Gamers are People Too
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I'm a gamer. You know nothing else about me, but I play video games.
What do you think of me?
Do you think I'm a nerdy kid, spending countless weekends hunched over a controller in a dimly lit room, drinking mountain dew instead of playing pick-up football or soccer like a regular American boy?
Do you think I'm a shy, quiet 30-something who prefers interacting with computerized characters instead of real people?
Do you think I'm a homicidal maniac, being brainwashed by violent death simulators to kill indiscriminately in real life?
Do you think I'm young? Male? Easily distracted? Directionless? Wasting my time? Wasting my energy? Wasting my eyesight?
People who didn't grow up with video games may find it surprising that gamers don't easily fall into any of the stereotypes listed above. A whole generation is growing up with games as an ever-present part of their media landscape and their larger life.
Don't believe me? Check out this press release from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which leads with the headline "New Data Shatters Video Game Player Stereotypes." The research states that "computer and video game players spend more than three times the amount of time exercising or playing sports, volunteering in the community, reading, or engaging in religious, creative, and cultural activities than they do playing video games."
The ESA, being an industry trade group, is hardly an unbiased source in this matter. But, its research was undertaken by an outside group and I have no reason to doubt it.
While the statistics the ESA cites are heartening, the fact that they have to cite them at all is a little troubling for self-identified gamers like me. Can you imagine the same types of defenses being offered up for movie-watchers? Music-listeners? Book-readers? More than any other entertainment medium, people who consume video games seem to be unfairly burdened with negative stereotypes.
Why are games and gamers so frowned upon? Much of it has to do with the relative youth of video games as a medium. When the movie industry was as old as the commercial video game industry is now (roughly 40 years, depending on where you start counting), they were still a decade away from film-changing masterpieces such as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Like games, movies were once seen as trivialities or distractions for the easily amused. It took startling advances in technology and artistry for the medium to be considered worthy of more careful attention.
Part of gamers' public perception problem stems from a generation gap. Despite statistics saying that the gamers span all age groups, today's most popular games are definitely not as popular among people over a certain age. Sure, my grandfather will play the occasional game of Tetris or computerized chess, but this doesn't really put him in the same class as the Grand Theft Auto and Madden NFL players that drive the industry. Getting him to understand the appeal of most modern games would likely be a losing battle.
The press doesn't help matters either. I've been reading about video games obsessively ever since I could read, and most of the magazines and websites focused on gaming are targeted at young game enthusiasts like me. Video games don't have the equivalent of a Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly that presents good journalism and criticism in a way that's interesting and approachable to people who don't play games obsessively. The mainstream media is just starting to remedy this by treating games as an entertainment force and not a business section side note.
All these things will change with time, but how much time it will take is definitely up for debate. If we're lucky, someday soon people will be able to identify themselves as gamers without having to worry about what others might think.
Kyle Orland works on NPR's internal web network. In his free time, he writes snarky commentary about the gaming media on his blog, Video Game Media Watch.
Expo Expository. Kyle travels to Los Angeles to report on the unique sensory overload experience of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
