Smashing Fun-kins and Game’s Addiction.

In 2016 I wrote that I wanted to be part of a zeitgeist.

A couple of weeks ago I travelled 1500 kms to see 1990’s alt-rock legends Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, and Australia’s own pub punks Amyl and the Sniffers, live. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, to chase that zeitgeist, travelling from the city I’ve spent my working life in, to the one where I grew up and turns out have outgrown. It’s been six years since I’ve returned home and live music really is the only thing that would get me that far afield, and out that late at night. And so there I was – donning a pair of well-worn shoes, a pair of old jeans probably overdue a wash, and a Bad Religion shirt – making my way across my hometown of Adelaide to stand not 25 metres away from people that wrote the soundtrack to much of my teenage life.

It was all cheers as mainstays Billy Corgan and James Iha walked on stage, the former donning the most gothic outfit you’re likely to find outside of Ville Valo’s wardrobe, and the latter something straight from a man that’s stumbled into a mid-west trader. My applause (and an audible “yeah!”) however was reserved for drummer Jimmy Chamberlin – jazz drummer extraordinaire and only remaining original member I hadn’t seen live. And it was worth the wait as he played each skin, each symbol, and each snare with an level of unrivalled control and timing.

There is something really special about live music. Standing there in the dark with hundreds – maybe thousands – of strangers united only by the way the cacophony of sounds tickles their eardrums is a conceptually strange but moving experience. The seemingly involuntary body convulsions in the dark, the echo of the occasional missed note from the crowd, all made for something that felt more hive-like than we care to admit.

It wasn’t until the lights dimmed, and the tempo slowed as the almost baroque-sounding We Only Come Out At Night was played, that the emotions got the best of me. A solitary tear ran down my cheek. There I was, a grown man, crying in the dark. But it wasn’t embarrassing – far from it – it was an experience that becomes life’s canon. Just as Soma opened my eyes to the beauty and potential of music in the early 90’s, the Smashing Pumpkins again managed to create another memory that shapes who I am.

And it had me thinking: is there a video games equivalent of live music? In a medium that is largely enjoyed in isolation, particularly since the downfall of the arcade, can video games deliver that same sense of communal appreciation and emotion? It can tell stories – like those in Yakuza and Like A Dragon that remind us of the importance of friendship and humanity, – but can that transcend the individual experience and become something more shared? I suddenly became hyper aware of the time spent playing video games through the lens of whether I could be doing something better.

And then the Mortal Kombat 1 trailer hit and the years and years of devotion to a narrative arc came flooding back to me. The school yard conversations, scouring over every screenshot in every magazine, sharing our own juvenile takes on the fate of Earthrealm and Outworld and the characters that inhabited it.

As I watched the trailer for the umpteenth time, and the number of views grew from people just like me, it became clear that the trailer to a series that has practically grown up alongside me is a social phenomenon. There were people like me all around the world that had spine shivers when Shang Tsung appeared, when Sub-Zero and Scorpion stood side by side, and when there was a passing glimpse of the horror that sat beneath Mileena’s mask. This is a part of video game, pop-culture, and ultimately human history that defined many childhoods.

While we may not have been all standing in the same room, having the experience at the same time, there was an implicit sense of community and belonging to something. It may not be the same as buying Led Zeppelin II on vinyl in 1969, seeing Oasis at Knebworth in 1996, or for me seeing the Smashing Pumpkins play Eye in Adelaide in 2023. But it is something worthwhile and something that can and should mean something to those invested in it.

To critique 2016 self; videogames can be a zeitgeist. It just took the Mortal Kombat 1 trailer for me to realise it.