i think i'm finally ready for this take.

The answer is simple: bring back couch co-op

@mickgrahamedillane5459

5 жыл бұрын

Or make cooperative games. These games are made by companies, so they're meant to be addictive and increase profit, but theres no reason for that. We could make beautiful games that increase our connection to humanity, but we don't.

@transist0

5 жыл бұрын

@@mickgrahamedillane5459 I think one of the big ironies, given that Notch is such a reactionary fucktard, is that Minecraft is perhaps one of the greatest cooperative games ever produced.

@nohbuddy1

4 жыл бұрын

@SpatialPlatypus Split screen while sitting in person with another human being

@AwesometownUSA

4 жыл бұрын

Noh Buddy or like in GTA San Andreas when you get to one of the spots where somebody can jump in on the 2nd controller?

@JT-ho6rp

2 жыл бұрын

That or play a TTRPG.

I think christman is the one of the chapo with the higher hide power lever.

David Foster Christman

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

because he's so loquacious?

@TieDef

4 жыл бұрын

because he's about to kill himself?

@ConsciousnessisRough

3 жыл бұрын

@@Confucius_76 Because he's saying almost the same thing as Wallace.

People defining themselves through consumerism is nothing new. I remember thinking this about the youth subcultures of the 1960s and '70s which I didn't get to take part in because I was too young and I had no money - mods, rockers, skinheads, punks and two-tone ska skankers, which co-existed in my high school except for rockers, because their dads had graduated to cars and grown out of it, whereas mod was still a thing courtesy of Doctor Feelgood and The Jam. They were autonomous, in that they were invented autonomously in working class neighbourhoods and council housing estates, but out of commodities on the market, both clothes and records. Later youth subcultures (exception of Grunge, original movement pre-Smells Like Teen Spirit) have been entirely manufactured by the fashion and music industries, on a timetable, to sell product, especially through the proliferation of outdoor music festivals, once a DIY, amateur thing put together by fans and artists, now entirely a commercial proposition in themselves run as and by the music industry, such that now there aren't really discernable youth subcultures as such at all, and kids are listening to the same music as their parents and going to the same festivals and doing the same drugs. The generational divide I would argue has only just re-emerged, and it's a political and economic divide in relation to the debt-based economy, where the kids mark themselves out as a culture by chanting the name of Jeremy Corbyn, and Hallelujah about that. About gaming, yes, but why can't we subvert that? What I've been expecting for decades now is a lively samizdat of anti-capitalist, revolutionary games which while immersing players in virtual societies teach how to make revolution, how to network and educate and organise politically, and the kind of basic social skills which gamers tend to lack, in terms of the mechanics of how to read and respond to different kinds of people, hold conversations, talk to girls, engage with neighbours and whatever else. There have always been anti-system board games, going back to the precursor of Monopoly which was about teaching the injustices and destructive zero-sum nature of private property and land accumulation, and they continue to be made and sold. So now we have the phenomenon of interactive online gaming, which is such a powerful force, didactically and otherwise, perhaps perverting and destroying youth, why aren't there anti-system games in that format? Surely this is something Marxians and anarchists should be getting on with? Why aren't anti-capitalist coders assuming the role of Morpheus to reach into Skyrim and World of Warcraft and whichever to pull us out of our soparifics and recruit us? And why isn't it obvious that we should use games to recruit when the outside political and material world is increasingly feeling like a Walking Dead prequel story, as apocalypse marches ever faster toward our doors, of ever more transparently meaningless and desperate escapism and everyone cosplaying as people living in a world of unlimited merch collecting that isn't warming tangibly? The world outside the basement grows ever more frightening and stressful, but at the same time the very forms of escapism become ever more alienating as that escapism becomes shabby in the face of what is arriving. And what is there to tabletop rpg against that's more fantastical or dangerous than what we're really up against now?

@yam83

5 жыл бұрын

Fuck man, game developers aren't even unionized. We're being virtually enslaved by virtual fantasies produced by virtual slavery.

I’m sorry, but a lot of the people defending gaming are only doing it because it’s all they know. They literally cannot imagine pleasures outside of digitally blowing people’s heads off with a sniper rifle or driving a car, so someone not liking gaming does not compute to them. Gaming can be “art” or whatever, but I am certain that for like 70% of gamers it is nothing more than a cage. Gaming will always be secondary to the things that really matter in life.

