No More Imagination

[IcePak]

There's a theory that goes something like "playing excessive amounts of video games give people a lack of imagination". Do you think that this is true, or another one of those fables parents tell there children, along the lines of "TV rots your brains"?



Personally I think there is a little truth to this because of personal experience, which I'll try to explain. I've always been into drawing and making my own artwork. Until about seven years ago when I got into gaming in a BIG way, I used to draw every day or second day. Since then it's dropped to almost never. It's not that I've lost interest in drawing or artwork, but just that I can't decide on what to draw.

Now I obviously don't believe that video games are entirely to blame for this, but I think that my involvement in them to such a heavy degree that I now have in my life may have effected my imagination.

[Saurian]

I used to be an arty person - did art at college and all that, but I havent drawn anything in years and tbh I cant if I tried. Was looking at my old portfolio and cannot believe that I did that stuff, I dont even remember how - not sure if it's gaming at all cos I have a vivid imagination still, maybe it's all about keeping yourself on form.

[saif]

Gaming = better than drawing!

To be honest, I disagree. The idea that gamers lack imagintion is ridiculous when you consider the graphical situations even now but especially for those that have been playing for a while. Then, as gamers, I think we get exposed to a lot of different ideas stylistically and gamers, in general that I know are much more open minded in the other arts avenues.

[SharkAttack]

I think it depends on the person.

[Ady]

If anything, the opposite applies. Only someone whose never played games in their life would say they sap imagination.

[TheForce]

I used to go to art school also, but I've also played videogames all my live (from the C64 to the X-box) a lot. Most of my drawings were based on videogames, Now I have a 50hour (weekly) job so I don't draw anymore, but I still play games as much as I can. But recently I moved to a new house and I've painted all the walls from my games room with videogame related characters etc.
so I know I still have it in me, I just have no more time to do it anymore....

[Garibaldi Biscuit]

Have to disagree with the theory.

Wanting a career as a writer, I'd be pretty stuffed if all these years of gaming had destroyed my imagination, but it's all a case of shrewd, personal selection. Most television, for example, does absolutly nothing for me, but there are some shows, like the prison drama Buried from last year, that I find so inspiring that they immediatly have me running to the keyboard afterwards to get things down.

With games it is a little different due to the interactive nature of the medium, and the knowledge that, although you can control the action to an extent, there will ( in most cases anyway ) be only one definitive ending to the game, despite what other possibilities you might conjure up whilst playing.

I find writing fan fiction great to counteract this. If you're not happy with the way a title ended, or you feel that there were possibilities not sufficiently explored, why not flesh out the rest of the story yourself? I loved Fallout so much that I continued to write stories set in that world after completing the game itself, and have most recently started work on a story following on from the end of Hitman2.

The bottom line is, if a game really inspires you, and there are no sequels on the horizon ( or you simply cannot wait for them ) then continuing the 'tale' in your own vein can be massivly rewarding, the great thing is it also gives people on game specific messageboards something else to talk about rather than tired topics like 'what will be the first thing you do when you get Game X?'.

[IcePak]

You guys have made some valid points there. Maybe I'm unfairly laying my blame on video games when it should be something else in my life. The only effect I can really see with videogames effecting myself and maybe my imagination is that I play them too much, thus leaving me with less time to do other things such as artwork or something similarly constructive. That and using the internet too much.


But why do you think that people invent these sorts of fables? To get kids off the computer/console? Do they not understand that when playing games you are doing something constructive? That playing games can broaden a persons interests as well as though patterns? And that it's more productive than watching TV?

[TheForce]

But why do you think that people invent these sorts of fables? To get kids off the computer/console? Do they not understand that when playing games you are doing something constructive? That playing games can broaden a persons interests as well as though patterns? And that it's more productive than watching TV?

I think it's personal for everybody, the people wo are bringing these stories in the world are these so called "experts" who maybe never liked gaming and think it's a waste of time and so they come up with stories like this,... Don't worry about it, just do what you like to do...

[sininc]

I`m a musician and have gotten quite a few ideas from playing games.

The internet on the other hand kills my creativity completly, I could sit for hours doing nothing.

[Sketcz]

I was always the art guy at school. (actually, I was the only guy doing art at school... )

Anyway, gaming for me just means less time for art, but if anything, I can come up with even more bizzare and original ideas than before.
Having not done any artwork for a year, I spent a week back at my pad, and I can still squeeze out ideas. Good thing too, Ill be attending a games design course in September, and my imagination needs to be on top form.

Id say it can boost imagination in a big way.
Not copying someone else, its just that your mind is more enriched to be able to generate something new. More fertile ground. Most mediums, of a certain quality I feel can enrich ones imagination.
You just have less time to put creations to medium.

Gaming more so than films, since before gaming became obsessed with realism, it was all about surreal fantasy, the unusual and wierd. Go look at pre-PS1 gaming, apart from licensed games, they were all magnificantly strange, and increasingly bizzare.

Anyway, wow, lots of arty types in this thread, maybe we should have a competition? Or maybe just a little gallery.