I decided to go online in order to see if anyone else was writing about the Nigerian gaming scene and I found a couple of articles written by Mayowa Tomori on the Nigerians going to the World Cyber Gaming Tournament this year. The article shed some more light on three of the contestants and he was quite supportive of our going at all. They are definitely worth a read and I am going to be following up on the company that is organising the whole thing, La Kraft Entertainment.
All that was quite inspirational and it made me feel good to be a gamer, and a Nigerian gamer at that until I decided to have a look at the comments on this one in particular.
Wow. The degree of stupidity and quite frankly, ignorance on display was quite disheartening. Usually, I get annoyed by most internet comments pages, but this was just outright reprehensible.
To think that people who are supposed to be in a land that grants them exposure, education, opportunities and infrastructure that one would think would allow them to develop in a better way are just wasting all their opportunities away. And the worst part is, I can see how it can happen. When you're in a culture that can afford to support, and in fact actively encourages individualism and freedom of thought, most people will probably go for the meanest and laziest path available to them.
It scares me sometimes as we rush headlong into a democratic and 'developed' society. Is that what is waiting for us? A new generation of internet idiots waiting to suck at the teat of a fibre optic cable with no sense of propriety? It is no wonder that the majority of gamers who were commenting on various blogs and sites during the whole Resident Evil 5 racism wahala were completely oblivious to how imagery in the game could even be construed as racist. I remember watching the video, and I would be the first to admit that it didn't make me think 'racism' the minute I saw it, but after a bit of thought it did come off a bit indelicate. Not racist so much as using racist stereotyping.
All that most of them saw was a black man saying that blacks should never be zombies.
Well, I guess this is even more of a reason for more Africans to get into the game development/playing scene. The more these net kiddies see real Africans and African inspired games the more used to our culture they could get. Instead of getting it all from news reports about wars, killings, and from Black Hawk Down on blu ray.
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2 comments:
You guys have an awesome blog, thanks for reading the article.
Quite a few updates since this article came out, the ESWC guys had visa issues and couldn't go to the competition. But they are still active, I read that they aligned themselves with Gillette and held a joint event recently.
And World Cyber Games pulled in some big sponsors, Starcomms, Chams PLC, Bank PHB and just concluded their event earlier this month.
Again, thanks for reading.
p.s. I'm glad someone else is as excited about Little Big Planet as I am!
Hi Mayowa, thanks for dropping by. Quite happy that you like the blog :-).
Really disappointed to hear about the guys not getting visas. Not that I'm surprised though. 'Young Nigerians travelling to play in a videogame competition' must have rang every alarm bell there was to ring in the visa office >.>
Ah well, I think it is more important that we develop the home scene first before we start running to the international circuit so maybe it is a mixed blessing.
I remember seeing a huge banner for the tournament at The Palms Shopping Mall in Lagos, but when I went inside to inquire didn't see their set up, but then again I was in a bit of a hurry and so didn't really look around or ask people.
Glad to hear you are also excited about LBP. Can't wait until I can get my hands on it!
Also, if you are coming down to Lagos over the Christmas you should get in touch. If you play Halo 3 (or hopefully Left 4 Dead!!) you might have some fun at one of our 360 link parties.
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