Courtesy of: The Pants Are Optional Topic

We’re all for having fun, but honestly it seems like every year people come up with just crazy stuff that is NEVER going to be allowable in public or in polite company.

Just because you’re at a con, that doesn’t mean the rules of everyday life are completely suspended.

Okay … wait what? Is taking off your pants at a convention really that offensive? Is it really a rule of everyday life that you can’t take your pants off in a room with a bunch of people that say it is OK to? I understand their original argument, that the BCC had policies against that sort of thing. THAT makes total sense. However, is taking off your pants NEVER allowable in public or polite company. Geez I can remember a spoiler rehearsal we did totally pantsless, and everyone there seemed to be polite. I can also remember more than one comedian who has been known to take his pants off on stage.

So, is taking off your pants really past the limit of things that a convention will allow? This is a convention that allows girls to cosplay characters that wear next to nothing. Look at the Felicia cosplayers out there. Look at the Yoko (from Gurren Lagann) cosplayers. Geebus I can’t wait to see what girls decide to cosplay Makoto from BlazBlue. So female nudity is not offensive but male nudity is? Or perhaps they are just saying that nudity is OK if it is part of a costume but otherwise isn’t OK. It sure as hell can’t be a problem with being revealing, cause boxer shorts hide way more than these costumes do. Is it simply the case that it is only OK to take off your pants if you are attractive? That’s demeaning isn’t it?

Not to mention, I can think of PLENTY of things that should be way more offensive than some geeks sitting around in their underwear. The full frontal nudity shown in the hardcore hentai in hentai panels doesn’t count as more offensive? The extreme violence shown in the mature screenings doesn’t count as more offensive? Hell, the numerous amounts of trolls and no-shows in non 18+ panels don’t count as more offensive? Also, geez I can remember topless models in a “how to draw hentai” panel, and anime burlesques that were practically strip shows, and a dozen and one masquerade skits that end with someone pantsless. When did panels become a “pants only” zone?

Honestly, I just don’t get this morality. The idea was to just have a little fun and let the audience take off their pants “cause they can” because we were put into an 18+ slot and it soon erupted into something way more. I’m sure the Otakon staff looks down on us as “trying to cause trouble” now, but really all we wanted to do was have some consensual adult pantsless fun, and as soon as we were told not to, we said OK, but I get the feeling they are getting sick of the fact that we like to make waves, and would probably prefer to stick with someone “inside the box”. God forbid we do something more interesting than the flatly delivered cookie-cutter discussion panels everyone is used to. I guess I just have to be happy that we have such a strong fan following that has been built up over these years. It’s probably the only thing that lets us act the way we do.

All bureaucratic things with Otakon aside, what do YOU guys think? Is offering people a chance to take off their pants in a panel room really that offensive? Is it any more offensive than anything else you can see at a convention? What is the fan’s opinion on an 18+ panel being “pants optional”?

This sure has snowballed. I mean geez, we were kidding from the get go anyway … probably.

What really sucks is how hard it is get across that we really are trying to be professional about all this. All we really want to know are the policies that Otakon has about panels, and we aren’t trying to troll Otakon, or cause problems. Still, I can’t help but think the couple of issues we have had this year is starting to paint us as something of an undesirable element.

Heck, it wasn’t even real, now that I think about it. It was just this far-off paradise that I probably would never get to see. The show was in California and was media only. However, I lived in New Jersey and I was just the oddball outcast kid that was slightly above the curve in terms of gaming skill. I looked at the editors and writers that got to go, all much older than me, all professional critics, and I thought “Man… if only I got a chance to see what they see. How awesome would that be?” It was something totally unreachable, a pipe dream that was a sign of what the gaming community could do. It was gamer mecca.

So now, things have changed. I’m 25 years old and I write for a living. I’ve reviewed many games, both good and bad, and have several friends in the game development industry. In all honesty, it just sorta crept up on me. I wasn’t even fully cognizant of the fact that I was living my lifelong dream to be a game reviewer until this year, when I got my golden ticket to E3. No, I’m serious, the ticked has gold trim on it. Very symbolic.