@xaza8uhitra4

4 ай бұрын

this

@dedmin6119

3 ай бұрын

⬆️➡️⬆️⬆️⬆️

@Abcdefg-tf7cu

3 ай бұрын

"The only reason someone could disagree with me is that they are evil gaymers who just like murdering people"

@JamesHeller12

Ай бұрын

Brain dead take

@neomcdoom

Ай бұрын

@@JamesHeller12 I stand by what I said here. I am someone who games relatively often, and I think for a lot of people in gen z grew up thinking gaming = fun. But there are so many things that are so much more fun. Driving a car can be fun, talking to your friends can be fun. It took me a long time to realize life can be fun

Really obvious common sense stuff here, but also brutally nessecary.

I agree with a lot of this, but rocket league is also really fun

@manysnakes

5 жыл бұрын

He basically acknowledges as much when the host asks if one can just play a video game and have it be a fun bit of distraction for a few hours, and he agrees. The conversation isn't whether or not playing a few hours of video games is bad, it's whether the identity of the "gamer" in our modern culture in inherently pernicious.

@airex12

5 жыл бұрын

@@manysnakes yeah, that's absolutely true

@SlimeSeason4

5 жыл бұрын

Agreed, all I do is listen to chapo while I play rocket league muted

@assvibes3866

4 жыл бұрын

Moving shadow

what does going outside and learning about other humans even get you? ceasar got stabbed to death when HE did that instead of just staying home. no thanks

Matt's got it wrong. As a middle-aged person who has been a part of "nerd" culture for decades before there was a thing called "gaming", I think that Matt vastly overestimates the role that video games themselves have in creating reactionary nerd culture. IMO, the biggest difference between the modern gamer and their 70s-80s nerd counterpart is that the nerd of yesteryear was isolated or only had a small circle of nerd friends. They were just as engrossed in fantasy and escapism and were just as alienated from social interaction and "the world" as the modern gamer and just as many of them ended up reactionary. The difference was, they didnt have an online community where they could congregate and share these perspectives. They certainly had no ability to make their collective voice heard. If there's a medium to blame, it's the internet, not video games.

I can't say I either fully agree or disagree with Matt. My question / objection is: to what extent is there a direct causal relation and not a mere correlation or even reverse causal direction? i.e. are people isolated and alienated because they play videogames or is it that given the levels of alienation and isolation videogames are a perfect form of entertainment? couldn't the same be said about people who binge watch netflix series or anime?

@rbynam9055

4 ай бұрын

Yeah I think that part is completely ignored, at least in this little conversation, but towards the end of the video (-2-51) the other guy brings up a point I think unfairly shut down, to me it seemed like he was gonna basically say, all the negative aspects of gaming don't need to be a thing, it's not a rule of the universe that things are the way they are ect.

i agree but I also play games for 8 hours a day

I generally agree with Matt is saying but he is kind of wrong when he says that gaming is the most consumerist and monotone art we produce. That's is certainly right for the most mainstream stuff, but there are plenty of games where you can find real challenging art. Games like Braid, Journey, Undertale, Papers Please, Her story and many others. He says "when you can turn on TV and see real challenging art", yeah that's true for TV, but that actually does exist in gaming and they get fair bit of recognition. But since he does not play games, he only gets in contact with most mainstream of mainstream games like Fortnite or Battlefield.

@16cammac

5 жыл бұрын

I'd say Journey and Braid are analogous to middlebrow TV

@HarryS77

5 жыл бұрын

I filled a small notebook with observations about Paper's, Please. So many wonderful things in that game. I loved how the game's mechanics, such as they are, exist to make you feel drudgery, the too small desk, the endless changes of rules, the stamp tray which doesn't come out far enough to reach the passport at its default place of rest, so you have to waste valuable seconds dragging it over slightly...all these little mounting inconveniences and inefficiencies; and the upgrades that do nothing except waste your money and cause your family members to die. Or how the lethal gun is easier to access than the nonlethal one. Or the way the border crossers step into the light, become human, subjected to your scrutiny, and whether you approve them or not, whether they're just someone who got lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy or a terrorist strapped with explosives, when they exit your booth, they just become another anonymous silhouette. Or how people change because of age or even something like sex reassignment, and you're forced to judge them based on their official identity printed on the documents rather than as the person you see before you. It really shows how bureaucratic procedure-any procedure that attempts to mediate between social norms (which usually translates to some form of hierarchy or domination) and complete strangers-encourage or even necessitate ascribing to people the worst possible motivations. I remember having to get a parking permit. I'd lost my ID and was waiting for a new one. I'd lived at the same residence for years and years, but when I went to get the permit they said they couldn't give it to me without an ID because I 'might be trying to counterfeit them or sell them.' What!? How did that become the most likely motivation for my being there? Well, that's similar to what you experience as the player in PP. You're just doing your job, and besides, that guy might be a terrorist etc. Her Story was another clever, under-appreciated game. Glad to see it get some notice. Another game I'd add to your list is LISA. If you haven't played it yet and can deal with some really fucked up themes, give it a shot. Like David Lynch directing Mad Max, and controls like an old JRPG. Video games as a medium have enormous potential to be exploited for mindless entertainment-but also for real creativity. It just depends on what the artists and art-seekers put into the experience.

