Yea, I think Pete is comparing the hardcore gamer to the casual anime fan. Funnily there are probably still more hardcore gamer then casual anime fans in the US...
Yeah, Pete. Compare all US gamers to all US anime fans. I think you are failing because you are being prejudiced as to what you think a gamer and an anime fan are. Get away from the stereotypes.
I think you are failing because you are being prejudiced as to what you think a gamer and an anime fan are. Get away from the stereotypes.
Quite. As a kid, I went to several gaming conventions. Due to M:TG, there was an influx of screaming, rambunctious, obnoxious kids.
A few hours would go by, and they'd all calm down and start acting like tiny adults (myself included). The convention's vibe did that. M:TG attracts the same kinds of kids anime attracts in many ways, yet gaming con culture handles it and manages it better.
Many things people consider "games" today do not in fact provide any measurable challenge. This point was belabored at the Y+20 lecture we attended. The less the challenge, the more popular the game. Farmville is one of the most popular games in the history of gaming, and there is literally nothing you can do but "win." Farmville is the majority gamer.
By what metrics do you measure the level of challenge? I'm genuinely curious. Farmville isn't much of a game, but there is a minor puzzle: how do I get this next thing? It's basic math, which I will admit is barely a challenge at all, but it's more challenge than nothing. There are plenty of anime that literally provide no challenge of any sort, except maybe that light hits your eyeballs. Farmville provides that too.
Irrespective of whether or not we contend that a game is a true challenge, the reason that people play games is because they want a challenge. That's the utility of the game at all; it alters the mentality with which the activity is approached.
EDIT: And no, I'm not comparing hardcore gamers to casual anime fans. Really, I'm not.
But if we want to compare, let's compare. What is a "hard core" anime fan exactly? How can one be "hard core" about passive entertainment? You can't. The only way to do that is to design arbitrary challenges centered around a particular passive entertainment. That's why we get "hard core" anime fans who aver that you are only a true fan if you watch raws and translate them yourself.
By what metrics do you measure the level of challenge?
There are all manner of them, depending on your theoretical perspective. All things are technically challenges: you must overcome the electrical impedance of thought to ever do anything. This is a stupid and overbroad definition. Do you seriously want to argue that there is no useful distinction between games like Farmville and games like Puerto Rico or Burning Wheel?
Irrespective of whether or not we contend that a game is a true challenge, thereasonthat people play games is because theywanta challenge.
No. It is pretty-much universally accepted in the industry that people by and large do not want actual challenges, and prefer foregone conclusions. Automatic eventual victory. The most popular games are the ones where losing isn't an option, because most people play games as a mental distraction, not an active pasttime. They use games the same way people use television. They very pointedly are not seeking challenge.
That's the utility of the game at all;
You're confusing challenge gamers with pass-the-time gamers. The latter are the majority.
They are basically just giant gathering places for people to show off...
People, all of them & not just anime punks, want attention, acceptance, and appreciation from their peeps. They just go about it in a way someone working to be head of panels would not. That's not necessarily tied into an age or maturity level.
EX: Some car fanatics live for hydrolic and burnout competitions. They like having the loudest pipes and the lowest low rider. That's obnoxious and immature to car fans who just like to rebuild classics cars.
Capital Grill is an adult establishment because it was designed that way from the top down. An anime con needs that same mentality to "grow up."
A few hours would go by, and they'd all calm down and start acting like tiny adults (myself included).
You mean the tournament would start, and that gave you something to focus your attention on. Thus you all started acting more "mature." You would have never acted as such without a structured event to hold your attention.
Gamers go to game cons to game. Anime fans to go conventions to... dick around maybe? I don't really know.
How can one be "hard core" about passive entertainment? You can't.
Patently absurd.
Casual anime fan: Watched Dragon Ball. Currently watching One Piece. Can name five other anime. Only watches online when it's free.
"Hardcore" anime fan: Watched Dragon Ball. Currently watching One Piece. Can name over a hundred anime. Knows who directed Dragon Ball, and who wrote it. Can debate stylistic differences between said writer's works.