We are now about a week away from E3 and it is finally starting to hit me. I’m going to E3. I’m going to L.A. to see all the press conferences, play all the demos, and drool over the booth babes. I’m going to interview designers who are bigger than the biggest celebrity in my mind. I’ll get to talk with the creators of Mario and Zelda and Final Fantasy, and maybe if I’m lucky I can kick Peter Molyneux in the balls. How the hell did I get here?

Honestly, I’m a little stunned. When I think about it, E3 was one of my “bucket list” things. It was one of the big things I wanted to do before I died and now I’m doing it … and I’m only 25!!! It’s a closed door, invite only event and me with my raggedy ass headband will be there. Major WTF!!! When I think about it, I’ve done a lot of other Bucket List stuff too. For example, last year I performed in front of a maximum capacity crowd at Otakon. I need to start thinking bigger. Perhaps I will try to take over Japan.

Anyway, long story short … I’m very excited about E3. This is going to be life changing no matter how I look at it. I just have to cross my fingers and hope I am prepared for the honest to goodness gamer overload I’m going to encounter from day one.

Wish me luck guys!

I’ll need it.

Here is an example. In his journal post defending his statement (specifically against a talk given by Kelee Santiago, whom I also disagree with) Ebert talks about the difference between work, game, and art. His quoted definition from Wikipedia is “Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas…Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction.” He then goes on to say, “One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would then say that it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.”

This is where I find the greatest evidence of his definition of “game” differing from a common gamer’s definition of “game.” Let’s look at the example of pencil and paper roleplaying games. These games have no way to “win” and in a sense, have no goals beyond that which the players themselves set. The objective of one of these games is to “play pretend” with the rules existing as commonly accepted boundaries for all involved. There is no way to “win” a pencil and paper roleplaying game, short of setting your own arbitrary goals and desires. Still, even though you might feel as if you have “won” if the story goes down a certain road, this is only a personal feeling and is not outlined in the rules of the “game” whatsoever. Pencil and paper roleplaying games are something you cannot win, just experience, which according to Ebert makes them something other than a game. It is now an interpretation of a story, novel, play, dance, or film. Specifically, I would say that pencil and paper roleplaying games are representative of a play, in which the script is written by all who are involved.

Now think back again to this notion of arbitrary goal setting. You can’t win a roleplaying game through any mechanic set forth in the rules, but you can set your own goals that you may or may not fulfill as the game progresses. These goals are entirely personal and have no effect on the mechanics of the game itself. So, thinking along these lines, let’s look at reading a book. There is no way to “win” at reading a book, is there? No. However, at the same time, you can set yourself a personal goal to finish the book. If you manage to finish the book then you have fulfilled that goal, you have won. If you don’t manage to finish the book then the goal has gone unfulfilled and you have lost. Still, these are personal goals that you have set for yourself, and are not inherent in the nature of the book. Any number of things could prevent you from finishing the book. Life could be too distracting, the book could be less interesting than you originally thought, or the book could prove to be a more difficult read than you originally planned for, too difficult for you to get through. Regardless of all of these circumstances, the book is simply an experience, whereas winning or losing (completing it or not completing it) is your personal goal.

So now let’s turn to the world of video games, starting with a genre that I particularly enjoy, the JRPG. The standard JRPG or Japanese Role Playing Game is a linear affair, much like a book. There is a story with a set beginning and a set end. It is your job to control the protagonists of the story from the beginning of the tale to the end. There is, once again, no way to “lose” and no way to “win” the game. Nowhere in the rules of the game does it state that the end of the story makes you “win.” In fact, splash screens at the end of most JRPGs almost never say “you win.” Instead they say phrases such as “the end” or “game over.” It’s simply assumed by the player that completion of the story is the goal for which they are striving. Sure enough you can “die” in these games, but dying does not “end” the game in a loss. Instead, you can pick it up and continue on as many times as you like.

To appreciate a movie, all you need to do is watch it and comprehend it. To appreciate a book, you must read it and comprehend it. To appreciate a “game” of this sort, you must play it and comprehend it. There are many reasons why you may not be able to complete the game. Life could get in the way, the game could fail to lose your interest, or the game could be harder than you originally thought, too difficult for you to get through. Regardless of all these circumstances, the “game” as we know it is simply an experience. It is a story that plays from beginning to end that relies on you, the reader, to move it forward (much like turning the pages of a book). We cannot win or lose a JRPG, we can only experience it, and set our own personal goals to fulfill.

