Arcades are dead.
It’s a sad fact–especially for those of us who remember jamming quarters into games for hours, aiming to finish Area 51, place first in Cruisin’ USA, or take down a trash-talking friend in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. But while arcades remain alive and well in Japan, they’re nearly extinct in the US–their overpriced machines were no competition for the cheap, then-powerful home console systems that showed up in the mid-’90s: Sony’s first PlayStation, Sega’s Dreamcast, the Nintendo 64. (The few arcades that remain–like Ground Kontrol–are more museums of archaic technology, even if they are really fun museums.) By 2000 and 2001, arcades were as good as gone when Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo’s GameCube showed up in damn near every living room in the country (as of July, Sony had sold more than 91 million PS2s).
So last weekend’s GameRiot–which, to be both precise and ridiculous, is actually billed as “MTV2 Presents Nesquik GameRiot Powered by Xbox”–seemed like it might bring gaming back to its social roots. “The country’s biggest traveling videogame expo and competition,” GameRiot promised music, prizes, and plenty of gaming. Hey, it wasn’t like my beloved childhood arcade was reopening or anything–but I figured it was worth a shot.
LESS THAN RIOTOUS
Unfortunately, GameRiot reminded me why I’m usually hesitant to give anything new a shot–it sucked. To sum it up: It was like being stuck at an awkward junior high school dance, a Microsoft marketing meeting, a videogame store, and a Blink-182 concert all rolled into one sprawling, annoying event at the Roseland.
The floor was lined with Xboxes and TVs, each boasting a different game: Ghost Recon, Jade Empire, Burnout 3, Forza Motorsport, Batman Begins, Incredible Hulk, Tony Hawk, Conker, and–this being an Xbox event–a slew of dedicated Halo 2 set-ups. On the stage were eight big flat panel TVs connected to Xboxes, and islands of PCs–with everything from the U.S. Army-made game/recruitment tool America’s Army to Battlefield 2. And in the center of it all, four big screens, all showing off the game adaptation of Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith. Not enough visual stimuli, you say? Well, toss in two more screens, each showing ads for the upcoming Xbox 360, Nesquik chocolate drink, and videogame rental services.
Aside from blowing your ass off visually, GameRiot was also eager to hand out a bunch of free shit–primarily “free Nestlé Nesquik shit,” from shots of the stuff to wristbands. (“Take as many as you want,” said the chirpy girls working the table, who remained admirably cheerful even after being barraged by thirsty, socially awkward nerds all night. “Awesome!” I replied; I didn’t take any Nesquik, but I did help myself to eight wristbands.) Also available: Discs of giveaway music (Jimmy Eat World, anyone?), copies of Mad magazine (wait–they still print Mad?), and… uh… yeah. Nesquik wristbands!
KILL HONKEY
While attendees were allowed to mill about, GameRiot also wanted gamers to play–hence a Halo 2 tournament, an America’s Army competition, and a Forza Motorsport race or two. (There were also some more low-key competitions–if you got the top score at the one Ms. Pac Man set-up, for example, you could win “a makeup bag.” An excellent way to both stereotype and marginalize girl gamers!) However, GameRiot’s primary way of luring gamers into competitions was their very own “master of ceremonies,” and my newfound nemesis: Honkey.
Yes, he actually calls himself Honkey, loudly and repeatedly. And yes, the 20-something Honkey might very well be the most annoying person on the planet. Honkey spent all his time shouting into a microphone: Shouting at players, shouting at onlookers, shouting at no one in particular. Honkey’s lame jokes, look-at-me grandstanding, and astonishingly intrusive attempts to be funny and cool not only made him the least-funny, least-cool guy in the room–they also unwittingly summed up the desperate-to-please, outsider feel of GameRiot. The harder GameRiot tried to be fun and cool, the less fun and cool it got.