Sure, you can make an overbroad category that contains both of them, turn it into a nice little straw man, and then burn it. But what does that accomplish? Biologists classify things. It was decided that plants and animals can be usefully broken up into groups based on arbitrary critera, said groups sharing certain characteristics. But no, fuck you biologists. They're all "organisms." Don't muddy the waters saying some organisms are different from others: they're fundamentally just organisms. But wait, they're all just atoms. Why say a living thing is different? Just atoms.
The two fans above have very different levels of engagement, and can act in different arenas. The latter is much more able to participate on a higher level.
Can you guys move this crap to IM or something? Make a new thread, but let Otakon 2010 be about Otakon 2010. Especially for those who are going.
Didn't see anyone outside Panel 6 who was FRC-related, but I kept going in and out of that Panel, because it was really fucking great. Patrick Seitz, I tip my hat to you.
You're obsessed with this challenge thing, and you're completely missing the point. It doesn't matter how much challenge, if any, games present. Whether or not someone's hobby is more or less challenging has nothing at all to do with how that person will behave at a convention. Let me give you another example.
Look at technology conventions. Technology is challenging, no? Almost everyone at a technology conference is an adult. There's no kids there. Yet, technology conventions and conferences vary WILDLY in terms of atmosphere and behavior of the attendees. You'll have some where people are super serious sitting in rooms listening to talks. You'll have some where people are just having a rowdy party and getting totally wasted, like a frat party. You'll have some where it's a bunch of nerds sitting about in the beanbags coding. You'll have some where people will yell at the people on stage and get in arguments. You'll have some where everyone sits quietly as if it were TED. You'll have some where people walk around a big hall and look at products, as if it were the auto show. There are technology conferences of every shape, size, and atmosphere in every country in the world.
And you know what? It's the same people in the same hobby going to all of these same conventions. In many cases, it's the exact same people flying around the world going to one after the other. The same press, the same vendors, the same famous technologists. Yet, each convention, despite identical populations and subject matter, is incredibly different.
Capital Grill is an adult establishment because it was designed that way from the top down. An anime con needs that same mentality to "grow up."
PAX is also top-down. This is why I agree with you here.
You mean the tournament would start, and that gave you something to focus your attention on. Thus you all started acting more "mature." You would have never acted as such without a structured event to hold your attention.
Nope. Magic tournament was done. Kids got interested in D&D; games and such to pass the time. They calmed down because everyone else around them was calm. Humans have a tendency to feel shame when they're acting outside of an established local social norm.
Do you seriously want to argue that there is no useful distinction between games like Farmville and games like Puerto Rico or Burning Wheel?
No, of course not. There is an incredibly useful distinction, and that distinction will separate out the fans of games by personality type. That's why we perceive casual gamers and so forth.
My argument is that passive media, like anime, provide far less distinction than games, on the whole.
They very pointedly are not seeking challenge.
Well, no, they think they're seeking a challenge. The conscious decision is because they think they want a challenge. That's the part that creates the environment. What they're actually pursuing is a different story.
You're confusing challenge gamers with pass-the-time gamers.
I'm not confusing them. I'm saying that a pass-the-time gamer is still more likely to want a challenge than a pass-the-time anime fan. I'm aware that there are a great number of casual gamers, and I'm saying that the most casual of gamers is more challenge-focused than the most casual of anime fans. This makes the average gamer more challenge-focused than the average anime fan.
I have no idea about the median gamer or anime fan, but that's irrelevant to the different group dynamics that arise in each fandom.
But what does that accomplish? Biologists classify things. It was decided that plants and animals can be usefully broken up into groups based on arbitrary critera, said groups sharing certain characteristics. But no, fuck you biologists. They're all "organisms." Don't muddy the waters saying some organisms are different from others: they're fundamentally just organisms. But wait, they're all just atoms. Why say a living thing is different? Just atoms.
Nice straw man. :P
You're right, biologists do classify things, and we have multiple different levels of classifications for all sorts of different groups. We use a different level of classification depending on the purpose. So, when I'm talking about the "average" gamer and the "average" anime fan, I am specifically not delineating the groups into "casual" and "hardcore" because it's not necessary for my argument. An average very specifically accounts for all the members of a given group, not just one particular segment of that larger group. Sometimes it's more appropriate to use the median value of a group, but in this case, I specifically want the average because I want to account for the most casual in both groups; those are the majority of each group and in a large group setting, the majority member dictates the environment.