Along the same lines, would a great book or film be cheapened if the words “the end” were replaced with “you win”?

When we look to other genres, we start to see that this model of game is not all that uncommon. Action games such as God of War tell a story with a beginning and end that you, once again, can die in but cannot win or lose. Adventures such as The Legend of Zelda and some shooters such as Modern Warfare do the same thing. The mechanics of the game are merely a way to convey the story like the pages of a book or the film of a movie. You might be tempted to say that it is the story within the game which is art, and not the game itself, but that seems as if it is an arbitrary distinction of story from medium. Could we not say the same about books and films, that it is the story that is the true art and not the pages it is written on or the projector and film that make images move on a screen? In that case couldn’t we say that the only thing that qualifies as art is the story itself? It’s also easy to say that books and movies require no effort to experience. There are no enemy encounters in books, no battles, no way to “die.” However, at the same time, you could not read a book if you did not turn the page, and you could not watch a movie if you did not drive to the movie theater or put in the DVD. Effort is required to start and continue your experience in all types of media, whether it be books, movies, or “games.”

Now, of course, there are some games that are not art. For example, many fighting games have a story, but most of the time the mechanics of these games don’t work to further the story. Instead they are built around a solid gameplay experience in which one or more player wins, and one or more player loses. This, under Ebert’s definition, is not art, and I can see merit to this point of view. It is not something you experience, but is something you learn. However, to play devil’s advocate, Ebert also says that “Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan, and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form.” This is true, Bobby Fischer never did say chess was art. However, there are other chess masters that have; Gary Kasparov wrote this paragraph about artist Marcel Duchamp in his book How Life Imitates Chess.

The artist Marcel Duchamp was an energic chess player. During a period of his life, he even resigned art for chess and said that the game had “all the beauty of art and even more.” Duchamp confirmed this aspect of the game when he said “I have come to the conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” And it’s true that we can’t ignore the creative element of chess, even though we must analyze this in contrast to the fundamental goal of winning the match.

In competitive games, it is that creative aspect that we might be able to view as art. Therefore, while Street Fighter or BlazBlue may not be considered art in their own right, the process of figuring out the exact correct actions to take in any situations, and the process of being creative and learning new strategies, can be viewed as artistic. This aspect is, in fact, analyzed in contrast to the fundamental goal of winning, as Kasparov says, but it exists nonetheless.

Finally I would like to address this portion of Ebert’s journal post:

“The three games [Santiago] chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: “No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great filmmakers, novelists and poets.”

These three games were Waco Resurrection, Braid, and Flower. He says that Waco Resurrection does not even reach the level of chicken-scratches. He goes on to say that the time mechanics in Braid are synonymous with taking back a move in chess, and that taking back a move in chess “negates the whole discipline of the game. He also states “… I [am not] persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game. [Santiago] also admires a story told between the games levels, which exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.” In response to the example of Flower a game “about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural” he states, “Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card.” He goes on to ask, “Is the game scores?” For the record, no. “Do you win if you’re the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural?” For the record, no. “Can you control the flower?” For the record, no. “Does the game know what the ideal balance is?” For the record, no.

Earlier in his journal post he wrote:

Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist’s soul, or vision. Countless artists have drawn countless nudes. They are all working from nature. Some of their paintings are masterpieces, most are very bad indeed. How do we tell the difference? We know. It is a matter, yes, of taste.

This is important because, honestly, Ebert does have a predisposition against video games. In fact, the very questions he asks about Flower, and the way he characterizes the key gameplay mechanic of Braid shows that he does not have an accurate conception of the modern day video game. Flower, a game with no score or win condition, is about a primal emotional experience told through imagery, like a short film without dialogue. Braid uses time alteration mechanics to show that even moving backward is also a type of moving forward, and it tells a story about a young man, the people he has hurt over the course of his life, and his role in developing the atomic bomb, while still allowing the player to fill in the blanks through clues expressed through scenery and setting. It doesn’t just let you take back your mistakes, it shows you that your mistakes can never truly be taken back. (I can’t comment on Waco Resurrection as I have never played it.) Whether or not these games qualify, as art art is debatable, but the fact that he immediately writes them off as pathetic without any actual research into what they are and how they play shows his predisposition clearly. He is condemning “games” as a medium without experiencing or even researching them.

