Breaking Down the Stereotypes About Gamers

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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Brian McIver, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Mike: “Hey Sally, what’d you do over the weekend?”
Sally: “I just marathoned all 4 seasons of Game of Thrones.” 
Mike: “I played The Last of Us all weekend.”
Sally: “What’s that?”
Mike: “A video game.”
Sally: “I don’t like video games. They’re such a waste of time.”

Or how about this scenario?

Kelly notices Ted playing a game on his phone.
Kelly: “Hey Ted what’cha playing?”
Ted: “Farmville.”
Kelly: Cool. Have you ever played Civilization or The Sims?”
Ted: “I’m not really a fan of computer games.”

As a gamer both of these scenarios are really not that uncommon to run into. The first is something that people who grew up with games are all too familiar with since many of their parents and relatives didn’t understand or like this new form of entertainment. 

While this has lessened as games have become more popular, there is still a huge stigma that is placed on people who play games. 

The scenario is a slightly more complicated issue that has only developed since the advent of what some term “casual gaming” yet still, even for those that play games, holds a stigma toward those that call themselves “Gamer.”

It’s 1982. One of the biggest changes to home entertainment is the home computer and the Atari 2600. Countless children and adults played hours of text based adventure games, Pitfall, Combat, The Oregon Trail, and many others. As these people grew up they fell out of interest in games and TV was still the biggest source of entertainment in the home at the time. Beyond that, games back then simply were not very deep in story telling or gameplay. 

Then in 1983 video games fell apart. During that time, more than a few people lost interest in the medium all together and moved on to other activities. 

It wasn’t until 1985 that things started to get a bit more interesting, with the continued development of the PC and the coming of the Famicom (a portmanteau of "Family Computer") or Nintendo Entertainment System. Now games had in depth stories, challenging and responsive gameplay, and graphics that weren’t just a blob of pixels firing pixels at other blobs of pixels. 

This is when many people became Gamers. This was the age of Ultima, Castlevania, Mega Man, SimCity, Final Fantasy, and Zelda were born and changed the way we played and experienced games. 

Things only got better from there. Games like Final Fantasy IV and VI brought a level of story telling and character development that few had ever seen before, and still hold impact today. Doom and Wolfenstien were the shooters that would lead to Call of Duty and Battlefield. 

Again the kids that grew up on these games got older. Many parents would think that their kids, now in their late teens and 20s, were being childish and needed to “Grow up.”

Now this is where both a split and a merge occur. The split is between the Gamers and the non-Gamers. As the games and controllers become more complicated, moving away from the 8 button controllers and basic keyboard and mouse commands, to 12 and 16 button controllers with joysticks, and PCs with any number of keyboard commands, people became overwhelmed and thus disinterested. 

The merge in this case was the graphics and stories became phenomenally better moving closer to what some considered cinematic art. Myst during its time was mind blowing with photo realistic settings, complicated and challenging puzzles, and a story with as many twists and turns as an episode of House of Cards. 

Much like with comic books back in the 50s, as the subject matter matured with the audience, and the graphics kept getting better, there were the concerned parents and politicians going bonkers over the maturity of the content in the medium that they had little to no understanding of. 

Those voices have died down a bit since the 90s and early 00s, however there is still a stigma and stereotype that goes along with being a Gamer that consumers of other types of media don’t face.

A good example of this stereotype is found in the episode of South Park 'Make Love, Not Warcraft.' An overweight pock marked male slob that sits around and does nothing but game day in and day out. This is a common view of, not just Gamers, but nerds in general. The larger stereotype being that they of course live in their parent’s basement and suck down Mountain Dew and Cheetos like a lion sucks down Christians. 

The truth is, games have become a mainstream medium. The Playstation 4 has sold 20 million units worldwide since its release in 2013. Games like The Last of Us and Uncharted blur the line between full on cinematic movie and game. Yet the stigma remains. 

The first of the scenarios above is an age old one for Gamers. Those that like to play games will say that they enjoy being actively engaged in the development of the story and its characters. On the other hand people who watch TV are getting an entirely passive experience, and previously they were getting it in much smaller doses. 

Before the advent of DVR and Netflix, people watched TV shows and movies in half-hour, hour, or 90/120 minute shots. Sure the person might sit there and watch reruns of Leave It To Beaver all day long, but the experience was broken up into commercials and the various episodes. These people would look at someone that plays a game all day long and scoff, and says they are wasting their time.

A new twist on this is that people now “marathon” TV shows and movies and they will spend all day watching a series. But when you ask them to play a game you will get a couple of different answers: a.) that video games are a waste of time answer, or b.) “I don’t have the patience for that.”  

The second scenario, that of the casual gamer, is similar in that the view they have of people who play console or computer games is skewed along the same lines as the TV watcher. They consider traditional Gamers as time wasters yet will easily spend an entire day cycling through their Facebook games as their lives deplete and regenerate, moving from one game to another.

Of course there are a lot of issues with the video game community that make a big impact on peoples perceptions, but Gamers in general are good everyday folks just looking for a fun way to spend their time.  And this article certainly isn’t meant to demean those that choose to spend their time playing casual games or watching TV. Honestly you should do what makes you happy. 

Like most people though, Gamers don’t want to be judged for any particular reason and certainly not for how they choose to spend their free time. What Gamers would like is for you to sit down and join them in some co-op Diablo or Little Big Planet. Ask to trade lives while playing The Last of Us (Yes, I want to you to play this game), or join in a game of Mario Kart. As with anything that maybe you don’t get or understand, or that maybe seems intimidating, give it a real chance and you to may find yourself enjoying something you never thought you would.

 

Home page photo credit: włodi via Flickr

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