EDIT:
Whether or not someone's hobby is more or less challenging has nothing at all to do with how that person will behave at a convention.
The utility of a challenge focus is that it causes people to approach things with a goal in mind.
The level of challenge is not important to people. Rather, the existence of a perceived challenge alters the mindset with which an activity is approached. Even casual gamers play games with a different mindset than that with which they watch garbage anime, and the mindset with which gaming is approached is one that requires self-assessment. A game makes you say, "What do I want to accomplish today," and all games do that. That mindset creates a very different attendee, which creates a very different con experience.
Kids got interested in D&D; games and such to pass the time...
They jumped from one structured event to another. That's the norm for gamers. You stop playing one game and you move onto the next. Give any punk kid a controller and they'll "behave". Take the controller away and they're back to punk kid.
I feel as if Anime fans are more interested in the social aspects of the con, and that's inherently less structured.
Anime can be challenging to fans in the same way that beer can be challenging to a fan. Some beers are a challenge to understand.
I'm totally going to marathon the PBR OAV this weekend and top it all off with a game of "Booze: The Drinking."
You're right, biologists do classify things, and we have multiple different levels of classifications for all sorts of different groups. We use a different level of classification depending on the purpose. So, when I'm talking about the "average" gamer and the "average" anime fan, I am specificallynotdelineating the groups into "casual" and "hardcore" because it's not necessary for my argument...
And you thus forget the purpose of pragmatism.
My only interest in this subject is fixing anime conventions. My experiments at conventions like NYAF, PAX, and Connecticon have led me to believe that this is in fact possible. Simple, top-down, premeditated cultivation of specific culture should be able to transform over time the whole of the culture of the convention regardless of the underlying and unifying activity for which the convention has been called. I strongly believe that Otakon could be just as fun, and just as engaging, to even people such as ourselves, as PAX. And, as I am in a position to attempt it, I shall. Where we differ is that I can use the fruits of this argument to effect real change.
Since Otakon regrettably refuses any help, I now focus my attention on the New York Anime Festival. Over the years, you will see a transformation. There is no reason an anime convention cannot be just as amazing as PAX but for the lack of either or both of skill and will on the part of the staff.
With a few notable exceptions, Otakon clearly lacks both. And so I move on to greener pastures, more ripe for change and growth, I become the prodigal son returning with a conquering army.
Anime can be challenging to fans in the same way that beer can be challenging to a fan. Some beers are a challenge to understand.
Reframing this argument as beer changes nothing, and I'm not sure why you would think it would. Beer, like anime, is not inherently challenging. Some beer can be, as can some anime. Challenging beer is about 3% of the beer market share. Craft beer in general is less than 10%. Everything else is non-challenging pisswater.
Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people will drink pisswater because it's easy. If you want people to get interested in challenging beer, you have to provide the challenge yourself. You have to advocate to them. You have to give it away. You have to rub their noses in it. A very very small minority will seek out the challenging stuff on their own; for the rest, you have to shove the challenge at them.
EDIT:
My only interest in this subject isfixinganime conventions.
Right, that's what I'm concerned with too. In order to understand that, though, we need to figure out why it is that we see these different behaviors in different groups.
I think we differ on what we think is possible. I don't think Otakon could ever be as awesome as PAX, unless you change the focus of the con. Connecticon is a much better con overall than Otakon, and that's because despite its diversity in programming, it actually provides attendees with more direction than does Otakon.
Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people will drink pisswater because it's easy. If you want people to get interested in challenging beer, you have to provide the challenge yourself. You have to advocate to them. You have to give it away. You have to rub their noses in it. A very very small minority will seek out the challenging stuff on their own; for the rest, you have to shove the challenge at them.
One of my favorite beers is pisswater according to Pete, and he did push good beer on me. However, I got him to brew me some (relatively speaking) pisswater. :P
Reframing this argument as beer changes nothing, and I'm not sure why you would think it would. Beer, like anime, is not inherently challenging. Some beer can be, as can some anime. Challenging beer is about 3% of the beer market share. Craft beer in general is less than 10%. Everything else is non-challenging pisswater.
Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people will drink pisswater because it's easy. If you want people to get interested in challenging beer, you have to provide the challenge yourself. You have to advocate to them. You have to give it away. You have to rub their noses in it. A very very small minority will seek out the challenging stuff on their own; for the rest, you have to shove the challenge at them.
But Pete, that's the point Rym was trying to make with video games, Farmville is the Millerlite of video games.
Right, that's what I'm concerned with too. In order to understand that, though, we need to figure out why it is that we see these different behaviors in different groups.
Your fundamental assumption is wrong. You don't see different behaviors in different groups. We see different behaviors at different conventions. We can see nearly the same exact group behaving completely differently in different scenarios. See my previous post, you seem to have ignored, about technology conferences.
Your fundamental assumption is wrong. You don't see different behaviors in different groups. We see different behaviors at different conventions. We can see nearly the same exact group behaving completely differently in different scenarios. See my previous post, you seem to have ignored, about technology conferences.
Pete doesn't attend enough conventions to have a proper perspective.
There are gaming cons that are basically the worst of Otakon culture. There are anime conventions that have the vibe of Connecticon. There are tech conventions that are drunken riots, and tech conventions that are 100% challenge. Connecticon not that many years ago was in a bad state culturally, and look how rapidly it's transformed. Otakon many years ago was very different from Otakon today. Look how rapidly it has transformed.
The only correlation that emerges across the board is the level of professionalism of the people at the top.
Pete doesn't attend enough conventions to have a proper perspective.
He hasn't attended as many as us, but he's still attended quite a few. I think the big difference is simply how he approaches the conventions, and what he pays attention to, not the quantity of conventions he has been to. At the anime cons, I don't remember him ever really being into the more academic anime-related pursuits. He's not exactly reading the Tezuka.
Why then are comic cons so completely different at almost every level from anime cons?
And why are all comic-cons so different? Heroes con is completely different from MoCCA festival, completely different from NYCC, from CCI, from Wizard World *, and so on.
But Pete, that's the point Rym was trying to make with video games, Farmville is the Millerlite of video games.
Sure. But that doesn't have anything to do with the point I'm making. I'm saying that while Farmville is the Miller Lite of video games, that's still more challenging than the least challenging anime. If we're going along with the alcoholic malted beverages, then Farmville is Miller Lite and shitty anime is Natural Ice Light.
We can see nearly the same exact group behaving completely differently in different scenarios.
Your conclusion is only valid if you are observing literally the same people in different scenarios. I'm looking at the fandoms as a whole without looking at specific groups of individuals. I've been to a fair number of different cons - gaming, anime, hybrid, comic, sci-fi - and I've made many observations of different groups. That's why I'm assessing the fandoms as a whole rather than getting very specific.
See my previous post, you seem to have ignored, about technology conferences.
I read your post but didn't have a chance to address it yet. I've been to about a dozen different professional scientific conferences, and while there are some very specific differences from conference to conference, most of them are the same in terms of goals and atmosphere. The people who go to the conference are the ones who control its atmosphere. In the food safety world, I wind up running into the exact same people at multiple different conferences. The conferences have different focuses, but the people and their behavior do not change. They address different topics, sure, but they approach them in pretty much the same way every time.
Pete doesn't attend enough conventions to have a proper perspective.
So when was the last time you went to a con as an attendee? Your perspective as staff is different than the perspective of an attendee. I'm a beer brewer; my perspective of bars is totally different than it was 3 years ago. I can longer connect with people who just want a 30-rack of Keystone Light for their tailgate party. I'm still mostly an attendee at cons. I'm immersed in the attendee environment.
EDIT: Basically, we're each arguing from our individual perspectives. You're both saying that cons differ primarily from the top-down, because you're both at the top. I say the con experience is primarily driven by attendees, from the bottom-up, because I'm still mostly an attendee.
You control the environment of a con by attracting a particular crowd. The crowd controls itself.
EDIT: Basically, we're each arguing from our perspective. You're both saying that cons differ primarily from the top-down, because you're both at the top. I say the con experience is primarily driven by attendees, from the bottom-up, because I'm still mostly an attendee.
