I am one of the last of my kind. Born in the days of Pong, raised to the sound of Pac Man and grew up saving princesses in Mario Brothers, I continue to be one of the few who still plays games on a regular basis.
You look at today’s gaming culture in Indonesia and you will see a lot of online social games, such as golf game Pangya, shooting gallery
Gunbound or ridiculous dancing game Idol Street Online. I look at these games and weep.
What happened to all those kids who used to play Counterstrike or Quake or all those first-person shooters that provided an immersive perspective of the gaming world? These games not only increased your reflexes or hand eye coordination but they also promoted teamwork and a sense of community.
Of course, all games today do the same thing but something is missing.
I play games such as Team Fortress 2 or Day of Defeat: Source online, with other players across the region since there are very few in Indonesian players, and truly feel transported into another world.
Day of Defeat is a game where you play either an American or German soldier in World War II. Yet looking on the screen, listening to the crackling radio from command HQ and hearing the snow crunch under your feet truly makes you feel that you are in the battlefield. Like a digital game of capture the flag, you can spend hours in stalemate trying to capture that last 50 m to win the game, yet like in real life, sometimes you just can’t.
What’s more, other countries are playing games online and in competition against each other using top branded games such as Star Craft and Counterstrike. Unfortunately, we are lacking the human capital to compete at their level. So what are we going to do about it?
