Don't Use the Word "Gamer"

[gphjr14]

In my area "Gamer" means pretty much everything Yathzee summed up in the stereotype. People with a lacking social life who spend too much time on video games.

Usually the person who enjoys video games, social life, party, sports, etc. is defined as "bro."

Pretty much this. I always found people describing themselves as "hardcore gamers" to also be a ridiculous title. But then again there are people out there who spend a great majority of their free time playing videogames and really its there choice, regardless of the social awkwardness that ensues.

 

[Apocalypse Tank]

I was surprised by the number of agreements on the first few pages. Never knew this many people thought the same way I did (and boy did I sigh after reading the common notion).

But yes, I couldn't have said it better myself, the article got it right on the spot.

I picture "gamers" as the product of casual players and market media, trying to appeal to the masses of society. Overall it just sounds too naive and friendly.

I am glad we got that settled, lets abolish the word forever.

 

[El Jesus Minus]

i'd follow George Carlin's train of thought's on this one. the N-word was the original but it fits the gamer tag aswell:

"you take the word gamer, there's absolutely nothing wrong in and of itself. It's the mediacentered a-holes you oughta be concerned about. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language. Bull***t, it's the context that makes them good or bad! we don't care what critics gamedev's or yahtzee says, why? because we know they know what they're talking about! THEY'RE GAMERS! We don't mind their context because we know they play!"

(written around George carlin bit "euphenisms" from "Doin' It Again")

summary, the word Gamer has nothing wrong. Every problem it has is all around the mediaimage of a sweaty fat gamer living in basement. yes, thats true on some cases but it doesn't cover all of us.

i, as an example, know a 55 years old banker type of guy who plays wow (horde rogue) just to irritate people and try something completely different (his words). quite far from the mediagenerated gamer-image, eh?

 

[shangry]

What a colossal dick. Nice shameless plug for your business. Without those very same gamers you openly ridicule, kids and men who are passionate about 'something', you'd be out of work. And people actually follow you, maybe even look up to you? I really somewhat liked your garbling rants but you lost me as fan..you're just a dick.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Awwww... NO ZP or XP for a week... im sad...

Wait, are you talking about the same Aeris/Aerith as Yahtzee? She must be the most unimportant character in any game I ever seen. Hell they killed her off for a reason...

Also he said he wasnt going to have a XP next week, so you'll have to wait two weeks for he response (if he feels you are deserving of one.)

.

Yahtzee does have a morbid love of answering the most obnoxious replies on his responses and bashing them. He just might make it.

You know, I've put up with the self-important, narcissistic bullshit of a one Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw for quite some time now. And though that is hardly a stretch for me, as I have been absorbing the anger and prejudice of the world's asshole population for a good three decades, I can no longer stand to have Yahtzee's own brand of verbal diarrhea being funneled into my ear canal any longer.

I put up with a lot of shit from people like Yahtzee over the years. But when you call Aerith Gainsborough a "flaky bint", you have stepped over the proverbial line. I have no more patience for you, Croshaw. Take your crybaby rants that you poorly disguise as legitimate reviews and stick them up your pasty, white tuchus. You really wanna know what the definition of the stereotypical asshole gamer that gives us all a bad name? Every morning you look at one in the mirror when you wake up. It's people like you that ruin this hobby for the rest of us.

And before you accuse me of the following. No, I do not own a body pillow or any other perverted anime crap. Though I'm sure you'll claim otherwise in next week's article.

So if you don't like his reviews, or his Extra punctuation, and you've been putting up with it for far too long, why do you watch it? You are one of possibly thousands of internet viewers that watch his show, and with no guarantee that anyone watches his show, she does his schpeal. Honestly. You snapped over Aeris being called a flaky bint? She's dull, they're words. get over it. Honestly.

How is Yahtzee an asshole gamer? I'm sure we've been over this time and time again but Yahtzee bashes games cause thats his thing. He'd insult anything to get a good laugh. How do you know he means every single word? Writing a gaming review coloumn, do better, then talk. I'm so sick of idjits on the internet bashing someone for doing their job, after that person has become loved by a cmmunity for that job. You're one in a handful of people that disagree with yahtzee. So walk away and stop crying.

I loved this. I've nevr called myself a Gamer. I dabble in t hem sure, but I never liked the implied stereotype. If anyone asks me if I'm a gamer I simply say that I dabble in them. Works just fine for me.

I'd so go for a job in a Mana Bar if it came to Canada. I wish you success inyour endeavors and I hope your vacation is well Yahtzee!

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

As reply 593 (or 594 if bumped), I expect I will be ignored, possibly completely unread by Mr. Croshaw, but I'm feeling the need to sound off. Here goes.