Instead, his predisposition is to examine all games as an analog to football or chess. His “taste” tells him that this is how video games are, and his “taste” will, perhaps for his entire lifetime, simply tell him that video games are not art. However, the rules he posited earlier in his article for what DOES qualify as art paints a very different picture indeed. If we were to go by these rules that he very clearly outlines, then it is safe to say that Roger Ebert does believe that the modern video game can qualify as art. In fact, he believes that they already do qualify as art. If art is something that you don’t win or lose but simply experience, and is something that improves or alters nature through artistic vision then game developers have been making art for ages! We, as gamers, have been guided through the artistic vision of storytellers such as Hideo Kojima, Yoshinori Kitase, and Shini Mikami for a while now. In the end, it turns out that Roger Ebert isn’t saying that these people haven’t been making art, he is saying that they haven’t been making “games.” A game to Roger Ebert clearly is synonymous with football or chess, whereas our modern day story-based video games are not. Perhaps then all we need to do is stop calling them games all together, and instead adopt Heavy Rain’s policy of calling them “interactive storytelling experiences.” Or perhaps this is all one gigantic argument of semantics … I don’t know.

On a final note, Roger Ebert’s famous quote is, “No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great filmmakers, novelists and poets.” My response to that is, “What would make the game worthy?” In Ebert’s eyes, the first step is “not being a game” which kind of makes the question pointless. However, for me, personally, there are games that have caused me to cry, laugh, and get that warm fuzzy feeling inside. There are games with characters that I came to identify with, characters that I saw myself in, as well as characters I despised and characters that I felt pity for. These are stories that have taken up 20, 40, 80 hours of my life and more. These are immersive experiences that have actually changed who I am as a person. If that isn’t comparable to the works of great filmmakers, novelists, and poets that have done the same, I don’t know what is.

Now to totally invalidate everything I have just written with a piece of internet slang.

TL;DR Roger Ebert does think video games can be art, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Anyway John Con was interesting. It was a small little affair, probably the smallest show we have ever done. It felt kind of like pre-gaming for Otakon considering that it was in the same area. There was something quaint about how small it was. Perhaps it was the fact that its small nature made it very flexible when all was said and done. DO XIII was basically able to walk right in and… do whatever they wanted, and that always makes for a cool convention.

Here is just some of the awesome we supplied Johncon with.

1. Brawl+
2. BlazBlue Continuum Shift
3. Magic the Gathering Cube Draft
4. Full Anime Room takeover with Durarara and Summer Wars
5. Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare
6. Spoiler
7. Broken Sky
8. Much Much More

However, the coolest thing was by far was the fan-fiction contest. We got six entries of pure, high-grade, mock-worthy fanfiction, and the judging was a hoot! Me, Rob, and Mike took point but everyone contributed. It was amazing, and we had people laughing on the floor. We would love to do this again. Not only was it majorly funny, but it gave good concrete examples of what NOT to do in fanfiction. Hopefully, we can strike a deal with some cons to let us do this again.

Anyway, it was a good, but exhausting weekend. Hopefully next time we will be set up in a hotel closer to the con.

I leave you, oh wonderful fans who may or may not like the Insane Clown Possie, with this image.

Hahaha, they are dropouts.

I don’t know who this guy is… but I’d like to see him at one of the cons we perform at. Maybe we can make a deal. *gears in head turning*

This is what we have so far, contribute if you like. We might perform this!

They see me rollin
in my van
it smells like my feet
you know I’m riding dirty
(change the floorboards riding dirty)
(sticky carpet ridin dirty)
(got no shoes on ridin dirty)
(foot fungus ridin dirty)
I got mcdonalds
on my floor
with old candy bars
you know I’m ridin dirty
(got a big mac ridin dirty)
(and a snickers ridin dirty)
(dr. pepper ridin dirty)
(supersize me ridin dirty)

