The Competitive Art

Yesterday, the great Darren Lockyer played in his last State of Origin game for Queensland. It being a momentous occasion worth celebrating, Channel 9 decided to pull out all the stops with its opening cinematic. In it, we got to see Darren at his old family home in Roma, Queensland, and get told about his idyllic youth that shaped one of the greatest rugby league players of all time. To the ongoing strains of Muse’s ‘Exogenesis Symphony Part 2” (a favourite of the NRL on Channel 9), Darren revealed to us just how special his childhood had been:

“Cricket in the summer, Rugby League in the winter, Squash, Basketball, Motorbikes and Crayfishing. Not once did we sit in the house playing computer games.”

I rolled my eyes so far back at this that I was practically looking back into my sockets. Really, Darren? I suppose the fact that Lockyer is one of the finest players of all time is no doubt down to the fact that he never played Street Fighter II with his brothers. It was such a pointless and unnecessary remark in a celebratory piece that stuck out like a neon signal of negativity. Now I know Australia doesn’t have the most enlightened attitude towards video games anyway, but even so it struck me as so… unnecessary.


It’s always video games that get picked on in this way, as the time-destroying source of the problems of the youth of today. If they’re not encouraging them to take up arms and bludgeon each other to death, they’re causing them to glue their arses to the sofa in lieu of actually engaging in the physical world in any meaningful manner. It used to be TV, it used to be comic books, but these days the bogeyman affecting the kids is that box next to the TV that plays the games.

So why is this the case? What is it about video games that attracts so much ire and makes them prime suspect in the case of the fat zombie children? Firstly, video games are a time-consuming medium. They just are. It’s probably fair to say that the average game usually takes an hour-count in double figures to complete. Add to that potentially serious lengths of time playing multiplayer with friends and it’s entirely possible to lose afternoons and evenings to games - I know I’ve done it. But then I’ve also gone days without playing a video game, and I’ve always managed to schedule my exercise commitments appropriately. Secondly, Video Games seem to always get portrayed as a surrogate for exercise. It is rarely brought up as a replacement for TV or film (which they are closer to mimicking) but they are often used as the example of what kids are doing instead of playing football or falling down caves or whatever it is kids are supposed to be doing. Video games are not seen so much in the artistic paradigm as they are in the competitive one. As well as keeping our cardiovascular systems in working order, Sport is supposed to teach us about the importance of winning, losing, hard work and teamwork and all that other jazz. The need to beat a video game can be addictive, and it can be consuming. Video games are seen as fulfilling the rquirements for competition that sport used to provide.

The thing is, video games are an entertainment medium just like any other. Sure, people bring up TV as a time-sink trapping the kids every so often, but nowhere near as much as games. Would we decry a child for spending all their leisure time reading when that too is a fairly sedentary activity? Not at all. In fact, there’s a general belief that kids don’t read enough these days. The celebration during Harry Potter’s heyday that ‘kids are reading again’ seemed misplaced to me since a) the Potter books were juvenile claptrap and b) kids seemed for the most part to be only reading Harry Potter books and not experiencing the wider spectrum of literature. It’s all about balance and breadth, and for some reason games are seen as occupying too much time. It’s because they are a replacement for more than one form of self-expression.

Video games are the competitive art. They combine the traditional devices of storytelling and narrative with the competitive urges of traditional games and sport. You can only find out the story if you’re good enough to reach the later stages. The competitive aspect is the overriding one - indeed, many games don’t even need the narrative aspect. We still dismiss the artistic worth of video games, and we also worry that it is the focus of the playful aspect of childhood. Perhaps instead we should be thinking that they help us engage with art in a new way. They are an all-emcompassing, engrossing challenge that toy with our emotions as they drive our quest for success.

Am I saying that it’s right for a kid to play video games instead of going out and playing sport, or indeed instead of reading? Not at all. Kids (and adults) need to get themselves some regular exercise if they don’t want to end up sliding down that slippery slope into fatsville or keep rolling into heart-disease city. That’s just common sense. The thing is, it’s entirely possible to do exercise and play video games and maintain an active lifestyle. I do it, as do pretty much every single person I know. In fact, you hear about professional sportsmen playing video games all the time, from NFL players absolutely loving Madden to John Terry hosting PES parties for his Chelsea team mates (PES is Pro Evolution Soccer, a popular football video game, and not some perverse sex-act like you probably thought it was). They’re no doubt seen as an effective way to pass the time and as a way of channelling the competitive urges most professional sportsmen seem to exhibit. Playing video games is not a signifier of a life of athletic failure.

It’s entirely possible that kids these days do play too many video games, and that their exercise is the thing that is sacrificed. Who’s really surprised? Play areas seem less prevalent than the past, and parents seem more worried about their children taking part in unsupervised activity. Why not use the console as a distraction, even if it is at the expense of any other cultural interaction? Kids playing video games aren’t the problem, they’re a symptom.

Lockyer’s Queensland won the final Origin game of 2011 and of his career 34-24, with a first half performance that was about as dominant as I’ve ever seen. Lockyer even turned back the clock to make a 50m break in a fine performance that served as the perfect send-off for his Origin career. No doubt there was some kid watching this game, hoping to one day emulate the achievements of this great man. I’d like to think that if he chose to load up Halo first for a quick game, he won’t end up as an example of everything wrong about the youth of today.