PowersGaming
Weaksauce
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2009
- Messages
- 93
I wonder if LAN play here in the US is just going thru a temporary lull. Overseas, huge numbers of kids and adults play, and those numbers are growing exponentially. China will have almost 65 million gamers by year's end (Google: "The 2009 Chinese Gamers Study"). Same growth in Korea and Singapore; Singapore's government even sponsors LAN teams.
Foreign countries just view gaming differently than we do. Overseas, gaming is revered, appreciated and followed with intensity; lot of adults play. Cybercafes are flourishing, and LAN parties are huge. DreamHack, the largest LAN party in the world, has over 10k paying attendees. Thats 10,000+ people transporting their computers from all over Sweden and Europe.
"DreamHack is a statement of the Digital Generation, the Woodstock of today, but without the mud and the drugs." (~ Fredrik Nyström) Statement of the "Digital Generation"... That's us my friends.
Problem is tho, here in the US we still suffer from the stigma that gaming is nothing more than a casual pastime for immature kids who, if they play long enough, become addicts. I mean, what kind of reaction do you get here when you tell your peers, "Yeah... This weekend I'm going to a LAN party, and we're gonna stay up all night long playing video games and drinking BAWLS" ? LOL..
We just need to stand up for and support our "digital" generation. Host a LAN party. Go to a LAN party. Invite somebody who has never been to a LAN party.
Foreign countries just view gaming differently than we do. Overseas, gaming is revered, appreciated and followed with intensity; lot of adults play. Cybercafes are flourishing, and LAN parties are huge. DreamHack, the largest LAN party in the world, has over 10k paying attendees. Thats 10,000+ people transporting their computers from all over Sweden and Europe.
"DreamHack is a statement of the Digital Generation, the Woodstock of today, but without the mud and the drugs." (~ Fredrik Nyström) Statement of the "Digital Generation"... That's us my friends.
Problem is tho, here in the US we still suffer from the stigma that gaming is nothing more than a casual pastime for immature kids who, if they play long enough, become addicts. I mean, what kind of reaction do you get here when you tell your peers, "Yeah... This weekend I'm going to a LAN party, and we're gonna stay up all night long playing video games and drinking BAWLS" ? LOL..
We just need to stand up for and support our "digital" generation. Host a LAN party. Go to a LAN party. Invite somebody who has never been to a LAN party.