Stomped
By Jeff Roberts
Computer games are an interesting side-product of the information
age.
Computers and the internet, originally, were designed as channels
to create,
manage, manipulate and transfer information. They were meant as tools,
not
toys. And while games were an unintended consequence, they make perfect
sense. In the "real" world, tools become toys quite easily;
books are read
for fun as well as information, cars are used for joyriding as much
as for
transportation. And since the internet, in a sense, simulates the
effect of
bringing people together, and one of the things people tend to do
when they
come together in the real world is play games, online gaming is a
natural
consequence. Computer games are important, too; after all, consumers
spend
money to get the latest in hardware, much of which, one might argue,
is to
accommodate bigger and better games (of course, one could also argue
that
games simply follow the trends in hardware advancement instead of
driving
the market). Games are consumer goods like anything else, and in the
case
of computer games, they can be described as media content as well.
So it's
no surprise that there's plenty of stuff on the internet about them.
Stomped.com is basically a super-resource for everything anyone might
want
to know about computer gaming. Wait, that's not accurate. It is a
super-resource for everything avid gamers might want to know about
computer
gaming. It includes daily news updates, previews of new games and
interviews with game-makers, posting boards for both game players
and
programmers (and many people who are both), links to countless other
gaming-related web sites, and even servers on which to play multiplayer
games over the internet. And while the information is comprehensive,
the
language used and the detail with which things are explained make
the
information not particularly useful to people who don't know much
about the
games, or games in general, to begin with.
In fact, it turns out that this site is for gamers, by gamers. Though
it
took a while to find out who was responsible for creating and maintaining
this vast resource, I finally found, buried at the bottom of the lead
page,
a page which read, "Team Stomped is a group of dedicated gamers
that [sic]
are intent on bringing you the best in-depth gaming information available
on
the web." An interesting concept. But why do gamers need such
"in-depth"
information? Isn't playing the game enough?
I have to admit that I am neither an avid computer gamer nor a computer
programmer, and so most of Stomped was quite foreign to me. However,
it's
not too different to think about the phenomenon of games similarly
to other
types of media content such as TV shows, films and music. Thus sites
such
as Stomped, where gamers get information directly from game makers
and other
gamers, don't seem entirely foreign. As is the case with movies, TV,
books
and music, when people like them enough, they like to get information
outside its context. Even for people not in the media business, just
consuming content isn't enough-people need to talk about it with others
afterwards. People also need to hear from the authors of their favorite
books, the directors of their favorite movies, and the stars of their
favorite TV shows. Content creators become content themselves. Stomped
shows that computer games are no different. What makes the computer
game
sites like Stomped particularly interesting is that the content creators
are
largely computer programmers, and the users are competent enough with
computers that they can use the web as a wealth of information and
a channel
for discussion. Computer programmers and gamers use the same medium
for
transmitting information about their content as they do for transmitting
the
content itself. This means that through sites such as Stomped, users
can
join the discussion of games along with creators. This changes the
quality
of discussion-not necessarily improves it, because though it is
comprehensive, it is also somewhat inaccessible to computer game dummies
like myself. I suppose that's a trade-off that has to be made.