@SlimeJime

5 жыл бұрын

@@16cammac Agreed, and I don't think Undertale or Papers Please are "challenging" either. They have the same kind of moral-decisionmaking that other video games do, where players are given a objectively good and objectively bad choice, and morality is reduced to performing a single action. And the moral questions raised are shallow, or nonexistent. Undertale attempts to ask the player to judge their own morality, for being willing to kill fictional characters, but there's no equivalency whatsover between fictional characters and real people, and the question becomes very irrelevant to any context outside of the game. Papers Please's moral conflict revolves around the willingness of the player to become a part of bureaucratic violence in order to support their family. The most that can be said of the game is that it illustrates well the tension between the function of a modern, rules-based bureaucratic state, vs. its ability to degrade sympathy, morality, and humanity in forcing its members to follow those rules. Unfortunately, this is a concept that was laid out by Max Weber, a full 100 years ago! Calling it challenging is just misguided, government employee in 2018 could tell you how a bureaucracies adherence to rules is both its functional strength and its moral/effective weakness. These are not bad games for it, but these are just not very important questions. +Harry Stoddard Paper's Please does indeed convey its setting and tone well, through both the aesthetic and interactive mechanics of the game, but that's a limited achievement imo, and we're left with something a little bit empty afterwards. I find Her Story more satisfying, but it's achievements are still mostly limited to an exploration of gaming's own mechanics.

@aboxintheblack9530

5 жыл бұрын

Slim Jim Soma and Fallout New Vegas are pretty good at developing morally ambiguous situations.

@yellowbeard1

5 жыл бұрын

Those games are nowhere near as popular as Fortnite, FIFA, and Call of Duty. Matt does not know about these because he only knows of the most popular games

Since watching various twitch streamers I have become quite concerned about the political culture that is developing over there. People have really strong ideas from watching various different commentators, but no underlying framework and thus, no way of putting it all together. There are people who want a strong welfare state, but have white nationalist sympathies People that talk about anarcho syndicalism, whilst at the same time advocating free markets. People who are pro lgbtq, but want to throw all immigrants out of the country. It is terrifying.

Of all people it is Brent Berry an NBA journeymen who said it the best, to paraphrase he said he is always going to “peruse his best, knowing he will never reach it”. It is like the speed of light the best is always alluding us, but we must always be reaching for it. That is religion that is art forcing us to reach towards the light of the sun, yesterday is gone, and so we should nourish ourselves with the enrichments of the present and the truth of tomorrow.

i would argue 80% of gaming and gamers has absolutely nothing to do with art or art appreciation. the majority of these mass streamed games are basically copy paste and could potentially be created by ai at this point. copy rinse repeat, new colors new maps go hog wild. it’s mindless multiplayer consumption like Matt said

Robert Nozick pleasure Experience Machine comes to mind.

This is why Matty's my boy.

Could the criticisms of 'gamer' be applied to things like being a "sports guy"? People literally have been beaten to death and maimed because of sports riots, hooligans, etc. I'd like to know Matt's ideal goal about this. What is the "physical interaction" he means? Friends don't just stare at one another and talk about nothing.

3 жыл бұрын

Correct, which is why i think that what Matt talks about is only correct in the context of talking about gaming addicts or just people who use it as an escape, which if you were unaware, is probably the majority of gamers. I don't think that what he talks about really applies to someone who plays a game for one hour of the day, once every few days. I think that this only really applies to people who do use gaming as a replacement for social contact. Like the types to whom hanging out means playing a game of [ *insert contemporary trendy game here* ] (just making my comments time proof plus im a boomer when it comes to gaming and only respect old games, really)

@ongobongo8333

3 жыл бұрын

@ but that's not the minority

3 жыл бұрын

@@ongobongo8333 What's not the minority? Casual gamers are like 80% of all of the gamer market, at least. The only part of the market that's really filled with enthusiasts/addicts are teenage white boys or adult white failsons, but like even though they are incredibly visible, they're very much a minority in every sense of the word. And they're like the main group Matt talks about. Most people, i mean me included, play video games occasionally, play them to relax, and don't take them seriously. I mean like i play one game of AOE2 every few days or so, that or some Sims 3, which like i really don't find any of Matt's descriptions of losing yourself in gaming very relatable. Like to me it really is equivalent to playing chess or tennis or whatever. And like i mostly agree with Matt, i just really really don't think that gaming as a concept is as much of a problem as he tends to see it as. I mean for a failson white guy, if gaming wasn't available he would either be a book nerd or he would be smoking crack in his house, 0% chance that they would be plotting revolution instead of gaming in this alternate universe without gaming. Gaming addiction is literally just the exact same as any addiction. And it's just as bad as any escapism.

