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Jason Farris
United States
Fair Oaks
California
There is a duck in every game. You may not see it, but it's there.
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What drives you?
It’s a slightly more existential day for the cardboard Curmudgeon. Drive is an interesting word. Freud said we are all driven by sex and aggression, or pleasure and aggression if the word sex freaks you out too much. I’m sure there’s truth to it. Skinner trained animals based on pleasure and danger avoidance and we have the same hardwiring as other animals. But I’m looking for less primitive drives.
Today, I’m looking at this blog and my reviews. Why write a blog? Why write reviews? Who really needs my input in an internet age when everyone has their say. What makes mine better or more special than the next persons?
The reality is that it does not, despite my fantasies to the contrary. The only thing that separates me from the average person is that I have a drive to be heard and am willing to take the time to write out a message. Part of the drive comes from a need for positive attention and notice. Part of it comes from a desire to express myself in any medium possible (writing just being the easiest for me). And part of it comes from a much darker place, a fear of isolation and meaninglessness.
I ‘m not talking isolation in the traditional sense, I have a family and people I care about and who care about me. I’m talking in the sense that nobody will ever truly know you. For example, my wife, who knows a lot about me, cares nothing for my hobby. I occasionally forget and try to talk to her about a game, a thread on the geek, or even a review. She is polite and listens, but it is not important to her. She does not understand. This is not her failing or mine. It just is.
The other dark drive is the need to put something out there that is permanent. No, this blog and my reviews are not great works of art to be hung in art galleries. But they have a sort of permanence (until the internet dies). Just knowing that something I have written exists in the beyond gives me comfort.
Believe it or not, this was all brought up by a review I recently wrote on Panic Station. It clashed with some of the drives that push me to write, yet I wrote it anyway. And it was uncomfortable to do. It was a negative review which pushes against my drive for positive attention and notice. Also, this review was for a game from a company that I can’t say enough good things about and from a designer who is a good contributor to the geek. Yet I wrote it anyway. It was scathing and sarcastic to a degree that it did not have to be.
So there I was faced with a review that would take some flak, I have written negative reviews before and there is the inevitable, “How dare you not like my favorite game!” comments. These generally do not bother me as everything is a matter of taste. But I did not want to make either Stronghold games or the designer unhappy.
Reality check time, I am writing a game review on a board game website with thousands of pages of content hundreds of thousands of reviews are posted and more hit every day. No matter how important I think my review is, ultimately it will disappear into the noise of the geek. So who is this really important to?
I would love to think that everyone would love my reviews, but really, I am writing them because of my drive. The review needs to meet my standards and needs to fit my tone. I have to own it. Sometimes my writing will soar and sometimes it will fall flat. Either way, it’s mine and I need to remember that it is important to me.
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There is a duck in every game. You may not see it, but it's there.