gonna take a ride down to the con
in my costume dressed up as obi wan
in my old nintey six nissan
stained with leftover spanish flan
I dont put my petal to the metal
I put it on fitten day old garbage
that I couldn’t fit into my garage
was in the trunk but needed room for baggage
riding next to me I got my roomate
in the back we got his random con date
and some guy we picked up on the parkway
says he needs to get to the interstate
going to seven eleven for a cheetos bag
some extra slim jims and a porno mag
gonna wipe the grease off with this crusty rag
wear the rest of my stains like an army tag
then were gonna go to taco bell
gonna get the hot sauce burns like hell
then we drop off hitchiker miguel
at the airport near the con hotel
oops I think i just spilled my burrito
on my pants and then sat on my taco
wipe my hands off all covered with cheeto
on my shirt right next to the hot cocoa
and fish roe

they see me eatin
my sushi
spilled soy sauce
all over myself ridin dirty
(hot wasabi ridin dirty)
(pickled ginger ridin dirty)
(sesame sauce ridin dirty)
(slimey seaweed ridin dirty)
I had no time to
go shower
dont wanna get stuck in line
so now i’m ridin dirty
(get my con redge ridin dirty)
(pick up my badge ridin dirty)
(unpacking ridin dirty)
(hotel check in ridin dirty)

Why? Well, bad memories. Without getting too sappy, I have nearly lost friends due to homophobic violence. I have fought for homosexual rights, getting beaten up for my points of view, and the queer natures of myself and my friends. Some of my best friends are gay, and in fact my co-panelists are gay as well. I cannot truthfully say “I am a homosexual” because I am not, and though I am queer in other ways, I cannot assume to know what it is like to actually be gay and to deal with all that discrimination. However, I have dedicated my life to fighting for equality, even if I tell a few dick jokes along the way.

Why am I saying this? Well, ever since we started Disorganization XIII, there have been people who don’t agree with what we do. We flat out decided that we wouldn’t do panels like other panelists do. We wouldn’t do lectures that drone on and one. We would make our panels highly interactive. We would punctuate every important point with a joke if we could. First and foremost we wanted to entertain, because honestly, that is what most people go to an anime or videogame convention for, to be entertained. If we could impart some wisdom on our fans along the way, then that is just bonus for us.

Aside from that, we also swore to never censor ourselves. This, combined with our admitted tendency to do panels that are edgy, has led us to frequently reference queer culture in our panels. We talk about the motivations behind slash pairings in Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare. We talk about the tendency to make “not quite gay” characters in our RPG panel, and how it is rare for anyone to write a wholly openly gay character. We talked about the duality of Sora’s relationship with Riku and Sora’s relationship with Kairi in our Kingdom Hearts panel, as well as Axel’s relationship with Roxas and how this was complicated with Xion, and how either of these can be considered “queer” depending on how far you wish to stretch it. … and of course we make gay jokes in Spoiler.

However, this has all naturally caused a bit of a problem… and believe it or not it’s not the gay jokes that are causing the problem. We are prepared for that … honestly we are! We are TRYING to insult you in Spoiler: The Panel and somehow that is the ONLY panel people haven’t complained about!

For two years now, two separate people have called our panels homophobic. The first was a Kingdom Hearts panel, and the second was our RPG discussion panel. Both of these individuals posted and re-posted their opinions about our homophobic behavior on the internet, quoting us as saying things that were, quite frankly not true and even more frankly not even said in the first place.

It seems as if these individuals didn’t actually listen to our panels to begin with. They certainly didn’t listen to Rob’s brave tendency to admit his own homosexuality in front of a crowd. They certainly didn’t listen to any of our own experiences in helping the gay community. They certainly also didn’t listen to our disclaimer that said if you were overly sensitive about discussing topics such as, oh I don’t know, gay stuff, to be fucking blunt, that you shouldn’t be in the panel in the first place.

Quite frankly, it seems as if both of these individuals stretched our words to serve their purposes, simply because they didn’t like us! One individual took our analysis of Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4 and said we called him nothing but a “flaming homosexual.” I went over our panel from that NYAF! We said nothing of the sort! We talked about how brave it was to write a character that has to deal with queer issues, and how a large part of his character revolves around coming to terms with his own feelings. We were even accused of calling characters “faggots” and “homos” and get this, upon review, not once, NOT ONCE, did we ever use the words “faggot” or “homo” in the panel. In fact, we never used ANY slang word for homosexual in ANY derogatory fashion. Later, he criticized us for saying Final Fantasy 12 was a bad game and frankly, going back over the panel, we didn’t even say that. Kirk and Jay both said that they thought it was a great game! In fact, while we posited that there were several flaws with the game, all of us played it to completion, and many of us enjoyed doing so.