@atripentertainment3329

3 жыл бұрын

@ they might make up a minority of people that play games but if someone identifies as a "gamer" they're already too far gone

I’ve got my car and my tv, what should I care about you and your fun?

At best, video games are no different from any other artform for all of the positive or negative baggage that has depending on how you view art as a commodity. At worst, video games stifle human connections and create a reactionary and insular culture that worships consumption of endless re-releases. Technology isn't alienating on it's own right. The application of technology certainly can be.

@gamerknown

4 жыл бұрын

05:45 this is recapitulating the new left anti-drug arguments (see Christopher Hitchens)

@tryfryingmikejones

2 жыл бұрын

i mean they spend too much of their life engaged with something that does abso. nothing for their societies.

Great upload. Subbed.

Why did the host not bring up to Matt fighting game tournaments, for example, where people meet up in the real world and connect in a way they might not otherwise, if not fueled by gaming?

@gum8191

4 жыл бұрын

Because the people who've ever been to a game meet, tournament, con, etc. accounts for less than 0.001% of all gamers?

@JamesHeller12

Ай бұрын

@@gum8191no

I can't quite hear what he's saying, but around 11:00 they mention what sounds like "the devordian critique of modern society" can anyone parse that out or let me know what they're referencing? I'd be interested to read more on it

@ownageintheface

4 жыл бұрын

could be wrong but pretty sure its debordian as in guy debord, referencing specifically his work "society of the spectacle"

It's not just video games that give you a pseudo sense of accomplishment, all games have that

Everything can function as a simulation, not just electronic environments. Those huge dopamine hits and the feedback loop mechanisms that work to engross you in a hobby aren't exclusive to gaming. In heavy metal subculture there are people whose entire lives revolve around collecting albums, going to festivals, writing reviews, posting on forums, drinking with other people like them, and so on. Those are "real" interactions, but they are just as detached from the real world as playing WoW is. The same goes for something like football hooligans. Or meatheads who do powerlifting and/or bodybuilding. You simulate self-actualization by hoarding CDs, by feeling like you achieved something every time your team wins or you beat up the fans of the other team in the back alley, by squatting 405, whatever. I don't think those stimuli are any less potent than the dopamine hits of playing video games, and I don't think those interactions are any more authentic, or constitutive of self-actualization.

I don't understand how technology in itself is inherently alienating? Like, the introduction of machinery to the textiles industry in England wasn't opposed by the luddites just because it was inherently alienating, it was because the benefits of increased production weren't distributed evenly, it massively fucked over artisans and smaller holders in favour of those who could afford the investment for the machines, Matt's saying that socialism harnesses the inherent alienation of technology towards a productive end for humanity, but without exploitative structures, why would that alienation be present if the social structure surrounding it wasn't there? In a world where automation isn't an inherent threat to your job, and by extension survival, why wouldn't it be good beyond the temporary displacement of people who'd want a new line of work?

Of course technology and machines have both a liberatory and an oppressive capacity (which itself is a very dialectical notion). To put it in explicitly Marxist terms, it is the development of technologies (of the forces of production) which takes us from an initial state of classlessness to the brutal hierarchy of slave society, but it is that same technological development which also drives us from slavery to feudalism to capitalism and finally back to classlessness and eventually communism. Any attempt to paint technology as broadly good or bad is a dramatic oversimplification- that’s how you get fascistic futurism of the sort they talked about, and that’s how you get primitivist Ludites. These are both reactionary positions. The reality is that the same hammer can be used to build a house, or it can be used to bludgeon someone to death if they disobey you. As Matt more or less got at, it is only by recognizing this dual potential for what it is and implementing technologies in a social context in which they can be implemented intentionally towards their good potentials that they can lead to the good outcomes. And that only be done under circumstances if classlessness since, within the contradictory social relations of a class society, the machines are literally pitted against the workers. Personally I would add that the machines must be controlled by the workers themselves (either directly through their workplaces or through a democratic public system), or else you get the same kinds of contradictions emerging out of the re-created class divide between the elite who controls the state (and thereby the productive technologies, in the case of a publicly-owned economy) and the workers.