As I was saying in our chat, they're arguing X, you're arguing Y. The argument is over what causes the PAX attitude, and no one has hard evidence either way.
So when was the last time you went to a con as an attendee?
SIFMA. Anime Boston (other than skipping the line and getting paid, we had little to do but hang out outside of our panels, and have no staff powers at all). MoCCA. Philly Wizard World. Recess. New York Comic Con (we had press badges, but we didn't do any panels or anything). Astronomicon. Several other Rochester area gaming and sci-fi cons. Ubercon (three times). Anime Central. To name a few.
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A few hours would go by, and they'd all calm down and start acting like tiny adults (myself included). The convention's vibe did that. M:TG attracts the same kinds of kids anime attracts in many ways, yet gaming con culture handles it and manages it better.
Irrespective of whether or not we contend that a game is a true challenge, the reason that people play games is because they want a challenge. That's the utility of the game at all; it alters the mentality with which the activity is approached.
EDIT: And no, I'm not comparing hardcore gamers to casual anime fans. Really, I'm not.
But if we want to compare, let's compare. What is a "hard core" anime fan exactly? How can one be "hard core" about passive entertainment? You can't. The only way to do that is to design arbitrary challenges centered around a particular passive entertainment. That's why we get "hard core" anime fans who aver that you are only a true fan if you watch raws and translate them yourself.
EDIT 2:Stereotypes exist for a reason.
EX: Some car fanatics live for hydrolic and burnout competitions. They like having the loudest pipes and the lowest low rider. That's obnoxious and immature to car fans who just like to rebuild classics cars.
Capital Grill is an adult establishment because it was designed that way from the top down. An anime con needs that same mentality to "grow up."
You mean the tournament would start, and that gave you something to focus your attention on. Thus you all started acting more "mature." You would have never acted as such without a structured event to hold your attention.
Gamers go to game cons to game. Anime fans to go conventions to... dick around maybe? I don't really know.
Casual anime fan:
Watched Dragon Ball. Currently watching One Piece. Can name five other anime. Only watches online when it's free.
"Hardcore" anime fan:
Watched Dragon Ball. Currently watching One Piece. Can name over a hundred anime. Knows who directed Dragon Ball, and who wrote it. Can debate stylistic differences between said writer's works.
Sure, you can make an overbroad category that contains both of them, turn it into a nice little straw man, and then burn it. But what does that accomplish? Biologists classify things. It was decided that plants and animals can be usefully broken up into groups based on arbitrary critera, said groups sharing certain characteristics. But no, fuck you biologists. They're all "organisms." Don't muddy the waters saying some organisms are different from others: they're fundamentally just organisms. But wait, they're all just atoms. Why say a living thing is different? Just atoms.
The two fans above have very different levels of engagement, and can act in different arenas. The latter is much more able to participate on a higher level.
Didn't see anyone outside Panel 6 who was FRC-related, but I kept going in and out of that Panel, because it was really fucking great. Patrick Seitz, I tip my hat to you.
Look at technology conventions. Technology is challenging, no? Almost everyone at a technology conference is an adult. There's no kids there. Yet, technology conventions and conferences vary WILDLY in terms of atmosphere and behavior of the attendees. You'll have some where people are super serious sitting in rooms listening to talks. You'll have some where people are just having a rowdy party and getting totally wasted, like a frat party. You'll have some where it's a bunch of nerds sitting about in the beanbags coding. You'll have some where people will yell at the people on stage and get in arguments. You'll have some where everyone sits quietly as if it were TED. You'll have some where people walk around a big hall and look at products, as if it were the auto show. There are technology conferences of every shape, size, and atmosphere in every country in the world.
And you know what? It's the same people in the same hobby going to all of these same conventions. In many cases, it's the exact same people flying around the world going to one after the other. The same press, the same vendors, the same famous technologists. Yet, each convention, despite identical populations and subject matter, is incredibly different.
