Time Magazine Angers Gamers

[Albion Knight]

Time Magazine recently published an Article on Halo, "The Man in the Mask" in which they made several derogatory comments (and a few inaccurate ones as well) about the gamers and games industry as a whole

The Escapist : News : Time Bullies "Lonely, Alienated" Gamers



I read the article hear and I think that a lot was taken out of context and made to look like a slam. The use of the term ghetto was a poor choice but it is true that most of the world doesn't see Video Games as Art. Most of the world is wrong, but that's what they think. It may take another thirty years until video games are seen as art but they will be.

The Man in the Mask - TIME

[Angel]

Read that earlier today...wasn't a big hit with Halo fans to say the least...

[Orpheus Lupus]

I still find it funny that the cover said "Thinking Man's Shooter" but apparently the inside said something else entirely. :-P

[Frostmourne]

I am a little annoyed that Bungie is letting places like 7 Eleven make Halo 3 cups to (I think) Burger King doing crap. What ever happened to just a game? Is Bungie that desperate for money, or is it just Microsoft (probably microsoft), or the sponsors? I don't know the answer, but so far I have only pre-ordered Halo 3...I haven't even had the slurpee.

I mean, Halo 3 looks like a good game, but it's not big to everyone.

Needless to say, Time is wrong in many ways. I bet Bungie just loves to make games, rather than bring in truck-loads of cash.

I also believe game companies and console companies should stop focusing on beating the other guy and start focusing on a good game, . I mean, the creator of video games (William Higinbotham) didn't make games for money, he created the first video game for passion of what he did.

Though, companies like bioware, lionhead, bungie, activision, valve, rare, id, etc etc shine the light on the narrow road of innovation.

In summary of the mess up there, I have no f***in clue.

[Hexadecimal]

that was so bogus

the idea that a multi billion dollar industry, spanning the globe, nations, ethnicities and generations, made up of hundreds of millions of people could be considered a "ghetto subculture" is laughable at best...
from a source as credible as Time Magazine, one would expect them to have their facts more together than that...
phrasing it in that manner is akin to comparing the gaming industry to a passing fad like pet rocks, rather than a strong, decades long established industry that is helping to drive the economy of nations like mine.
for shame, Time... for shame

[HodgePodge]

*clubs Time Magazine over the head with a large, pointy, rusty object*

[Albion Knight]

Hasn't the PS2 Sold like 200 million copies or somthing like that?

[FableFreak]

I never could stand Time magazine... they actually tricked me into thinking Stephen Colbert was born in France and worked in a cheese factory. Needless to say I burned all the copies I could find.

[Dark Drakan]

With comments like this he clearly has no idea about games or the gaming culture...

The Master Chief is not an Italian plumber whose girlfriend has been kidnapped by a gorilla. His story is rich and complicated in ways that we're not used to in video games.

Most games these days have rich, complicated and thought out stories.

There's an opportunity beyond video games, too, for Halo to break out of the ghetto and become a mainstream, mass-market, multimedia entertainment property.

It already is 'mainstream' and a mass market tool...

There's an opportunity, in other words, to decloak the Halo subculture, to turn it from invisible to visible.

Not that the Bungies care. They don't need to legitimize Halo by associating it with other, more respectable media. They sell enough units and make enough money. They're happy in their invisible geek ghetto.

Halo is by no means invisible and since when have games been disreputable media and in an invisible geek ghetto...

[Albion Knight]

Originally Posted by Dark Drakan

With comments like this he clearly has no idea about games or the gaming culture...



Most games these days have rich, complicated and thought out stories.



It already is 'mainstream' and a mass market tool...



Halo is by no means invisible and since when have games been disreputable media and in an invisible geek ghetto...

You're right that he doesn't know much of anything about the gaming community but for a large portion of the population the same can be said of them. I'm speaking about those thirty and over. To them a Video game is Pac-Man, Asteroids and Maybe Donkey Kong. They have no clue how truly awesome games are today. I was showing my wife's Uncle the opening scene in BioShock and he was just Blown away. He honestly thought that I was trying to trick him. I think he said wow about twenty times. The image of a Gamer isn't very good in these circles and I'd wager a guess that the bulk of the reader of Time are in that category.

[Orpheus Lupus]

Ah, joy. It's fun to be talked down to. That's almost the way my mother talks about my life XP