The Bigger Picture

Posted by: Portland

Graphics by Nick Lupo


The opinions expressed in this article are that of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of Chicago Chimera or its parent companies.

It's election time ladies and gents, one of the rare occasions when we take our minds off of the game controller, and onto the race for the presidency. This election could prove to be one of the most important election that we've had in decades, both candidates for the U.S. presidency running on a platform of change and reform. It's something that I find telling of our current generation. The number of young voters has been increasing dramatically as told by pewresearch.com:

"According to the NBC News exit polls, young voters' share of the Democratic electorate on Feb. 5 was higher in nearly every state for which a good comparison with 2004 is available.1 In all of the 2008 contests for which exit poll data are available, young people have constituted an average (median) of 14% of Democratic primary voters, up from a median of 9% in the set of comparable contests in 2004."

Given, I think it wouldn't be a unfair statement to say that a majority of the gaming community would call themselves a democrat, or at least would share their views over the republicans. That's not to say our community does not have its conservatives, but the numbers show most young people are voting democrat and most of the gaming community are young people.

I find that this need for change on capital hill and even in our society in general, bespeaks the ambitions of our own gaming community. We are all the trailblazers of the internet generation, fully immersing ourselves with the digital and making a sport of it! Our lifestyles may seem outlandish to many, but this writer firmly believes that what we are doing is the future. Dare I say it but, the gaming community is a microcosm of the youth of America, and perhaps the youth of the world...

Creating Tomorrow

"Most of today’s games force kids to learn complex rule systems, master challenging new interfaces, follow dozens of shifting variables in real time and prioritize between multiple objectives.

In short, precisely the sorts of skills that they’re going to need in the digital workplace of tomorrow.

Consider this one fascinating trend among teenagers: They’re spending less time watching professional sports and more time simulating those sports on Xbox or PlayStation. Now, which activity challenges the mind more — sitting around rooting for the Packers, or managing an entire football franchise through a season of “Madden 2005”: calling plays, setting lineups, trading players and negotiating contracts? Which challenges the mind more — zoning out to the lives of fictional characters on a televised soap opera, or actively managing the lives of dozens of virtual characters in a game such as “The Sims”?" - L.A. Times

We've grown up with the internet, and it's effects on our daily life's are obvious. The internet has connected all of us to each other which is a remarkable feat. Critics have said the internet and online video games have turned America's youth into anti-social recluses. That couldn't be further from the truth. Recent studies have shown what us gamers have already known, "…Participation in gaming does not cause a decrease in civic participation and, if anything, certain forms of gaming activity are correlated with civic engagement ."(pewresearch) Our online lifestyles do no differ from a lifestyle without the internet. Some become antisocial and some do not, video games or the internet is not the crux of anti-social teens, but in many cases it endorses social behavior with others.

Our future is still uncertain, due to the vast amount of variables and unknowns. But judging from the current and past developments, I see a electronic, but more importantly 'connected' tomorrow. Throughout this article I have been pairing the Internet with Gaming. Gaming being the Internet's first child, I think when talking about one you're talking about the other. So although we are the internet generation, we are also the gaming generation. Which is why when something major changes with one, it will have deeply profound effects on the other. And right now the internet is changing. It's changing our culture, our politics, our news medium, our entertainment, and the entirety of our existence is being changed in one way or another. The same is with our gaming community, things are changing, the way we play games are changing. I would venture to say that we are evolving with the internet, and it can only get better from here...

As indicated above, the internet generation is growing in numbers, voice, and in power. As this election nears closer, we gamers and our siblings of generation i, have a chance to change things. We have the chance to hasten the change which we have been working so hard to bring forth to the rest of the populous for the past couple of decades. Those of you who believe that our relatively small community of gamers can't produce any major change, I say unto you, look around. Whether its competitive or not, games are everywhere, 90 percent of teens play games, that's millions if not billions of people all linked by video games and those numbers are growing. So if you believe you don't have the power to make a difference you are mistaken. We have the numbers, it's only a matter of utilizing them.


In conclusion, if you play competitively or just for fun, take a moment to think beyond the troubles of our gaming community and start thinking of, the bigger picture.