As a gamer who is probably smarter than most gamers (gamers tend to be quite reactionary), I agree with this take. In general technology will not save us, will not improve our social relations and will not stop capitalism. Fun has a role to play in utopia, but stress relief also has a role in dystopia.

Unfortunately, video game studios are like any other capitalist enterprise: their ultimate goal is not to create something that challenges convention or established structures of power. If they do, then more often than not it is a byproduct of an independent studio trying to create a niche market for itself among larger behemoths, who have already discovered the tried and trued formula of “give the people what they want.” (Ie, give the people what you’ve trained them to want.) The difference is that most game studios are more openly contemptuous of their target audience than even film production companies or book publishers; no other artistic enterprise infantalizes and patronizes their consumer base to the extent that game devs do. They look at their clientele like pigeons inside a Skinner box; every core game design engineered to give that endorphin rush in response to certain actions. Part of that is a legacy of gaming in the West having once been marketed almost exclusively towards children, (and to adolescent boys in particular) a habit it never really grew out of. But also its because that model generates profit. And sadly, not only do consumers respond to it but openly embrace it in a way that’s not entirely self-satirizing or ironic (cue the popular Phillip J. Fry meme). That’s not say that one cannot have transcendent experiences gaming, but much of what you are consuming is following a market-tested formula designed to keep you engaged (and to certain extent unaware) rather than to challenge you intellectually or further develop your understanding of the world outside of it. Because to understand the world as it is, now, this very moment, is to experience pain and disappointment. And that’s the very LAST devs thing want to put in their games, because those are the things that are hardest to sell. My only advice is don’t let gaming become your life. Try to experience the world more through other mediums or through personal interaction with it. Don’t let your reality be circumscribed to that narrow digital space; become a connoisseur of ALL art forms and pass times.

Nobody has ever played a game and not realized they were playing a game. Debord's critical formation, however, and especially his supposedly marxist definition of alienation, *requires* that supposition as something that really happens to people. It also, unfortunately, allows for a petty definition of ideology where false consciousness is always someone else's problem. And that's just never going to be politically mobilizing. If the ideology of gaming actually worked in the way Christman is theorizing nobody would ever have anything to complain about with respect to the "gamification" of everyday life. The critical usage of that signifier wouldn't exist. We'd all just be cultural dupes.

Every argument against Matt is just “but mah vidya doe” The thing is tho the longer your response the more pathetic it is

Why does mat sound a but waste manz

man what a vapid conversation. he's usually interesting to listen to but this is just acerbic.

i disagree with Matt's assessment of gaming as an individual fantasy. These are universal products that produce universal experiences that we can all commonly refer to. Indeed that is the best part of the medium- commonality of shred experience. Why are things like let's plays or pro gaming popular? Because we all share the same game yet experience it differently and want to see those different experiences reflected. You cannot simply sit in a single dark room and enjoy a game. You must have a community of people with shared experiences who can reflect back at you.

@gum8191

4 жыл бұрын

People watch Let's Plays because it tricks their brains into thinking they have people over. It's the desire for connection rendered passive, familiarized, and socially safe, like a peep show.

What about the spontaneously formed communities that came from gaming? The clans in WoW. Team chat in shooter games? People streaming their games and interacting with their streamers? Gaming conventions?

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

@@Cyclopsvision14 so a community is only a community if they meet physically? What about gamers who meet up irl? And gaming conventions

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

@@Cyclopsvision14 what do you mean by that?

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

@Garrett Paul but surely the purpose is also to meet other gamers and make friends with them?

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

@@Cyclopsvision14 what if you're playing a multiplayer game? Their actions affect your gaming experience in real time.

@Confucius_76

5 жыл бұрын

@@Cyclopsvision14 so what? You're still interacting with other people

Gaymen

Today I learned that Matt is the worst and least relatable Chapo host

@dude555413

5 жыл бұрын

you just found out?

@mickeysmythe1403

5 жыл бұрын

More like the best and most relatable.

*Google* "gaming podcast" aah here's one that looks neat *5 minutes later* 🙄*Google* "non-communist gaming podcast"

@cartercartercartercar

5 ай бұрын

*podcasts that tells me i buy all the correct products and have all the correct opinions

@berdyderg900

4 ай бұрын

Communism is the only hope for humans not nuking each other in the next couple decades, you cannot base a world economy on having infinite growth on a finite planet. We are fucked as it stands but at least you get nazi gaming podcasts.