No Right Answer: Are Gamers Dead?

[Ishal]

Gamers are anyone who is passionate about games, end of story.

Right now there is a movement by several individuals who wish to change the narrative and the landscape to fit their definitions of what the word means, and the landscape where it exists. Problem is, evidence just doesn't support them. It just doesn't.

Gamers were born out of a culture that was largely derided back in their day, so they circled the wagons and became just another subset of nerd/geek culture. They had a name. Thing is, that name is stuck now. Companies who make games, talk about games, make tertiary gaming products like merchandise, use the name "gamer". They use it to market their product and create a consumer culture to sustain themselves. Gaming Journalism also does this. It's not going to go away just because several people don't like a select few people from that consumer culture.

Gaming is inclusive now, and always has been. It's a market, and markets do not deny anyone entry if they are willing and want the product.

I've always been a fan of the saying, "practice what you preach." I think the people demanding calling for diversity would be the first people to demonstrate it themselves... right?

Huh. Strange.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Gaming and "gamers" are more alive than ever. The gamer identity is something for people who are games enthusiasts, people who see gaming as one of their primary free time pursuits, people who not only play a lot of games, but read about gaming, read the gaming news, read critiques, and also socialize with other gamers.

This definition does not preclude women from being gamers, it does not preclude black people, it does not preclude older people, it does not preclude any human being from claiming the gamer identity. I have known people from all walks of life who are gamers and it has never been an issue.

I think the reactionary, and ultimately self defeating, articles we saw recently declaring "gamers are dead", came from a very frustrated games press. They have a lot to be stressed out about. Making money is as difficult as ever as a games writer, with online content all being given out for free and having to rely on ads, which are often time being blocked by a larger percentage of the readership, in order to fund everything, from the web hosting, to the payroll, to the taxes, etc.

Not only is making money writing about games very difficult, but now Youtubers, who seem to be immune to any criticism over ethics or getting paid to cover games, seem to be almost replacing traditional print as taste makers. If you look at the the new Steam curators lists, TotalBiscuit, a prominent Youtuber, has far and away the most subscribers.

I know there has historically been a not insubstantial number of games writers who have sought jobs in the industry, and with pay so low the field tends to attract people who are passionate about games. When you are a games writer and you get to have contact with a developer or publisher who have made games you love, games you venerate, and is a company you might even wish you could work for someday, it is only natural that some games writers may end up developing a relationship that is too close. This is something that has not really been closely scrutinized until lately, and I think this is part of what has set off the games writers, I don't think they want their readership to question how close is too close when it comes to the developers and publishers they cover.

Games writers already have a heavy load, with pressure to create content on a constant basis, to have to rush through games to meet review deadlines, and when you add on top of that the rise of video content and Youtube, and the close scrutiny of their relationships with the people they cover, I am not surprised that some of them reacted the way they did. I think they see #gamergate as a personal attack against themselves and overreacted. It doesn't help that, the Internet being the Internet, a lot of writers have been receiving awful and disgusting personal attacks. Attacks that are unwarranted and in some cases illegal. Attacks that should stop, but that the rest of us gamers are just as powerless to stop as the writers themselves.

Unfortunately by taking the reactionary steps that some games writers did I think they just hurt themselves further and fanned the #gamergate flames. The way to stop a flame war is not to flame back, but to either enforce moderation through whatever tools your forums offer, or to keep your statements professional and focused solely on the issues at hand. You can never win a fight you pick with the people who keep your lights on.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I'm a gamer, and I'm still not dead. End of story. It is up to us in the gamer community to band together against the Loud Minority in our community and say "You! Yes, you! You don't represent us!" I think every group that has fringe elements within it should do that.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I'm a gamer. To me a gamer is someone who plays games, and who plays games and is a BIT more interested in the medium than playing farmville once a month.

I dont think the term is dead, but I dont think the term is very meaningful either. Its about as meaningful as "swimmer". Whats a swimmer all about? Living in pools and only drinking water and wearing trunks all the time?