The other individual bashed us about being anti-gay in our KH panel, and while we do admit we had a lot of gay jokes in that panel, we also addressed the upcoming sequels, talked about Nomura interviews, and much much more. We have to respect this one particular critic, because quite frankly he ALSO does panels and anyone who has the balls to step up and do panels is OK in our book, but his blog almost appeared as if he was begging for us to get in a fight with him. When we did three panels in a row at last years NYAF, he was astounded we didn’t try to start something with him up on stage. Honestly, we didn’t even know who he was! He made a statement about people being disgusted that we were going to Otakon, but we filled house at Otakon! It later turned out that these “people” involved only his close friend that he went to Otakon with. So he too was exaggerating things to serve his own purposes, and we weren’t even sure we knew what those purposes are!

A couple theories have been kicked around. Some of us think that this is all sensationalism. That perhaps hating on popular panelists will get more publicity than liking them. One of our critics did a panel on best and worst games of all time, and while he named Tetris as the best game of all time (and many of us are with you on that one), he named the worst game of all time as Final Fantasy 7, which… is just ludicrously insane, and quite biased against RPGs. Fuck, we even think Final Fantasy 7 is over-hyped, but … the worst game ever? Has this guy ever played ET for the Atari 2600? Has he ever played Superman 64? Has he ever played Desert Truck!?!? We couldn’t fathom him saying that for any reason other than to get a rise out of the audience, and perhaps he was hating on us for the same reason.

Now, just like anyone else in the convention scene, we are prepared for our lumps. Not everyone has to like us, and quite frankly we know a LOT of people will dislike us. However, there is a big difference between saying we suck and saying that we are a bunch of raving homophobes. In fact, it was even claimed that we would be in support of the Matthew Shepard beatings. This is NOT cool.

You see, even though the internet loves to shield us all with anonymity, there are very real repercussions to publishing your words. We at Disorganization XIII have never been ashamed of what we do and so we do not hide our real names at conventions. However, once we were accused of being homophobes with our real names attached to the article, several of our members started run in to trouble at their jobs, being questioned by their bosses and superiors about the allegations. Now, this was cleared up by simply showing the actual footage from the events and question, and through support from the staff and executive boards of the conventions we perform at, but it’s still fucking frightening. If we weren’t as responsible as we are with our record keeping and disclaimers, a random blog post like that could have cost innocent hard-working people their job, and that is just not right.

What could we have possibly done about this? We weren’t even going to mention this on our site until we started having to deal with real world consequences once more. We could have started a flame war, but that never accomplishes anything. We could have openly called out our attackers, but that would have just given them more attention. Heck, after we sought out some legal counsel, it even turned out that we had a pretty good case for suing for libel, but getting the law involved would be massively dick of us, and a long trial is not only expensive, it is potentially life ruining for either party involved. If we won, the best we could do is ruin some poor schmuck’s life who probably thought he was posting something totally innocent to an internet blog, much as we thought our panels were totally innocent as well. That wouldn’t make us better, in fact it would make us bigger dicks than we could possibly imagine.

The fact of the matter is, we can’t keep people from making defamatory or malicious comments about us, and since we wear the badges of “professional geek” proudly on our chest, we won’t stop using our real names too. We have repeatedly offered to have a public debate about the topic with our critics at a convention but both have turned us down. I don’t blame them, having the debate probably would prove nothing other than who is better at working a crowd, and since we already have the full support of several anime conventions and plenty of fans, a debate is pretty much a losing proposition.

So our only recourse is to just not be intimidated. Rob said it best after the first allegation when he said this was incredibly insulting to him. As a gay man, he found the fact that the anime community allowed him to talk about homosexual topics to be an inspiration. He, like myself, felt that we were being labeled homophobes simply because we had a panel that had the word “gay” in it. He was not going to be silenced about his own sexuality because other people felt uncomfortable about it. That is more homophobic than anything we could ever say.