I hated Honkey so much that I later Googled him–on his website, the guy confusingly boasts, “I promise to deliver High Performance Comedy with no strings attached. If you believe you know someone who can be CRAZIER, More NUTTY, More STUPID & OUTRAGEOUS please contact me so we can challenge this duo. Rock on.”
Surprisingly, Honkey’s patented brand of obnoxiousness was–in an incredible display of gaming focus and ambivalence–largely ignored by GameRiot’s attendees. All this noise was nothing but a sad attempt to develop supposedly hip brands and provide what the organizers so desperately wanted: A “raging party environment.”
IT’S A RAGER
The last time I checked, “raging party environment” and “videogaming” don’t necessarily go hand in hand–this despite the canned music (old Beck tracks?), the half-assed attempt at a battle of the bands (featuring the uninspired pop-punk of Left Foot Forward and Standard Issue), and the increasingly abrasive screechings of Honkey. Oh, and let’s not forget: Gamers.
Look, I know MTV2 and Xbox are doing their damnedest to make gamers think they’re hip, but c’mon–we aren’t, and we know it. We play videogames. We know tech stuff. We have more friends on Xbox Live than in real life. Some of us haven’t seen the sun in months, and consider a beer and a bowlful of Goldfish crackers a meal.
It also didn’t help that most of the games on display were either old news or less-than-exciting, and the mood was reflected: Gamers did what they largely do anyway, standing around in front of screens, occasionally talking to one another, but more often preferring to jam buttons.
This might’ve had something to do with the gamers–who, predictably enough, just wanted to play games–but it also didn’t help that GameRiot’s attendees were almost unanimously men, most in their teens or early 20s. The few girls present seemed to be either supporting one of the bands or accompanying their boyfriends out of either pity or penance. (Wait, there was one kid’s mom who was sort of into the games.She tracked down one of the pumped-up PCs, immediately shut down the fancy-pants Battlefield 2, and opened up a familiar game of Solitaire.)
However, if there’s one thing that can get guys interacting, it’s dumbass competitions–but even the much-ballyhooed tournament to defeat “Zyos, the Halo Champion,” was a bust. First, I wanted to meet the guy who gave himself a name like “Zyos, the Halo Champion”–because I always dreamed that would be my name. Second, I wanted to see how good he was. Unfortunately, the promised competition never arose–at one point, Honkey shouted that Zyos had some other videogame competition he needed to attend. Why, it’s almost as if Zyos knew how lame this thing was going to be or something!
At that point, GameRiot petered out–and fast. In the wise words of one of my fellow gamers, who was trying to figure out why the hell he paid good money to get into this place: “There sure is a lot of standing around.”
There sure was.
GAMERIOT WORKED!
Tired of hearing about “corporations co-opting subcultures”? Fine, but in GameRiot’s case, it’s somewhat applicable. GameRiot’s an example of corporations trying desperately to engrain brand awareness and loyalty within a consumer base–gamers aren’t idiots, though, and the largely unimpressive selection of games, staid music, and overall crappiness probably didn’t win Xbox, Nesquik, or MTV2 any lifelong converts.
Then again, the whole blaming corporations thing doesn’t quite fly–after all, the systems that introduced most of us to videogames were (and remain) big businesses. It’s a small leap from the Nintendo Entertainment System and Atari to Sony/PlayStation, Microsoft/Xbox, Nintendo, Viacom/MTV, and Nestlé/Nesquik.
An event like GameRiot is inevitable, then–the natural evolution of corporation-owned entertainment. Since arcades are mostly gone, public gaming will largely be confined to events like GameRiot.
But even though I saw through the ruse, the ruse still worked. After leaving the Roseland, I felt an inexplicable urge to play videogames and drink Nesquik. The Nesquik urge, in particular, was strong enough that before going home, I detoured to the store. And as I grabbed one from the cooler, it was hardly a surprise to see the GameRiot logo–plus an offer to win an Xbox–right on the front of the bottle.
