The Distracted Gamer

On Sunday just gone, the ABC (Australian, not US) started the second ‘Not Quite Art’ series presented by Marcus Westbury.  It’s was actually really interesting.  This first episode was called ‘Culture Shock’ and they were looking at what shapes current culture.  He had an interview with a musician, an animator and a ‘singing bridges’ fan.  But the most interesting bit was his interview with Ben Croshaw, aka Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation. 

He talks about what, how and why he does the critiques he does. One of the points he made about how influential he’s become was that his fairly positive review of Painkiller caused the sales of it to triple in the first four hours after he released his review!

He also talks about his frustration with people still refusing to recognise games as an art form (which they are).  Yahtzee gets my quote of the day award for this:

It can get frustrating when you want to talk about games as a cultural thing, it gets very frustrating with people saying “oh it’s for kids, oh it’s a bad influence.”  But what I find comforting is that they’re all old.  And old people will die first.  And we’re the ones that get to pass on our values to the next generation.  Old people have always opposed what’s new and scary because it reminds them they’re loosing control of the world.

Not diplomatic, but then that’s exactly what’s made him so popular.

You can check out the show on iView here for the next 20 or so days, or you can download it here. Yahtzee’s interview is at the 9:30 mark, but I would recommend watching the whole thing if you’ve got the time.

Update: Someone has put it up on YouTube too:

The show’s host Marcus Westbury gave a talk at the Department Of Culture and the Arts in Western Australia and he’s posted his notes for that talk, in which he talks about the show and Yahtzee’s interview in particular.

Oh, and Yahtzee’s latest video is on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.  As always it’s worth watching, and as always, it comes with a language warning.