In fact, people *do* identify themselves as movie-buffs, bookworms, *Lost* fanatics, (not to be confused with lost fanatics), Trekkies, Jedi, Born-Again Christians, Furverts and so on. Yahtzee is right, it is normal to be a gamer, just as it is to be a tennis enthusiast, a football fan, a liberal activist or whatever.

He's also right that there's a stereotype of gamers as college-aged male slackers who haven't yet escaped their parents' basement? and burn away their months on WoW, just like Trekkies are expected to dress in Next-Generation uniforms donning rubber earpoints or forehead ridges, and know power Klingon and tech specs of Star Fleet gear.

? Nowadays, shacking with the folks is common enough in the US that it's losing its stigma. A college kid can be *expected* to still live with the folks. Less fortunate or forgiven are the countless recently jobless who are returning to the old homestead for lack of opportunity or rent money.

For old (>35) increasingly misanthropic fogeys like myself, the gamer stigma actually *serves* by weeding out those who will rely on stereotypes to determine who is cool enough to be worthy of regard. This subset of people shares much overlap with those who think all gays are raping pederasts, or all Muslims are terrorists, or all women, whores. And frankly, those that have yet to figure out the consequences of shallow presumption are not worth my time.

In the meantime, Mana Bar sounds like an awesome place to hang. When a friend of mine, a competitive L4D2 enthusiast, talks about "pub games", usually disparagingly so, my mind briefly flickers to the fantasy of a coffee/beer/munchie bar in which games could be played, including a quad of LANned computers set for Left4Dead campaigning. Sadly, I'm half the planet away from just stopping by for an evening.

PS: Google Maps gives an amusing result when asking directions from Gamescape, San Francisco to Mana Bar, Brisbane

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Oh, and have a good vacation, Mr. Croshaw.

U.

 

[CokeAddict]

Just out of curiosity, what do you male gamers do on a first date with a woman who doesn't play games? Admit you're a gamer but insist you're not a loser? Admit you're a gamer but not care if she thinks you're a loser? Avoid the topic completely? Avoid conversation completely? Refuse to date woman who aren't also gamers?

I've only dated one woman, and she was a gamer. Both of us play zombie killing games.
We met at a LAN party because she came up and watched me playing Killing Floor, and we got talking about it.

The subject of games/gaming didn't come up on any of our dates.

A woman need not be a gamer for me to date her, but if she didn't accept and respect that I am, I wouldn't be with her.

Personally I think of myself as a gamer specifically because I have a passion for various video games.
Not because I play them frequently, or because I game for a certain amount of time per week, or because it's my primary form of fun, but because I'm a diehard fan of a bunch of games and I hold strong opinions on them.

That's what it means to ME, and if people want to take it the wrong way, fuck 'em.
All they have to do is ask and I'll tell them what it means to me, if they care.

Normally I find ZP hilarious, with just a few exceptions.
This article, however, I think is complete rubbish, if only for the fact that it's so utterly pointless because nobody is going to get the majority of gamers to stop using the term.
Once a word is in use, it's not going to go away until it dies a natural death.

What's more likely is that the meaning of the word will continue to change. That's how language works.

 

[whycantibelinus]

I wholeheartedly agree, though I think it's kind of a necesary evil. His argument seems to be that we should consider games like books or movies, as it would be silly to say "I'm a reader", or "I'm a movie-goer", because so many people do that.

We do call people bookworms and film geeks though and a lot of people proudly wear those hats. I don't see a problem with using the word gamer to describe a someone whose hobby is playing video games just because it doesn't matter too much to me to even worry about it.

I like Ben and I like his style of writing and this is not an attack on him or anyone, just an observation. This article reminds me of when I was a teenager and me and all my friends wore tight jeans, sewed band patches on with dental floss, cut our hair and dyed it odd colors and styled it oddly, listened to bands such as The Germs, The Circle Jerks, The Dead Milkmen, we went out and did drugs and drank tons of alcohol, talked about how the mainstream media was bullshit and how it was feeding the public lies...but we weren't punks, fuck that shit!!! Punks are dickhead little kids, we are just open-minded normal people expressing ourselves, anybody that called us punks was going to get their asses promptly kicked!

Now when I look back on it, I was a fucking punk. All Ben seems to be saying to me is that he doesn't like the stereotypical picture of someone being a gamer so he doesn't want people to use the title, despite the fact that it is a perfectly legitimate and descriptive word of a hobby someone has.

 

[whycantibelinus]

Someone who spends most of their time and money in bars or parties can be called a partygoer or something... You get the idea.

Barfly and/or lush and/or drunk and/or alcoholic are the words you're looking for.

 

[beema]

"I wake up in the morning. I take a shower. I get on the bus to work. I play Doodle Jump on the bus. I go to work. I work. I play a bit of Team Fortress 2 at lunch break with some colleagues. I go home. Some nights I see a movie. Some nights I go for a drink. And some nights I stay in and play Modern Warfare. I am normal."

