MGCCon: Malaysian Games and Comics Convention: a strange reaction.

Today, I brought my two elder sons to see the Malaysian Games and Comics Convention, at KDU University College, Damansara Jaya. The reason for doing so was simple: Ainan was participating at the Astromedia stall, as an animator. In his one hour in the booth, he created a comedic animation – a short tale about the life and times of two rabbits. It was very funny. Yet, that is not why I write...something else is.

Whilst I was doing a tour of the booths at the convention, I came across one that was clearly marketing an online game. It was by Garena. I looked curiously at the game paraphernalia on display. At that point, a young man in attendance approached me.

“Have you ever played computer games?”, he asked, in a curiously condescending manner. He seemed to look at me as if no-one as old as me could possibly have ever experienced such pursuits.

“Yes.” I replied very mildly and softly, though well aware of what he thought about me.

He seemed hesitant, as if he still didn’t believe me.

“What have you played?”, he asked, seemingly convinced that the answer wouldn’t be much.

“Oblivion.”

“Oh, Oblivion!”, he dismissed. “This is very different from that.”

He then went on to explain why this game was different from the one I was familiar with.

“Would you like to open an account?”, he asked, at the end of his pitch. “If you do, we will give you the free goodies.”

I looked at the bag of goodies, back at the screen where an account opening procedure awaited me and then back up at him.

“What is the subscription?”

“Oh it is free.”

“Is it an online game?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back.”, I said and walked away.

Little did he know, but he had lost me the moment he spoke condescendingly to me. The young are sometimes so very stupid. They believe themselves to be superior to the old – and yet, in almost every way, they are the inferior of their elders. This young man looked down on me because I was more than twice his age. He thought that I could not conceivably have any experience of modern gaming culture. So he treated me, from the very beginning, as some kind of lesser life form. It came through in his every word, tone of voice, attitude and demeanour. He just thought I wasn’t likely to have any experience of the kind of game he was marketing. Yet, of course, I have a very good idea of what kind of game he was selling. I have played similar games in my life – as most people have.

There was another reason I didn’t sign up for his game. I really didn’t like the idea of bringing another addictive gaming experience into the house, to waste everyone’s time on. There was no beneficial or productive reason to do so. The kind of product he shifted, is corrosive to family life, in excess...so I would just rather not get involved. So, I actually turned down a FREE game!

The truth, of course, is that I knew rather more about his type of game than he realized – which is just why I didn’t “buy” it. That, and his attitude, of course.

I never did go back to his stall, though I passed it by many times in the course of the afternoon.

For me, the highlight of the event was seeing Ainan’s animation. It was by far the most creative thing I saw there. 

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons' inventor dies.

One of the great pastimes of my childhood was pouring over Dungeon's and Dragons tomes, and, on occasions, getting together with enthusiastic others, to play a game of it.

For those who have not heard of this corner of the imagination, Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game, in which you take on the role of a character, whose nature is determined to some extent by roles of the die, that generate his or her characteristics. It is the kind of game where you get to play the story, yourself, rather than just passively read about it. As such, I think it is a valuable addition to the mental furniture of any child (or adult for that matter).

Gary Gygax was a name I knew well, from about the age of 11 when I first encountered his pioneering game. It seemed to me then, and does now, that in creating the game with David Arneson, that he had fashioned a rich and complex world. It was a game of many nuances and great complexities, which appealed to me in the way, perhaps it can only appeal to a child, with their sense of endless time stretching ahead. You see, there is no doubt that a considerable investment of time and mental energy was required to come to understand and be able to play the game effectively.

Dungeons and Dragons appealed - and still appeals - to the kind of person others might refer to as "nerds" or "geeks" - and I think there is a reason for this. D and D, as it is also known, provided a complex mental system of representation of a fictional world. Learning how to play it appeals, therefore, to the kind of person who likes to learn systems of representation of the world (such as the sciences). Hence, many of its followers were of that "nerdy" type. Funny enough, Sync magazine once placed Gary Gygax himself in first position of a list of the world's top 50 nerds.

Born on July 27 1938, in Chicago, Ernest Gary Gygax led a life that did not, at times, presage the magnitude of his later achievements. He was a high school dropout, but later returned to education to take a course in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He earnt his living, in the 1960s, as an insurance salesman - a profession not associated with imagination. Yet, he had already begun to explore the ideas that were later to become Dungeons and Dragons. In his teens, he had begun to devise game rules around miniature figurines. The creation of his fictional world had begun.

Dungeons and Dragons is based on a game called Chainmail, designed for these figurines, he put together with Jeff Perren in 1971. D and D itself debuted in 1974, with David Arneson as a co-creator. Gary Gygax founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) to further the game and it was a great success in publishing, book, video game and film rights, in due course. However, he left the company in 1985 (and as I remember at the time, I don't think it was an entirely happy departure).

It may seem a little thing, to invent a game, but Dungeons and Dragons was to spawn a legion of other role-playing games - and eventually inspire hundreds of computer games, based on the notion of playing a role of a statistically determined character in a high fantasy (or sometimes science fiction world). Not a few films, too, owe their origins to his game. After TSR, Gary Gygax also went onto write many fantasy novels, in his Greyhawk series. He was frequently voted one of the most influential people in science fiction.

He died on Tuesday at the age of 69. That he had been a heavy smoker for 50 years may have contributed (he had had a stroke in 2004). The world of fantasy was not his only area of creativity and he leaves behind a wife and six children (three sons and three daughters).

Gary Gygax enriched the childhood imaginations of millions of children (and adults with a child still alive inside) across the world. He gave the world a new pastime. That, I would think, is a good achievement for a single lifetime.

I am thankful for all the childhood hours I spent in the world of Gary Gygax's imagination. It was fun. How strange that I never once considered that, one day, I would write of his passing. Children don't have that kind of thought, generally.

Cheers, Gary.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)