Video Gamer Stereotype

Gamers.

Southpark portrays a Gamer from the episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft"

Just the mention of the word seems to conjure images of overweight, acne-ridden males, living in their parent’s basements, surviving on a diet of Burger Rings and Redbull. They are smelly, unsociable cave dwellers; sporting their sweat laden t-Shirts with the latest internet meme that would only ever make sense to another ‘gamer’ that they have no chance of running into, as they never leave their darkened rooms.

Or are they?

Gary M. Grobman tells us that “a “stereotype” is a generalization about a person or group of persons. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the “total picture,” stereotypes in many cases allow us to “fill in the blanks.”

It seems that gaming culture has grown up with a stereotyped image of the ‘average’ gamer. Tell someone at a BBQ that you enjoy playing games and you are usually met with a look like you just told them that you like torturing small animals. Don’t even try, as The Sydney Morning Herald did, to explain that “If you don’t play games, you’re not just missing out, you’re ignoring the most rapidly evolving creative medium in history.” Because you will simply be met with a reply that is prevalent on most game related articles such as;

“Put down that silly controller, get out, hop on a bike, go for a bushwalk, surf, etc, etc. A bazillion times healthier and more social to boot.” or “You’re a nerd who still plays computer games….FAIL!”

But can we blame society for thinking that gamers are nothing more than a bunch of socially awkward pre-teen boys that never grew up. Boys that are forever ‘on the edge’, ready to march into a local high school with a handgun or re-enact our latest exploits or pixel based violence and pornography on society?

Atkinson wants Gamers to "Face the real world"

Michael Atkison, former South Australian Attorney-General, has made public his views about games and gamers during his push to block an R18+ classification for video games, referring to the games as “terrorist simulators’ and going even further, stating that his family was “more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me”. But it’s not only Mr Atkinson that has this view of Gamers…

Caroline Overington is an opinion writer for “The Australian”. In February 2010, Overington

wrote an article in which she said “anyone over the age of 30 who spends any time deep in some sagging sofa, console in one hand, the other down the front of their pants, imagining themselves to be a combatant in some pretend city, is lame.”

She goes on to attack gamers with horrible generalised statements. “they don’t participate in life in any meaningful way”, She paints gamers as jobless ‘sadsacks’ who “withtheir wet hands and their weak chins,[would] never get through an interview.”

Caroline Overington believes that adults that choose to play video games are "major-league lame."

It is this kind of media representation of ‘Gamers’ and gaming culture that perpetuates the stereotype. But how true is the stereotype? Are all gamers young guys with no life?

At this point, it might make sense to define the word ‘gamer’. A gamer is, put simply, a person who plays games. Now, back in the days of the local fish and chip shop arcade machine, this may have been a fairly limited number of individuals. It might even be important to note that the word ‘gamer’ is simply a label that we apply to a group of individuals that have an interest in a certain form of media.

Sam Hinton is a senior lecturer in media and the course convenor for the Media Arts and Production degree at the University of Canberra. In 2006 Sam was awarded his PhD from La Trobe University and also had the opportunity to, via invitation from Id Software, attend the annual Quakecon where he helped fellow ‘modders’ showcase their modifications that they had made to Id Software’s Quake 3. Sam has a keen interest in the sociological aspects of computer games and suggests that perhaps the issue is less about ‘stereotypes’ and more about the way that society creates labels for people in an attempt to make sense of the world and people or around them.  These labels are even used as a tool, as can be evidenced by people like Michael Atkison and Caroline Overington, to meet their own agendas.

Good Games' Rei explores gaming in the professional world." - Video

When a person declares that they are a gamer, they are simply placing themselves within a community of like minded individuals.

When Atkinson uses the word gamer, he is making a statement about the type of people who spend their free time playing games. He is more interested in using the term as a negative, pushing his stance on the dangers of introducing an R18+ classification for video games onto an unprepared Australia.   Atksinons campaign was based upon propaganda and prejudices, making him a demagogue. When Caroline Overington uses the label gamer, she is doing so to place gamers into a ridiculed minority, simply to enforce the stereotype for the sake of a few laughs at the ‘sad sacks’ and to push her own personal agenda.

I think the real problem we are facing may not be the stereotype of a ‘gamer’ but the fact that we need to entertain the fact that the word holds any real meaning at all.

According to a study done by Bond University, we are told that 79% of Australian households have a device for playing computer and video games. Xbox 360’s, PS3s, Nintendo DS, Personal Computers, iPhones – we have gaming at our fingertips.

"Pocket Sized" gaming now means that we have access to games wherever we go.

Whether it is sitting in front of our glossy 50” High Definition Plasma television screen, or standing on a busy city bus playing Plants vs Zombies on our iPhone, gaming is accessible to everyone, everywhere.

It would seem that there isn’t even something as simple as a Gamer anymore. As the medium has expanded, it seems that the industry has decided that it would be easier to place the gamer into a specific subgroup! Take your pick. Are you a Hardcore gamer? A Retro Gamer? Are you a pro or a noob, or dare I even mention it – a ‘casual’ gamer.

Casual games are generally games that are produced to appeal to the mass audience. A lot of your ‘hardcore’ gamers would tell you that anything you buy for your Nintendo Wii from Wii Sport to Wii Fit, are casual games. Games for other consoles like Singstar and Buzz! could also be labeled ‘casual games’, but probably one of the most well-known ‘casual games is Farmville!

81,427,680 users play "Farmville"

If you have logged into your Facebook account lately, there is no doubt that your wall will have been spammed with your friends and relatives letting you know that they have reached the next level of farming, earned a ribbon or planted some fantastic crop.