If you search for Disorganization XIII on the internet, you can still find these articles, and whenever we Google ourselves … yes we are that vain … it is always depressing to see the amount of websites these articles have wormed their way on to. They will always be a stain on our convention record and that stain won’t come out. Lest their authors have a change of heart, we will always have to deal with the consequences including whatever drama may happen at work, increased difficulty in finding new jobs if our prospective employer sees those articles, and general animosity toward us by people who do not understand us and who have never even seen our panels in the first place.

So in response, we will handle this in the Disorganization XIII way. So, Rob himself has decided to create a new panel for our lineup this year, entitled “This Panel Is Gay”. The panel will be a serious discussion about the queer community in anime, manga, videogames, and geek culture. If you want to talk gay, let’s talk gay. I really want to hear you guys call a whole panel of gay and queer individuals homophobic for a third time. I really do.

I will unfortunately not be joining this panel, because quite frankly, I admit, I am scared. I have been called a homophobe and have had to deal with the consequences one too many times for my liking. I have an immense amount of respect for Rob, for being strong where I cannot be.

So, if you really want to know what it’s like being queer in the geek community, then check out our panel. I assure you it will be more than just another bunch of dick jokes.

… and remember. Words always have consequences, so think before you go accusing people of being bigots. Honestly, calling someone a fucking asshole is way more cathartic and has less real world repercussions anyway.

Don’t be a fucking asshole.

Until next time. Stay way past cool loyal fans. We will see you on the con circuit.

Angelo M. D’Argenio
Proud President of Disorganization XIII

What is a pro gamer?

A pro gamer is…
1. Someone who enjoys a particular game enough to want to be good at it.
2. Someone who uses every game they play as an excuse to learn more and increase their skills.
3. Someone who always plays their hardest, just to see how far they can push themselves.
4. Someone who treats the games they play as a sport, complete with all the rules of good sportsmanship and polite competition.
5. Someone who wants to share their gaming passion with others, especially their friends and other likeminded individuals.

On the flip side, a casual gamer is…
1. Someone who doesn’t particularly care about being good at a game, even if they enjoy it.
2. Someone who only looks for fun and gratification without asking why the games they play are fun or gratifying.
3. Someone who plays only hard enough so that they don’t have to spend any sort of effort.
4. Someone who treats the games they play as a random distraction, rather than a forum for skill and competition.
5. Someone who is totally willing to shun their friends who are better than them, to the extent of not playing games with them at all, simply due to a gap in skill.

Well when you look at it that way it sure seems like the pro gamer, has the better values doesn’t it. That’s not necessarily true though. You can spin anyone’s likes and dislikes into something that can be either loved or hated. In fact, it is the negative spin on the pro gaming point of view that labeled pro gamers as assholes in the first place. In short, these lists, and the entirety of my article, pretty much mean nothing. It is not better to be a pro gamer or a casual gamer. Games will always mean different things to different people.

There are some pro gamers that are real assholes out there. They will smack talk you, even if you are just a casual observer, look down on you if you make any sort of mistake, and generally act like pretentious assholes when all you are trying to do is have fun, but these guys are just dicks and dicks exist in any sort of social group. Most pro gamers through, are not trying to make you feel bad when they stomp you in your favorite game, they are just trying to play the best they can. Before you go spitting at a pro’s shoes the next time you are in an arcade, imagine if you were in them, and people became made at you, just because you were good at something.

Pro and casual gamers probably won’t ever find a middle ground that will allow both to exist in harmony, but there is hope. Pro gamers of the world, there is one role that you are best suited for, the role of the teacher. There are many people out there that are willing to hear your tips, tricks, and strategies, so that they might become better and one day challenge you. Have patience, and teach them without looking down on them and you might find your gaming circle increasing in size. Consequently, casual gamers, you also would fit well in the role of the student. Don’t scoff at people who try to give you advice. Don’t get frustrated and scream about how “the move isn’t working” or “the controller is broken.” When a pro is trying to teach you something, it is not because he is showing off, it is because he finds some joy in making another gamer better.

In conclusion, the reason why pro gamers are assholes, is because we think they are assholes. Get good enough, and you’ll end up being the asshole too. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the arcade to teach some kids how to play Tager in BlazBlue Continuum Shift. Go Go Gadget Finger!!!

