Who's The Lamest?

Written by Makke

I move a lot among the wares and games-dudes in the area where I live. Simply because they are the only computer interested people in this part of Skane. There are simply too few sceners here. In fact there are almost none. Which is really sad, because many of these little brats who call themselves computer-wizzes are just... lamers. I think this is where the real lamers have gone. They trade wares. That's the only thing they're able to do, because they sure as hell don't know much about computers.

For instance I was an organizer of a local LAN-party not long ago, where we held competitions in Quake, Quake 2, Half Life and Star Craft - Broodwars. Now my computer knowledge is kind of limited. I'm a beginner at most things, I only know the basics really well. But this place, which was the "core of the local computer society", was filled from floor to roof by lamers.

I remember a few guys that had "trouble" with the network and asked us how the hell we had drawn the network, and told us that the network sucked because they couldn't reach the FTP, and they couldn't do this and that. I said I'd take a look at it, and so I did. From what I could see nothing was wrong with the network itself. And not with their TP-connectors either. However, when I took a look at their IP-addresses I was amazed how ignorant/idiotic they were. The whole network was based on the 192.168.1.xxx IP-system.

I asked them what IP-addresses they were supposed to have. And they asked, "IP-address?"

Hmm... well... their IP-addresses were... quite wrong. Yet they blamed us for their faulting network-connection. Lame!

Later on the LAN I sat next to a guy who was talking about a friend of his who liked coding. This friend was probably really good at what he was doing, at least that was the impression I got. But this... GAMER/LAMER/ THE-ONLY-THING-I-DO-IS-TRADING-WARES-person thought this guy was totally weird because he found coding so amazing.

"The only thing he does is coding! He never plays any games. And really, that's what computers are for, right?" he said. "If it wasn't for us gamers the computers wouldn't be as good as they are today. It's us who put pressure on the hardware-developers and software-houses to make better products."

Why is that a fact? And what does he think the software-houses make games of? Clay? If there weren't people who were developing their skills at coding instead of their skills at moving a mouse fast and trashing the keyboard there wouldn't be any great games. Not as many anyway. And in my opinion it's not the gamers who put pressure on the software and hardware-developers. It's the other way round. It's the soft and hardware dealers who make the gamers think they need new and better equipment all the time. If the software-houses really wanted to, they could make great looking games for slower computers, but as they don't have to since the hardcore-gamers buy new equipment all the time, they don't. And the hardware-developers don't have to keep updating older models as "everybody" will buy the new one anyway. Commercialism at its peak!

And the power is not in the consumers' hands. It's the company with the best advertising that has the power.

I have to admit that it is true that the gamers are responsible for the fact that personal computers are getting faster. But if he complains about friends only wanting to code and not play games he's insane. That's like a drug-addict saying he can't understand why the hell some people only want to grow hemp but never use it themselves!

I wonder who is the most stupid/lame of them. The one who uses the product, or the guy who makes money from the product? The guy who uses the program, or the guy who made it?

Just some thoughts I came up with now, which once again shows that sceners are cooler than lame... ehm... gamers. But I guess we'll just have to try to live in harmony, and try to realize there is no right, and no wrong.

The Matrix has us all anyway.

- Makke/Visuale/Hugi/Trebel