Q&A: TonyLB

[TonyLB]

Do you believe that most traditional gaming runs successfully, counter to the theories expressed in GNS and/or The Big Model?

Yes, I do.

I don't have personal evidence to constitute any proof about "most" ... but, with no more proof than my optimism and the admittedly biased sample of what I hear on the internet, I believe that most of it runs successfuly.

I do have personal experience to say for sure that a lot of traditional gaming runs successfully ... which is a weaker statement, but one that I think still runs counter to any notion that traditional gaming is inherently broken.

[K Berg]

Tony,

Do you think anyone outside this forum, and by extension the SG forum as an involved part, cares about the war?

[Abyssal Maw]

Tony,

Do you think anyone outside this forum, and by extension the SG forum as an involved part, cares about the war?

And if the answer to this is 'no', can you explain just why it is they have been fighting so hard, even before this place existed?

[TonyLB]

Do you think anyone outside this forum, and by extension the SG forum as an involved part, cares about the war?

I don't think that very many people outside of this forum even know of the war in the way that it's understood here.  The phrase "swine" hasn't really ... y'know ... spread.  Only place I've seen it used outside of here is for jokes on SG.

I do think there are a few people who believe that there is an ongoing struggle, that people involved in it need to pick sides, and that doing damage to the "other side" is a valid way to try to benefit your own side.

A very, very few.  But you asked if anyone outside this forum cares, and I expect there are some folks who have come to the same idea, either by imitation or by inventing the notion independently.

And if the answer to this is 'no', can you explain just why it is they have been fighting so hard, even before this place existed?

Since my answer was far more "no" than "yes," I feel I should field this one as well.  There are many reasons why people put down other styles of gaming ... I'll highlight the one that I've been paying most attention to recently, though other folks might give you a different perspective (hey, you can ask Luke and Clash ... their Q&As are still active).

As a community, we're none of us terribly good at saying "Well, I don't really understand why people play Tuna Salad Adventures, but I unconditionally agree that it must be cool, because they can be seen to be having fun with it."  Both fans and skeptics want to analyze a game not on the basis of "Does it provide subjective value to the people who like it?" but rather on the basis of "Does it provide objective, provable value even to the people who don't care for it?"

Which is ... y'know ... wacky.  But there you are.  It seems to be the way we roll, in discussions.

When you're a fan, and you feel that people aren't recognizing the objective value of your game, a very obvious tactic is to argue that the game provides something that no other game provides.  I mean, that's a real good sign of its objective value, right?

Likewise, when you're a skeptic, and you feel that people are overblowing the value of a game, a very obvious tactic is to argue that the game cannot provide something that is objectively important.

And, in fact, both boil down to the same thing:  You say "This other game does not and can not do the cool stuff that my favorite game does."  You're trying to be positive, but in searching for some objective ground to stand on you end up running all the way across the spectrum to pure negative statements.

The more enthusiastic the fan, the more discerning the skeptic, the more vulnerable they are to being tempted to this particular fuck-up.

The more they feel themselves under attack (as, for instance, by other enthusiastic fans saying "Your favorite game does not and can not do the cool stuff that my favorite game does") the more vulnerable they are to being tempted to this particular fuck-up.

Corralled by the very structure of internet discussion boards into a few small pockets of community, enthusiastic fans of all stripes are constantly exposed to both of the above elements.  I'm not at all surprised that many of them (from all portions of the ideological spectrum) succumb to temptation and bash other people's games.  It's stupid, but I understand that there are many factors promoting that particular brand of stupidity.

If you're talking about something else ... if you feel strongly that there's some organized front of people who are acting deliberately in order to attack you from malice, rather than simply pissing you off by accident, then I can't help you.  That's an assumption I don't share.