When I was formulating this article, I postulated my “pickup basketball game” analogy to one of my casual gaming friends. For those of you who don’t remember part two, the analogy was “you don’t go to a pickup basketball game and then act surprised when there are basketball players who are better than you there. Everyone is there to play basketball and everyone has trained long and hard to do so. If you aren’t good enough, that is because you haven’t been training hard enough.” I made the analogy because I wanted to find a clever way of saying you can’t expect to always be the best without practice. Essentially, if you partake in a game that by its very nature is competitive, like a fighting game, then you should expect people to play to win, rather than be content with randomly mashing buttons.

Well the rather expected response from my casual gaming friend was “I’m not at a pickup basketball game.” Now, this is about the time I would normally throw my hands up in the air and shout “You missed the whole point of the analogy!!!” followed by smacking my casual gaming friend in the face with a fish, but he actually has a good point. He isn’t at a pickup basketball game. He is at home, in his living room, with a very small and select group of friends. A better analogy would be, say, backyard basketball, where a few friends play a simple game of horse around a stand up hoop. You could reasonably assume that everyone in your friendly little backyard game is around your skill level, most notably because you probably wouldn’t invite the semi-pros from the neighborhood park pickup games to your house.

This got me thinking. If the random splatter of friends sitting down to some games of BlazBlue is not the equivalent of a pickup game, what is? The answer? The arcade. An arcade is filled with a bunch of like-minded gamers who are willing to actually spend money on the prospect that they are better than the other gamers around them. It’s all cutting room floor at the arcade. If you lose a game, you lose your hard earned money. Gamers are basically forced to be competitive or be poor, which, is pretty much exactly what pro gamers are looking for.

So when my casual gamer friends tell me to fuck off and go to the arcades if I am looking for the hardcore gaming experience, they actually have a point. There is only one problem though. Arcades are rapidly failing. How many of you have an arcade nearby that has any sort of modern competitive games. Heck, I live in Jersey, and I’ll be lucky if I see anything other than skeeball or crane games in my arcades. I have to go to New York to find even one BlazBlue cabinet. The fact of the matter is, I can’t go to arcades to get my competitive gaming fix because they don’t exist anymore.

There are lots of reasons why arcades are failing. Inflation has caused arcade games to go up from 25 cents a pop to a dollar or more for recent releases, which has discouraged many people from bothering. It is not only cheaper in the long run to pick up a console version and an arcade stick, it is also more accessible and carries less of a penalty for losing when you are still learning the game. Add to this the fact that home console ports of games generally feature a plethora of new modes, stages, characters, and other extras that make arcade ports basically null and void. The home version of Tatsunoko VS Capcom for example, features 8 new characters that you simply can’t play in the arcade. Arcade ports don’t benefit from balance patches, nor do they allow for online play. They don’t allow players to enter training mode, or most of the time any other mode other than the appropriately named arcade mode. They are, for all purposes, worse than home console ports, and even if you stay in and beat every challenger, when the day is done you will have still lost the dollar you spent to play the game in the first place.

Not only that, but arcades are primarily a social gathering and gamers are getting less social by the day. The internet allows us to find suitable opponents all over the world without leaving our living room. Not only that, but we can turn off the sound on internet opponents if they are annoying, something you can’t do in real life. Gamers are also getting poorer by the day. With the economy steadily tanking, losing a dollar here or there due to bad play is just not an option. In short, as much as it would be cool to have a place to hang out and game on a regular basis, it just isn’t economically feasible.

So pro gamers have basically been driven out of their natural habitat and have stepped into the realm of the casual gamer: the living room. It’s the only place we can go, and there we meet the inevitable resistance of the casual gamer. The sad truth of the matter is, pro gamers don’t have a place that naturally accepts their competitive nature, and have to work extra hard to find a playgroup that wants the same thing.

So no arcades means less competitive gaming and more casual gaming. Does this mean that the world of videogames is fated to get more and more casual as we push on toward the future? Has the noble pro truly lost his place in the world? What does it all mean?

Well stay tuned for the conclusion, where I put all of my rants together and figure out just what this has taught us all.

I wanted to respond to this, but the gaming community was all over it like white on rice.

So here, check it out, both video and response right here at this link.

http://trueslant.com/tassi/2010/02/16/why-my-life-filled-with-video-games-is-not-a-waste/