"...game over, man! Game over!"

(That fairly-famous line is said by Hudson, from the movie Aliens. Who doesn't love the 80's?)

While my media habits have certainly included movies, TV, animations, the Internet, books, and yes, even the handy pencil-and-paper medium, my greatest indulgence is in the realm of games. Video games, to be specific. I've been hooked on video games for as long as I can remember -- I drew the beginning of World 8-2 of Super Mario Bros. for a first grade project, and that was some years after first being in love with video games, no exaggeration. I can't imagine a future where I'm not loving video games. If it weren't for my lack of funds, I'd be indulging in virtually every gaming-related media I could grab. If you've read my previous post, you can take a guess about my obsession with things that go "blip-blip" (even if video games haven't really made those sort of noises since the Atari days). Most of my other media habits have stemmed from something related to video games. Even fictional writing, which could arguably be an equal or greater passion, flourished from my experiences on an online gaming forum. So let's stick with my interests in gaming, shall we?

Even in the layman's understanding of media, video games are a relatively new medium -- one that has only very recently been "taken seriously" (Translation: "Holy crap, people are making serious money out of these play-things! Guess we better take a look at them..."). The question, I ask myself, is where (or what) will these new medium head? Will it continue to be a medium that speaks to me, and in turn, I feel I can interact with, or will it stagnate and turn to little more than a bastardized film medium? "What's the difference?" you may ask. Well, a medium, in this context, is a means of communicating something from one person(s) to another person(s) through a certain technology. That medium can be targeted to a large or small number of people, it can engage a sense in high or low representation, and it can involve a high or low amount of participation. It is the element of participation -- high participation, in this case -- that significantly separates the video game medium from most other mediums. Some people may argue otherwise, believing firmly in technological determinism, and say that video games kills the imagination, and encourages things like violence in real life when presented with violence in the video game medium. My bias would say that, more than most other mediums, video games have the potential to be just the opposite.

What can I do to play my part in the gaming industry, economy, and culture, short of developing it myself? I can expand my knowledge in other media -- no one medium is an island, and my understanding of a medium's strengths and weaknesses, its past and present products, and its relation with video games will strengthen my own ability to understand and consume gaming as a medium of its own -- and I can use these other media to engage in a dialogue with others, to share my own insights about the potential of gaming as a medium and to gain their possible critiques on the gaming medium. For every "game over" that occurs in the development of the gaming medium, there is the ability to continue, to reset, to press on.

The blogs that I will be following

I've decided to follow two blogs, since I am not sure the second one will be sufficient for this class. I usually prefer to get my news from what other people provide on forums, word of mouth, etc., if I get my news at all.

The first is The Christian Science Monitor. It's name could be misleading, since it's not focused on religon.

The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/

The second is a weekly blog/podcast called "Horseshoes & Handgrenades." They collect a variety of random, small-news events and talk about them.

Horseshoes & Handgrenades
http://www.horseshoes-handgrenades.com/

Between the two, I imagine I should get a fairly diverse scope of news.

All about me

Hello! Let's have a narcissistic kick and talk all about me!














My name is Scott Gajewski. I just turned 24 years old, and will be graduating as an Media and Communications Studies major (with a minor in Writing - Creative Fiction) in Spring 2008. I was formerly an Interactive Art major, and before that, an Animation major. As you might guess from my picture, I'm an avid gamer, and hope to pursue a career in the gaming industry. I'm hoping this class (American Studies 222) will ultimately help fulfill my goal in that matter. You can find out more about me on the following sites, should you be interested:

My myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/gebohq

My livejournal page:
http://gebohq.livejournal.com

My list of videogames (as they are a big part of my life):
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~scott3/videogamelist.html

Online, I'm better known as Gebohq. If there's something posted under that name anywhere on the Internet, you can be pretty sure it's from me. My main interest involves a collaboratively-written story, called The Never-ending Story Thread ( better known as NeS, and not related to the story written by Michael Ende) -- a story that's been written now for over eight years. I'm hoping to create a wiki-site of sorts as a source of reference for the craziness that is NeS, but until then, I would suggest viewing the webcomic based on the very beginning of the story thread:

A Never-ending Story Illustrated (NeS webcomic)
http://nes.sorrowind.net

And, if you dare to look at any of the story thread itself, the first two posts of the following link should provide a starting place to work from... really, though, it's a lot easier to just talk to me about it. :)

NeS workshop
http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=18373

And that's me in a nutshell. (No, wait, this is me in a nutshell -- "Help! Help! I'm trapped in a nutshell!")