Retro gaming
hello how are you. This is coming out of my mind as I write, and may not make much sense.
Next weekend I'm attending to a con.. a reunion... I don't know how you call these thematic meetings for nerdy people. Whatever, I'm not only going to attend, but I'm also helping with setting things up with other two friends. It is a Mega Drive oriented reunion, where we will play, talk about it, exchange MD items and cartridges, draw games and a fully working MD, and even a quiz show, which we will film, edit, and put on Youtube. I calculate something around 40 to 50 people there each day, mostly from São Paulo (where it will be held) and surroundings, but from several parts of the country too, as distant as if people from Houston, Michigan and Los Angeles were to fly to gather in Seattle. Just for fun!
I was invited for a lecture about structure of game narratives in this event, as it would take place along with some academic stuff in a college, but they cancelled it, and our convention will be independent (but I won't be able to do my presentation :^P).
Gaming is still viewed as a waste of time, a thing for kids only, at least in Brazil. If you state you love to play video games, people will think you are retarded or something. Games are not acceped as part of a mainstream urban culture - it is marginalized downright to the point where network play in LAN houses is a synonym to loafing and cyber crimes, and parents forbid their kids to go to such places. Parents that never played games enough (or at all) to understand how important and significant they are for psychic development, and will either demonize them, or use them to keep their kids under control with little parental effort and no criteria, and blame the games when their kids go apeshit. But I can't blame them, ignorance isn't a sin.
These people going to São Paulo are about my age, around 30 years old, many of the younger. Sad thing is that most of the aforementioned parents, who have kids that may be reaching 10 years old now, are around my age too. Makes me sad to see how many of them have let the magic vanish by embracing a life where games are only for kids or losers. I feel pity for them. Actually, I feel the same for every adult that can't feel anything about their old toys, and let shit like socially accepted behavioral patterns and thoughts and clothes and jobs and what people think about things that shouldn't be of their concern take over their minds in a way they lose the capacity to understand how a child feels when they play some random Mario game. I'm using video games just as a familiar example, but you can see it happening to board games, sports, music, dreams, food. People let their lives lose its original colors over stuff that shouldn't be so important. I see parents that don't interact with their kids because they are incapable of being a big kid. I'm 31, and when I talk to my neighbor's daughter, who's 3, I remember, or try to remember what I was like in thoughts, feelings and needs when I was her age (and I do! My brain is filled with my early life's memories as clear as if it happened last month), so I can take part on her games and fantasies. And when I do, I feel like I'm back from this boring life and I'm my true self again.
Next weekend I'm attending to a con.. a reunion... I don't know how you call these thematic meetings for nerdy people. Whatever, I'm not only going to attend, but I'm also helping with setting things up with other two friends. It is a Mega Drive oriented reunion, where we will play, talk about it, exchange MD items and cartridges, draw games and a fully working MD, and even a quiz show, which we will film, edit, and put on Youtube. I calculate something around 40 to 50 people there each day, mostly from São Paulo (where it will be held) and surroundings, but from several parts of the country too, as distant as if people from Houston, Michigan and Los Angeles were to fly to gather in Seattle. Just for fun!
I was invited for a lecture about structure of game narratives in this event, as it would take place along with some academic stuff in a college, but they cancelled it, and our convention will be independent (but I won't be able to do my presentation :^P).
Gaming is still viewed as a waste of time, a thing for kids only, at least in Brazil. If you state you love to play video games, people will think you are retarded or something. Games are not acceped as part of a mainstream urban culture - it is marginalized downright to the point where network play in LAN houses is a synonym to loafing and cyber crimes, and parents forbid their kids to go to such places. Parents that never played games enough (or at all) to understand how important and significant they are for psychic development, and will either demonize them, or use them to keep their kids under control with little parental effort and no criteria, and blame the games when their kids go apeshit. But I can't blame them, ignorance isn't a sin.
These people going to São Paulo are about my age, around 30 years old, many of the younger. Sad thing is that most of the aforementioned parents, who have kids that may be reaching 10 years old now, are around my age too. Makes me sad to see how many of them have let the magic vanish by embracing a life where games are only for kids or losers. I feel pity for them. Actually, I feel the same for every adult that can't feel anything about their old toys, and let shit like socially accepted behavioral patterns and thoughts and clothes and jobs and what people think about things that shouldn't be of their concern take over their minds in a way they lose the capacity to understand how a child feels when they play some random Mario game. I'm using video games just as a familiar example, but you can see it happening to board games, sports, music, dreams, food. People let their lives lose its original colors over stuff that shouldn't be so important. I see parents that don't interact with their kids because they are incapable of being a big kid. I'm 31, and when I talk to my neighbor's daughter, who's 3, I remember, or try to remember what I was like in thoughts, feelings and needs when I was her age (and I do! My brain is filled with my early life's memories as clear as if it happened last month), so I can take part on her games and fantasies. And when I do, I feel like I'm back from this boring life and I'm my true self again.