Gaming Stereotypes

[giadrosich]

In light of the recent topic with the media freaking out over girls who game, what other stereotypes (since forth referred to as 'types') need to die? And then there's the problem of people not even understanding what gaming is.

 

I refuse to watch movies about gamers these days, mainly because no one knows how to treat us. I've seen articles on TV shows who even refuse to do the most basic of research on how the system hooks up, how to hold the controller, ect. Sometimes controllers aren't even plugged in!

 

Either people refuse to do their homework on this subject, or they don't think it's worth it. Or they think that only 10% of their audience is going to catch the mistake, which then implies they don't think gamers exist outside of "mom's basements". And where did that type come from? Who decided that was going to be the image of gamers?

 

I'm very tired of having to defend gaming, especially when the media always blames video games for the poor choices. I've seen much more violent movies than games, and I think that's even worse, because even though movies aren't real, it's implying that it's real. Video games never pretend to be real. Movies want you to think they're real, that's where suspension of belief comes into play.

 

And in regards to females playing video games, I never thought this was a real thing until I got older and out on my own. No one in my school thought it odd I played games, and I never thought about it. College was around the time I started hearing that "Oh, you play video games?".

 

I would like the viewpoints of the male section of the gamers. Did you ever hit a point where you realized that girls don't play games? Did your friends ever think it weird too? I would like viewpoints from the females as well, when you first heard about this type.

 

And then there's the type of the casual gamer. Are casual gamers really all that bad? I hear regular gamers talking about them like their the scourge of the earth, but is it so bad to like the occasional game? My husband's grandma only likes one game--Bomberman on the Genesis. She loves it and plays it all the time. But she refuses to play any other game. Is she a casual gamer? That game isn't usually associated with "casual gaming" like Angry Birds or any game on the iphone/ipad/droid/ect.

 

I have the Plants VS. Zombies and Minecraft on Xbox360, and Josh (my husband) resisted for the longest time in getting it. He thought it was "those casual gamer's games" and that we shouldn't give in to those types of games. After much talking with him about it, I convinced him to get it (by convincing I mean using my wife powers to pull out my credit card and get it). And he got addicted to the plants game. And I like minecraft to build things. But are we casual gamers then?

 

What defines a "casual gamer". The types of games they play? The frequency of playtime?

 

I thought this might be an interesting discussion.

[Arceny]

 which we often trade off (Zelda, namely). We play Smash Bros. and Star Wars Battlefront together. 

Ah.. that's a bad game right there- they need to make BF3! 

 

Anyway, another stereotype is that gamers are psychotic madmen(women). just because Klebold and harris likened their attack to DOOM doesn't mean all are like that- that's like saying loggers are serial killers just because they have chainsaws...