Games Second

I recently picked up David Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” as part of a course I will hopefully teach in the Fall. In short the author makes a case that social capital in America has declined recently.

His evidence generally centers around the decline of American participation in clubs and community groups (i.e. bowling leagues). Some of the culprits causing this are longer working hours, monopolization of leisure time (TV, internet, American idol) by activities that do not promote community. Ouch.

I was taken back dear reader. Taken back! What do you mean the internet doesn’t promote community? Just yesterday I was gunning down some “T”s with a few Canadians on a Counter Strike server. Sure, we didn’t really know each other, and we barely communicated over VoIP, but I still used the internet to be a part of a group. How is that different then a bowling league?

Then I thought of paintball (yeah, it was a long introduction, deal with it). Years back some friends and I would go to Skirmish or Fireball Mountain to get our paintball on. You know, pay ungodly amounts of money to get pelted (and to pelt) by .68 caliber balls of paint. Joy.

To compare those experiences with the shooting of “T”s with my Canook brethren (should have been the 54th parallel! would not be fair. However, I can compare it with my week long counter-striking lan parties I had with those same paintballing friends. I will break this down into three categories: Comradeship, Memory, and Growth.

Comradeship:

Priviet tovarishi! Ah… Hello comrades! Comradeship is not friendship. Comradeship is a feeling like friendship that exists when two or more people pursue the same goal. Examples: Soviets & Americans fighting Nazis, Mortgage lenders and Realtors selling houses to sub prime borrowers, or you and your wingman when trying to do the opposite of what John Nash told you to do.

COUNTERSTRIKE:

Ten hours of sitting in a basement with your buddies downing tens of grill cheese sandwiches, or in a shed you networked with WaWa Hoagies - take your pick, actually inspired more comradeship then the actual game playing itself. Sure, having you all buy Para’s and emptying 500 rounds into the “vents” on the map “cs_assault” will result in lots of giggling (like school girls) but for some reason does not result in a solid building of comradeship.

And I will tell you why. It is because when you play CS, even with friends, you will not always be dependent on each other. Sometimes you have to rely on some amazing Frenchmen to save your continental punk ass from getting owned because your friends all went “office” and you went “garage”. You have comradeship with the Frenchman, but this comradeship is fleeting and perhaps not even acknowledged because of the poor communication system. This happens often enough that those ‘para moments’ are rare and pushed into the background.

PAINTBALL

You are trapped behind a tree while some guy firing eighteen paintballs a second at 280 fps is sweeping around to cause you bodily harm. Your buddy leaps out from behind cover to slay him and pull you to safety. Literally pull you. Dragging your fat butt over rock and stone all the while taking fire himself.

Even if that was French dude saving you from certain pain. Physical pain. A bond will result. A bond acknowledged by a muffled thank you, a nod, or a pat on the back. Something we can’t do in CS -currently.

MEMORY:

Dude. Do you remember that time you got plastered and I had a sharpie marker and your sister and… um.. I mean just a sharpie marker…

How often do you tell a story over soda, beer, or cup of kefir?

COUNTRSTRIKE:

Gee… I don’t really know. I have one good story of a game but there are so many moments that I can’t pick one out. I couldn’t pick one out if pressed. We shared days of playing CS together but I’m drawing a blank.

PAINTBALL:

Middle of the night, 48 hour game @ skirmish, watching a scene out of a Desert Storm tape as hundreds, thousands, of glow in the dark paintballs streamed through the night. Amazing.

Charging the beaches of Normandy (Skirmish) with 1000+ fellow players as tens of thousands of paintballs rained down on us. Watching the sky turn dark, as the opposing team angled shots to get maxim range, was something out of Agincourt. Amazing.

Taking over the “castle” and routing enemy forces. Hearing the cheers rise up from over 100 of my fellow gray arm banded troops. Cheering only to turn around and see my good friend clutching his neck from a real honest-to-Pete shot to the windpipe.

Watching as two lines of roughly 500 persons each square off in the middle of a field. Seeing one side begin to rout and the entire line “roll up” and run. You want an example of what a “rout” was in the civil or revolutionary war? Play a big game of paintball. It’s basically the same style of fighting only with automatic muskets.

Growth:

COUNTERSTRIKE:

The growth I will say CS playing with friends has given me is an appreciation of skill, healthy sense of risk and teamwork. Skill, because I have been bested on many occasions by someone considerably younger, and probably pre-pubescent. Risk, because sometimes if you don’t take risk, or be aggressive, you will die and your team will lose. Oh, and also Teamwork. Yes, important. “godlike” players, pre and post-pubescent alike, have been pwned by a team of variable skill because they played together as a team. Not just as a bunch of individuals all on the same “side”.

PAINTBALL:

Fear. Unbridled fear. Not that emotional “I’m afraid to lose you fear” but the fear of pain, of hurt, of being left alone in the woods surrounded by your enemies. That kind of fear. Biblical fear. How do you handle it?

Paintball, unlike CS, will test you in this regard. Do you run when your line “breaks” and the routing begins? Or do you, like another friend of mine, scream “HOLD THE LINE” in your best Mel Gibson voice while dropping to a knee and sending a stream of paint into the oncoming horde of enemies, knowing, KNOWING!, that you will likely be overrun and pelted to a glowing orange sheen in a few seconds. (No fear readers, my friend managed to actually stop the rout. By will alone he called in to existence a second line of fighters. So instead of getting pelted to “death” alone he took about 50 of his teammates with him!)

Conclusion:

Paintball is a different experience. If not for the communication barrier then for the physical one. Paintball can hurt, it immerses you in an experience that you cannot have in your living room.

So, what about “Bowling Alone”? Are the ties we form online the same as in person? Can we have a Wii online bowling league and have the same quality experience as we once did at the local lanes?

I don’t know readers… I don’t know. I am a believer in the online experience, in online gaming’s ability to be a uniter, not a divider, but sometimes real life gaming has its advantages. Especially if you like welts.

-Jim