My argument is that passive media, like anime, provide far less distinction than games, on the whole. Well, no, they think they're seeking a challenge. The conscious decision is because they think they want a challenge. That's the part that creates the environment. What they're actually pursuing is a different story. I'm not confusing them. I'm saying that a pass-the-time gamer is still more likely to want a challenge than a pass-the-time anime fan. I'm aware that there are a great number of casual gamers, and I'm saying that the most casual of gamers is more challenge-focused than the most casual of anime fans. This makes the average gamer more challenge-focused than the average anime fan.
I have no idea about the median gamer or anime fan, but that's irrelevant to the different group dynamics that arise in each fandom.
You're right, biologists do classify things, and we have multiple different levels of classifications for all sorts of different groups. We use a different level of classification depending on the purpose. So, when I'm talking about the "average" gamer and the "average" anime fan, I am specifically not delineating the groups into "casual" and "hardcore" because it's not necessary for my argument. An average very specifically accounts for all the members of a given group, not just one particular segment of that larger group. Sometimes it's more appropriate to use the median value of a group, but in this case, I specifically want the average because I want to account for the most casual in both groups; those are the majority of each group and in a large group setting, the majority member dictates the environment.
EDIT:The utility of a challenge focus is that it causes people to approach things with a goal in mind.
The level of challenge is not important to people. Rather, the existence of a perceived challenge alters the mindset with which an activity is approached. Even casual gamers play games with a different mindset than that with which they watch garbage anime, and the mindset with which gaming is approached is one that requires self-assessment. A game makes you say, "What do I want to accomplish today," and all games do that. That mindset creates a very different attendee, which creates a very different con experience.
I feel as if Anime fans are more interested in the social aspects of the con, and that's inherently less structured. I'm totally going to marathon the PBR OAV this weekend and top it all off with a game of "Booze: The Drinking."
Wait for me guys!
My only interest in this subject is fixing anime conventions. My experiments at conventions like NYAF, PAX, and Connecticon have led me to believe that this is in fact possible. Simple, top-down, premeditated cultivation of specific culture should be able to transform over time the whole of the culture of the convention regardless of the underlying and unifying activity for which the convention has been called. I strongly believe that Otakon could be just as fun, and just as engaging, to even people such as ourselves, as PAX. And, as I am in a position to attempt it, I shall. Where we differ is that I can use the fruits of this argument to effect real change.
Since Otakon regrettably refuses any help, I now focus my attention on the New York Anime Festival. Over the years, you will see a transformation. There is no reason an anime convention cannot be just as amazing as PAX but for the lack of either or both of skill and will on the part of the staff.
With a few notable exceptions, Otakon clearly lacks both. And so I move on to greener pastures, more ripe for change and growth, I become the prodigal son returning with a conquering army.
Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people will drink pisswater because it's easy. If you want people to get interested in challenging beer, you have to provide the challenge yourself. You have to advocate to them. You have to give it away. You have to rub their noses in it. A very very small minority will seek out the challenging stuff on their own; for the rest, you have to shove the challenge at them.
EDIT:Right, that's what I'm concerned with too. In order to understand that, though, we need to figure out why it is that we see these different behaviors in different groups.
I think we differ on what we think is possible. I don't think Otakon could ever be as awesome as PAX, unless you change the focus of the con. Connecticon is a much better con overall than Otakon, and that's because despite its diversity in programming, it actually provides attendees with more direction than does Otakon.
There are gaming cons that are basically the worst of Otakon culture. There are anime conventions that have the vibe of Connecticon. There are tech conventions that are drunken riots, and tech conventions that are 100% challenge. Connecticon not that many years ago was in a bad state culturally, and look how rapidly it's transformed. Otakon many years ago was very different from Otakon today. Look how rapidly it has transformed.
The only correlation that emerges across the board is the level of professionalism of the people at the top.
Anime and comics are, by your definitions, fundamentally the same in terms of challenge and engagement potential, at their cores.
Why then are comic cons so completely different at almost every level from anime cons?
EDIT: Basically, we're each arguing from our individual perspectives. You're both saying that cons differ primarily from the top-down, because you're both at the top. I say the con experience is primarily driven by attendees, from the bottom-up, because I'm still mostly an attendee.
You control the environment of a con by attracting a particular crowd. The crowd controls itself.