Well said... but

Unfortunately, people always have a need to label things, and mostly out of laziness. It's a lot easier to say "gamer" than "people who enjoy video games as a primary source of entertainment."

Being relegated, erroneously or not, in to a certain descriptor is something I'm all too familiar with, as I am also a fan of "electronic dance music." So everyone calls you a raver, and the music techno, whether or not it's actually techno. As much as I hate it, it's never going to catch on for people to say "he is a fan of music generated by electronic instruments that is generally of a 4/4 beat."

It's ironic that this is in the same Escapist issue as an article that separately defines people as "gamers" or "people who play games."

 

[dragonhangnail]

it's Aeris

 

[the link keeper]

Didn't think of it that way, but yeah that's something to think about. Funny thing is that I've always thought that saying something is normal is wrong. I mean nobody is ever normal. There is average, or maybe typical. Calling things normal sets a standard and makes it harder to accept people who are not 'normal'. And it'll always be Aerith to me (PAL Version).

 

[Censorme]

First rule of gaming is: YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT GAMING
Second rule of gaming is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT GAMING
Third rule of gaming is: WHEN YOU LEAVE/TURN-OFF THE PLATFORM, THE GAMING IS OVER.
- 2-4 PLAYERS AT A TIME. MORE IF YOU'RE ONLINE.
- ONE GAME AT A TIME.
- GAMING WILL GO ON AS LONG AS IT HAS TO.
- IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST NIGHT OF GAMING, YOU HAVE TO PLAY.

Seriously.
Gears of war boxer-shorts? Cosplaying? Doodling video-game characters in your spare time?
Halo soundtrack on your I-pod? Blizzard sweater? Oblivion baseball-cap?
Wasn't there a time where those kinds of kids got beaten up for doing that?

I am behind Yahtzee.
One who plays video-games does not necessarily fit the "Gamer" image. More and more of the world's population are using technology for entertainment. There should be no prejudice, nor even cause for prejudice.

Dear Mr or Mrs. Gamer,
Gaming is not a part of your loser identity, so stop making the rest of us look bad!

 

[GrymZero]

I've used 'gamer' for years, but only because it's easier than saying 'I am someone who, on occasion, enjoys sitting down and playing an interactive entertainment medium for x number of hours.' However, I do agree with what Mister 'Awesome Hat' Croshaw is saying here. The stigma attached to the word gamer is such that I've found myself less and less likely to bring up my video game hobby in conversation unless I know for sure that I'm around like-minded individuals. Before that stigma got to me, I was a self-described 'Hardcore Gamer', in that I've been playing games since before Save Points and lives were around, and I can play a game and figure out every single nuance of said game within a few hours. That said, now I simply view myself as 'One who is good at, and enjoys, playing video games because I intend to one day work in creating them.'. Maybe someday I'll help Yahtzee to create that coveted Holy Grail of a game he dreams of, or maybe someday the game I helped develop will be torn to shreds by the aforementioned sweary-ninja for hire. I will always be a 'gamer' at heart, as I am one who participates in 'gaming', but I will not associate myself with the title because of the stigma attached, and because I want people to realize that not everyone who plays video games is a socially-awkward, acne-ridden, smelly excuse for a human being.

 

[C4N4DUCK18]

I never knew the stereotype existed. But then again, I live in a small town on the atlantic coast of Canada, where people complain about long gun registry, drink heavily on saturday nights and stay within their own world of old country songs and laws that shouldn't change but do anyway and all they do about it is stop voting and complain. You call me or anyone else a "Gamer" in a negative connotation, all you'll get from the general public is a question mark face and other people saying "Hey! so am I!". Yes, we do have people who play countless hours every day and forget what sunlight is, but they grow out of it eventually and get a job, and a life.

 

[BoldBaldBastard]

Kinda felt the whole rant was about those casual zombie minded gamer types that buy every game on steam and never find to play some properly.

As for the whole negative image thing, that's more like his own narrow mindedness playing up, when i was in my teenager years i was into martial arts and computers. How's that as stereotype?

BTW, SilentRuss.. Brilliant post! You sure cracked me up there!

 

[sanguinator]

Yeah, with a word like "gamer", the negative connotations and stereotypes seem to outweigh the positives. A little bit like "Tory" in that respect, I suppose. It seems almost... shameful to me.

what do you mean by "a little bit like 'Tory'"? my brothers girlfriend s named Tory.

 

[sanguinator]

Seriously.
Gears of war boxer-shorts? Cosplaying? Doodling video-game characters in your spare time?
Halo soundtrack on your I-pod? Blizzard sweater? Oblivion baseball-cap?
Wasn't there a time where those kinds of kids got beaten up for doing that?

actually the halo soundtrack is pretty bad-ass