Farmville, created by ‘casual game developer’ Zynga has become one of the most popular applications on Facebook, with a mind-blowing 81,427,680 monthly users as of April 20, 2010! The website Casual Connect ran an article on the Casual Games Market in 2007 which suggests suggest that the casual gaming demographic vary greatly to those of ‘traditional computer games, typically being older and with over 74% of them being, wait for it, women! And it’s not just ‘casual’ games that women are playing either.

The “Interactive Australia 2007 : facts about the Australian computer and video game industry’ paper goes on to tell us that 41% of all gamers are female and that on average, these gamers are 28 years old!

GIRLS??!

But wait, haven’t we already established that all gamers are young boys or socially retarded men?

Steph goes a long way to casting a different light on what a 'gamer' is.

Stephanie Bendixsen (aka Hex) of ABC Televisions “Good Game” goes a long way to dispelling the myth of the ‘male only’ game culture, but then seems to automatically fall into another stereotype, or labelling, of ‘girl gamer’.

When Hex joined the Good Game crew in 2009, internet forums flared up with cries that “someone in management came up with the brilliant idea that having a female in a lead role would increase viewership with an aim of making Good Game more mainstream.” and that “The average female that plays video games is not a real gamer, there is no evidence to show that Hex is different.”

Stephanie says “They are out there – they just don’t speak up enough. It can be quite intimidating for a female gamer to make herself known in the gaming community – particularly when joining the trash-talk and craziness of online gaming – but the more girls who stick their hand up and say “Hey, I’m into shooting zombies, too” – the more it will give other girls the confidence to try it out. We just need to break down a few of those social conventions and then it will become more commonplace.”

Because fans of the medium have used the word gamer to associate themselves with a certain group, they have also seemed to create their own rules about who does and does not fit.  Stephanie replies to this idea with “People need to stop perpetuating these stereotypes if we have any hope of enticing other girls into our excellent culture.  The reality is, I’m passionate about gaming, I’m thrilled to be writing about it week in and week out – and if I’m breaking any ‘girl-gamer stereotypes’ in the process, well – that’s certainly an added bonus”.

Nintendo challenge the idea of a 'typical' gamer

Nintendo seem to know that the stereotype of a gamer is blurred and sees this as a chance to market their games and consoles to a ‘non traditional demographic’. Nintendo have always marketed themselves as ‘family friendly’ and with the release of the Nintendo Wii said that they wanted to “break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.” (and at the same time indicating that ‘gamers; were not like ‘everybody else’)” Gamasutra ran a news article in 2006 which stated that The official Wii website was quoted as saying: “Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone. Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. Wii has a distinctive “ii” spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.”

Their latest advertising plays on this, with the likes of Nicole Kidman, Liv Tyler and Olivia Newton John promoting the Nintendo DS. We can also see Nintendo using Rebecca Gibney to advertise Wii Fit and she even promotes it during her article for Women’s Weekly.

So where to now?

Mazes & Monsters plays on the inaccurate newspaper stories about James Dallas Egbert III

Just like Rock n’ Roll of the 1950’s. Comic Book in the 1960’s and Heavy Metal of the 1980’s, video games and the people who play them seem to be the latest focus as the imminent downfall of western civilisation. Too often we hear stories of school shootings fuelled by video game violence, teen deaths caused by ‘obsessive’ playing and game induced rage the cause of murder.

Let’s remember that it wasn’t too long ago that the media were placing the same focus on Dungeons and Dragons for the woes of the world.

Perhaps as the gaming medium grows, society will slowly move away from the idea that video games are tools of the Devil and that the word ‘gamer’ will become obsolete as we realise that there is no such thing as a ‘gamer’ and just a person that ‘plays games’. We don’t feel the need to label people as “TV-ers” , so maybe its time to stop feeling the need to place people in a box?

In the days of Web 2.0 and the freedom of a folksonomy, we don’t need to ‘tag’ ourselves with a single label that defines us.

Robert Ashley's "A Life Well Wasted" explores why we game.

The internet radio show “A Life Well Wasted” is a podcast about video games and the people who play them.

In episode 3, “Why Game” Robert Ashley, explores why people play games and it becomes apparent that people play video games for a variety of different reasons. They are fun; they are an escape from the pressures of day-to-day life. People play for social reasons, people play for a sense of accomplishment. There are opportunities for a deeper immersion than we can get through movies or television, experiencing worlds and stories that aren’t attainable in the ‘real world’.

Yes, gaming is actually a social hobby.  ‘Gamers’ will discuss their favourite games over internet forums.  They will play online games together (World of Warcraft alone having a 11.5 million people playing together, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the  most popular MMORPG by subscribers).  They will gather at conventions like The Electronic Entertainment Expo, which in 2005 reached a record attendance of 70,000 people, and meet at their local LAN gaming cafe.

Unfortunately, this is usually dismissed with a shake of the head and a ‘yes, but that doesn’t count’ attitude.  Why is this kind of interaction any less valid than a book club, an online support group or meeting with the boys from the footy team on a Saturday morning for practice?

Warcraft fans take their Guild into the 'real world' for the 2007 Blizzcon Convention in Anaheim

The world that we live in is not black and white. People do not fit in boxes, neatly labelled to make it easier for the rest of the world.  We can see that the ‘stereotype’ of gamer belonging to the nerdy, socially awkward teenage boy just doesn’t hold water these days.  Just like television, sport and reading, people play games, and some choose games as their preferred pastime.   This doesn’t make them a ‘gamer’, it simply makes them a person that plays games.