casual gamer friends loved it. total non-gamers (especially of the girlfriendish, why-do-you-play-those-things variety) will, after a short period of resistance, love it. getting people together to game was fun before, but it could only really happen with other gamers. now anyone who walks into a living room with a wii in it can join in on that experience.

I saw the speech at PAX it was amazing. If anything proves that gaming is a social event its PAX

Great keynote & great article!

I saw you at PAX when we were promoting our indie media site & you looked plenty bad ass & not nervous at all. I'd have said hi, but then I realized we were cutting off a line of hundreds of folks waiting to talk and get your autograph and photo and book which I really want to check out.

Way to be a voice of reason for gaming culture & I'm glad to see so many people are hearing it. The story about your stepson really brought the real issue home. Maybe those politicians will catch on someday too!

I think the Wii is the first game system to bring families together to play since maybe Pong. How many films can you say that about? Or CD's? Novels? The Wii is revolutionary and should be regarded as such.

I love you, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I had just listened to this last night when PA made a link to the mp3 of your keynote. Good stuff, man. Good stuff.

I've met all of my greatest and closest friends primarily through the shared love of videogames.

Three cheers for you, Wil.

nullnull

Yeah, my Dad likes to play Wii Sports any chance he gets. It's weird, given he used to give me a hard time about playing video games.

I'm more of a tabletop and online gamer than console jockey (though I do have a PS gathering dust around here somewhere), but I can't stress enough how true Wil's thesis is: gaming, whatever the sort, is a social activity. Outside of work, I can't think of any friends that aren't part of my gaming network or friends of people in that network, and it's been that way for years. The outsider might see it as some "sad fact of life," but it's really not.

Gaming gave me a social network that I would never have had otherwise, and almost certainly resulted in me getting into less trouble than I would have otherwise (and I'm even older than Wil ). It's a good thing, no doubt. Great article,

-TTm

I've often found single player games to be highly social.
I'd much rather a friend tell me what's going on or how i get through this "one" really difficult part, than spend my time looking up cheats and walk-throughs online.

Speaking of PAX:

Couple of my guildmates from World of Warcraft got this

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j284/DirtyTroy/Pax/DSC00796.jpg

(N.B. The sign reads "Tichondrius is not for you". It's our servers catch phrase.)

edit - damn image sizes...

I agree. Hell, I don't know how many times my mom and I cheered each other on as we hit level 10 in Tetris. One of my favorite methods of babysitting my cousin when he was very young was to break out the Super Nintendo and play some Baby Mario with him - he'd hold the second controller and I'd actually play, but he loved jumping over the monkeys. Hell, he's 11 now and if I were to call him up and simply say "Monkey monkey!" to him, he'd know why. We had a blast doing that together, and it's been a real treat to me to see him going from...

"Monkey monkey!!!" to ...
"Um, Andrea, can I please have the working controller?" to ...
"I can use the pistol to beat the Covenant over the head??? COOOL!"

Also, I think that the thing I love the most about these articles is how often it'll get other gamers to relate their similar experiences and emotions in regards to the topic. It feels very... connecting.

lol...that just killed me...awesome! Love your articles always man, and you have some great kids.

As I just put down my ps2 controller after a rousing couple of chapters in Devil May Cry 3 (which for some reason is way easier than I remember it being), I agree with this article wholeheartedly.

even if you play your games by your lonesome, whether due to living alone with your console/computer, varying work schedules, or whatever, all the cool little things that happened, all the tricks you pull, and the tight spots you get out of are never quite as fun until you tell a friend that plays, too.

even just sitting and watching others is nice. the people i used to share a house with and i had a tendency to sit around and watch one of us play and just BS and wisecrack the shit out of the person playing. it was some of our best socializing.

like the closest brush with video death i had in Metal Gear Solid II. it was at the part where you have to knock out the guy and use his unconscious body to open the sealed door while avoiding the other patrolling guards. after one mishap, i ran and hid in the lockers in the room just up and to the right of the room you need to get in. the two patrolling guards caught site of their sleeping companion and ran off in search of me. right to the room i was hiding in. they slowly pointed their guns and opened each locker while the little heartbeat noise of my character got louder and louder. finally, they came to the one i was in, by which time i was expecting death. they opened the door, and for a second just looked at me before i mashed the button to close it again, expecting them to spray the locker with bullets rather than bothering to open it again. except they didn't. they looked at each other, then turned around and went back to their patrol paths. the roommate watching me and i nearly shit ourselves, we laughed so hard.

I still remember a few years back, a couple of my friends and I would get together about once a month to slam red bull and burn through whatever cheesy, awesome survival horror game we could get our hands on. It was always a little odd, for a number of reasons. First, we were beer and whiskey drinkers nine times out of ten. Second, we never played single-player games together outside of this. And third, we would always be able to bring someone along who wasn't a gamer at all.

But everybody had a great time. It can't remember ever feeling like somebody was bored during this, we just kicked back and laughed at it like we would a really long, crappy horror flick -- unless it was our turn to decapitate some zombies, in which case, it was all about who could show off the most. I only regret this happened too early for Dead Rising and Bioshock.

Eternal Darkness, however, will always hold a very dear place in my sick, twisted heart. Every once and a while, I'll call one of these old friends and say "May the rats eat your eyes!!!!" It's still fucking hilarious.

Thank you wil, you are now officially my hero. Ive been playing video games since i was 4, and after 17 years of gaming (im now 21) i can proudly say i've never murdered anyone. Ive always believed violent video games were a good way to keep you from murdering someone, not making you want to murder. Violent games are a great way to vent frustration without ever actually hurting anything but pixels. One day, the assholes on TV and in congress(and Roger Ebert) will figure out that games can be an art form. Now, i know some games are just steaming piles of virtual crap, but i also am able to grasp how games can portray emotions,situations, and just pure visual eye candy that movies,books, and other forms of media cannot. For every 50 cent bulletproof, BMX XXX, and The Guy Game theres a Shadow of the Colassus, Okami, or bioshock. Alas, gaming still (to the mainstream) has that stigma of being only "for kids", when they can overcome that they may eventually realize the error of thier ways. One last thing to say...remember when your parents said that you were wasting you life by playing video games? How many of you managed to make something of yourself from you obsession with gaming? As i now sit on the cusp of the release of a game for the 360 arcade from a small gaming company that I myself am a part of, i can proudly say "Becase of gaming i now have a future! Take that parents!"
shameless plug: www.deviantware.net

: D

Gaming has been a way for me and my father to bond.ON my last trip to visit him we spent hours playing the wii together.

never got the whole "gaming is bad for kids" bullshit. There are no bad games just some that are not appropriate for children. And too many parents that want to have some one make the decisions for them of what to play instead of getting active in their children's lives and playing with them and seeing what they are playing.

And the hooker comment from your son cracked me up. What a smart ass