Barcraft

I find I rather enjoy the barcraft events. It's entirely surreal to sit down in a bar with a bunch of other geeks and cheer on video game matches, in the sense that such things simply aren't done by people like us. If it happens it's typically a rare event, a convention or held in a private place for a tourney. I feel the weirdness almost adds to it though. It's certainly something I'd like to see more of. Proving that us geeks enjoy eating nachos, drinking beer, and watching people fight on screens as much as anyone is probably not the noblest of goals, but it'll be nice if we can see it expand. 

I had a chat with Josh about what's happening to geek culture as it integrates into mainstream society recently. One of the potential concerns is how it may lose it's individuality as this happens, becoming more or less a series of stereotypes that we believe we should adhere to instead of 'genuine geekiness', so to say. Essentially following in the footsteps of movies, the crowd that truly examines and admires games would diminish in the face of an overwhelming 'casual' crowd, that'll enjoy a severely marginalized experience and take nothing deeper away from it. 

I see barcraft as a sign that we may avoid this fate. Following, of all people, jocks and sports fans in practice. Barcraft and events like it could allow us to form small socially accepted and persistent communities fixated on games and gaming. Its inside these communities that I could see the rest of our culture continuing to survive, if not more easily grow. Sports grow due to their depth, fans becoming more tied up in the game the more they understand it, and this is a mentality that lends itself to critical examination. Typically applied  to which of the fan favorites is more likely to win, but still - critical analysis and joy from said analysis. The key roots to enjoying games as an art form. 

Now I don't honestly expect bar crafts to transform into events to purely explore the artist merits of games - no, it's hard to drink to that. Difficult to express a high ideal when your face is full of nachos. However it will create a culture of people open to complex games, that will pass around new games and recommend favorite titles. 

It provides a link between the mainstream crowd, that will see us as nothing more than a new type of football fan, and the passionate crowd that wants to see games expand and take on new levels. The e-sport crowd may very well be the best thing to have happened to gaming.