Bang Your Head

Although this particular topic has been blogged about and commented on ad absurdum, I thought I would give a stab at arguing with a few of you who seem to have nothing better to do than complain about a few of us.

I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday with a few friends of mine, when the subject of getting together for a “Rock Band” night was discussed. For those of you who don’t know what “Rock Band” is, you might want to consider yanking your ill informed head out of the sand for a few minutes to glance around at the culture surrounding you. For those of you who know the game, and maybe, have played it a few times, can relate to someone posing the statement that was posed to me.

“I’m opposed to that game! I play the guitar, and it doesn’t make sense to me, why won’t people just pick up an instrument and play?”

For those of you who have posed this argument in Internet forums and amongst your friends, I suggest that you not only find more interesting things to argue about, but let it go. The game isn’t going away any time soon, you aren’t going to convince anyone not to buy the game in lieu of an actual guitar, drum set, or microphone. Besides, you are missing the point of video gaming entirely.

Gaming, like any form of entertainment, is a mode of escapism. It is a way for us normal, everyday plebes, to experience things that we normally wouldn’t experience. In other words, entertainment, in all of its forms, is a channel to live out our own personal nerdish fantasies, without the messiness of things like shark bites or prison sentences.

In the case of “Rock Band”, we get to pick up and play a guitar, drums, or microphone without the complete embarrassment or frustration of incompetence though six months of practice, lessons, DVD’s of Esteban, and sour versions of “Three Blind Mice”. It’s simply a grown up version of ‘let’s pretend’, especially for some of us who might just be musically retarded (me), to the point where even watching colored bars scroll down the screen and banging on a fake drum set is an impossible task. (I have had the game since launch, and as of yet, am still unable to complete any tracks on the drums - on easy). I’m not a musician, I know this, I’ll never be a musician, I have no inclination to put the time and money into something that I will suck at for years, and I’m totally ok with this fact.

Neglecting the fact that the game is, in fact, inspiring people to go out and pick up real instruments, the argument doesn’t make any sense when held up as analogous to other examples. Military shooters such as “Call of Duty 4” and “Rainbow Six: Vegas” are as popular, if not more so, than games like “Rock Band”. These games are reality-based simulations, situations that are more plausible and easier to experience in the real world than starting a successful band from scratch. I play and enjoy the hell out of these games often, but I have yet to hear anyone suggest that I should join the military and ‘experience what it’s like first hand’.

Simply put, these games we play are experiences, but not necessarily things to which we want to devote a good portion of our time or lives. We want to see, feel and enjoy the exciting and fun things we see in them, without having to make certain sacrifices. This is the fundamental reason we play games, watch movies, TV, and read pieces of fiction.*

One thing that I find as troubling as the statement in whole is the choice of wordage used. I understand ‘not liking’ a fictional piece of entertainment, I even understand ‘hating’ a movie, but being ‘opposed’ makes no sense, especially in this particular context. Being in opposition of something implies that it makes a statement or takes a position that you are adamantly against or find offensive. Unless there is another cut of the game with cut scenes that make political or moral statements that I am not aware of, there’s nothing in the game to oppose. Saying that you are opposed to a video game that makes no statements, implicit or implied, is akin to saying that you are opposed to a color. You may think that hot pink is horrific (and you should), but no one is going to protest.

For those of you who think that people who play “Rock Band” or “Guitar Hero” should just go out and get an instrument and learn to play it if we want to know what it’s like, I suggest taking a look at your shelf. Gloss over your DVD’s, books and games to see which experiences you simulate or passively watch from the comfort of your living rooms. Count the number of these things that you can do in real life, but are extremely difficult to accomplish.

For those of you who enjoy these games, I only have three words…























*Exceptions, of course, would include bowling and fishing games, which are just plain stupid.