I was never a player of video games, still lose interest too quickly to really dig in and learn, let alone master, any game. And when it cost a quarter to play, you had to have a lot of quarters–and an obsessive slant–to sit and become anything like good. I grew tired of such antics after the initial blast of interest in the graphics or style wore off.
And my experience of those obsessive players who got really good at games–in the arcade or at home–was for the most part equally trying. I couldn’t empathize with their obsession. And while most were members of the same geek posse I got lumped with, it was hard to get past the arrogance of many game players. I mean, if I wanted boys with big attitudes about bullshit pasttimes, I could have just hung out with my brother and the athletes.
So I came at King of Kong as an ethnographer familiar with the culture, not a current or former citizen. Continue reading King of Kong