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Not only am I taking two classes with heavy workloads, I also have to put up with a narrow-minded tard in one of my classes who has pretty much gone the “gamers are pathetic and ignorant” route.   Basically it started off with my professor asking us to discuss a recent Second Life article – it’s a Collection Development class – and she asked if libraries would consider cataloging and organizing the information in Second Life; apparently there’s poetry collection going on in there.  Anyhoo – here’s the ensuing dialog.

Dude: This is not to say that there is not some potential value in the creativity (and connectivity) of Second Life, but to use it as a creative outlet seems like a pretty hollow endeavor. I have been in classes in which students introduce themselves online as “I live here (x), I am studying (y), I work for (z). My hobby is gaming.” Apart from the fact that real life has plenty of things that should keep one busy, it is a pretty pathetic indication of the state of our culture when people start valuing the virtual over the real.

Miriella:  People spend hours and hours of their time dedicated to creating videos, music, movies, art and drawings to these games.  No different from other creative people who are passionate about books and other media.

I’m gonna go ahead and put my two cents in, I am one of those people who introduce themselves with “My hobby is gaming.”  Yep, hardcore gamer.  You’ll find me attached to a computer almost 24/7, and a good portion of the time when I’m not at work or sleeping is playing video games.  What’s the difference between going to the movies, going to the bar, going to the mall, blah blah, and going online and doing online gaming?  As far as I’m concerned, online gaming is a FAR more social interaction than any of those other places – and strangely enough, I find that I’m spending far less, since I don’t spend $10 on a 2 hour movie, and a $200 tab at the bar for one night, I spend $15 a month on a game I can enjoy at my leisure.  And I can watch those same movies on DVD while playing the game.  I have friends online that I’ve never personally met but are closer to me than any of my real life friends – the ones I’ve met online are the first ones I call when I need someone.  Go figure.  And it’s not like we’ve blocked out the entire rest of reality, we still DO go out and enjoy “the real world” – just not as often.

If that sounds pathetic to you, then yes, I am a pathetic soul, but quite frankly, something must be right with these online gaming social interactions if 7 million people are registered for World of Warcraft.  When else do you get to meet 7 million people at once? Gaming is a new social outlet – one that libraries must keep up on – and having a presence in Second Life can only do us good.  It’s a new trend and I don’t see it going away any time soon.

Dude:  I am not saying there is no value in what people do in Second Life, I am saying that anyone who can afford the time, effort, and hardware required to participate in Second Life is placing the virtual above activities in “meat space” which might be more valuable, either to them, or to society. I have been in run-down areas of Mexico City, the West Bank,
Istanbul, Nairobi and even within blocks of my house in Philadelphia where considering something like Second Life to be remotely related to reality is at least irrelevant if not laughable, or even offensive.

(Six days later):

You might read my second post as well (below), for further elaboration on my position. For now, I will let some dead white guys do the talking. If you have never read these quotes, perhaps you should look into Project Gutenburg, or even check a book out of a library instead of playing games.

“You’ll never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” H.L. Mencken

“There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side.[Note 2] There is another view of life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that “the crowd” received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.”
Soren Kierkegaard

“The common curse of mankind, – folly and ignorance”. – Shakespeare. Troilus and Cressida (Act II, Scene III)

I do believe I’ve just been insulted several times over.  I wasn’t gonna go down the petty e-peen route with him, since he clearly has no intention of listening to what people have to say.  What’s the f’ing difference between enjoying a video game, enjoying a book, or enjoying a piece of art – maybe even one at his precious little art gallery he co-manages (in his introduction)?  I certainly hope he raises his daughter to be more open minded.  Here’s my final response, which is really just in defense of libraries and video games on a whole. Oh yeah and I threw in a quote too, for Mr. Quote man, just to show that Hooked on Phonics wurked for me. 

Miriella: I am simply going to remind everyone (without blatant insults to an entire community) that as librarians, we need to keep our eyes and our minds open to the new trends and methods of communication that technology has to offer, be it IM reference or having a MySpace page for the library.  Library and Web 2.0 is all about putting the user in the driver’s seat – and us being accessible to our patrons.  If that means putting ourselves up in Facebook, on MySpace, meeboing it up, creating a presence in Second Life, then so be it.  It’s not your old library anymore!  My library offers more than just books, there’s also programs for all ages and an art gallery that hosts a new exhibit every other month.  Why not add video games to the mix?  Video games are literally books, music, movies and art rolled into one compact package – Star Wars Galaxies, for example.  Everything you’ve seen, read, heard, and ever known about Star Wars, you can jump in that world and “live” it!  (You can go and kill a Gungan, if Jar Jar annoyed you enough in that first movie.)  Trying to add video games and video game programs to a library and trying to reach out to this particular group is not an outrageous idea.  After all, 217 million gamers can’t be wrong.  And video game sales are set to surpass music sales in 2007.

By the way, I’ll be off to Chicago from Saturday to Tuesday at ALA’s Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium to learn more about gaming and the positive impact it has for libraries. 

Cheers all.

“It is grossly selfish to require of one’s neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he can not think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.”  (Oscar Wilde) 

Hopefully I did gaming *some* justice and made some of you proud – I rarely ever get into it and start arguing or defending myself as lots of you know, so my responses are nowhere near as strong and eloquent as what your responses would be.  But I tried. And it was actually kind of exhilarating.