One has to divide a person from a term. You cant sum up a person with one word. Its even hard to sum up a culture with one word. When I say gamer I guess a lot of people think about raging xbox kiddies or frothing cod players. They exist, but thats barely a subculture. In fact its even just a small part of a subculture. Gamers are just people. As diverse in any direction as any people with a particular hobby.

I think it is as useful as any other term to describe someone who has a large interest in a given hobby. To me gamer is to people interested in games as gun nut is to people interested in guns, as gearhead is to someone interested in cars, as otaku is to anime fan, etc.

Just a term used to show someone has a larger than average interest in video games of one type or another.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Eh, I prefer the second definition. "Gamers are those that game".

I don't really think any other qualifier is needed other than the person themselves choosing to identify as a gamer.
You play games/a game? You want to call yourself a gamer? If yes to both, then you're a gamer.

For next episode, how about you all argue what a game "IS"! ;D
[sub][sub][sub];p[/sub][/sub][/sub]

*sees video title* Oh, this ought to be good. Yup, no way this will stir up controversy.

*gets to image at 4:01* Oh yes, I see where you ar- WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

*video ends* Seriously, what the fuck was that thing? I'm still freaking out about that.

Spoiler: :D She's the one who wrote this.

Sleep tight...... xD

 

[Thanatos2k]

"Someone who is passionate about games" is the correct definition of gamer, not "Someone who plays or has played a game at some point."

 

[xPixelatedx]

Of course gamers aren't dead, even many of the people who made those articles knew this and are aware they were just being reactionary to criticism (or joining in view bait).

If journalists actually believed gamers were dead, they'd all be finding other jobs right now because it's pretty hard to write stories about a specific topic if everyone who likes that topic is dead/gone. Considering the gaming industry is bigger then the movie industry now, no one can really have this discussion with a straight face. Objective facts are hard to dismiss.

Gamers are a larger group then ever before, and they are probably the most diverse group of people the planet now since games span every country on earth and appeal to every age and gender. Given the recent drama, I am going to go out on a limb here and assume some people aren't aware of this, or simply don't want to be aware of this.

 

[Silence]

The best comparison I ever came up with was the one with a metalhead.

You are a metalhead as soon as you start dressing like one and are listening to metal. That means: Wow, you found a black T-shirt. Maybe let your hair grow a little.
Nobody cares who or what you are. As long as you don't fling shit around, nobody will care.

That's the same with gamers. Nobody cares who or what you are. If you are passionate about games, you are a gamer. And if you fling shit around ... well, then things get ugly. Sorry.

 

[Elijah Newton]

"Nerd Militant" is my new favorite title. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

*rubs eyes* Jeebus please-us, I thought I'd never see the day when I'd say this but man I wish gamers had half the social grace of goths and punks when it comes to the phrase, "[our subculture] is dead." The former saw the humor in it and laughed it off, and the latter didn't care. Both subcultures are fine (for varying values of fine). As is ours.

Everywhere I see gamers pissing and moaning. Because I self-identify as a gamer, so here's my two cents : it's not the media that I see abusing the term, it's the trolls who appropriate it that get to me. The gamers I know don't need defending. The behavior of trolls doesn't warrant defending. But for reasons which are opaque to me I keep seeing gamers defend trolls.

For me, that is the line on which 'gamer' as a word and something with which I identify. When my hobby gets linked with /4chan and not Child's Play, I don't want to be know for it.

The wailing that games might start self-censoring because the target audience widens is scarcely less off-putting. All my life I've been trying to get people to play games because I've wanted to spread the happiness they've given me. But I know not everyone's got the same taste so yeah, as more folks come to the market designers are going to shift what they're making. Some of that won't be to my taste. Fine. There will still be something for everyone.

The popularization of vampires lead to Meyers writing Twilight for the masses, but Lindqvist wrote Let the Right One In. I don't care about (or for) the former, but I'm glad the genre got big enough to give me a chance to read the latter.

 

[mmiki]

"Someone who is passionate about games" is the correct definition of gamer, not "Someone who plays or has played a game at some point."

My definition always was "anyone who identifies themselves as a gamer, is a gamer." If playing games and the surrounding culture is something that is so significant in your life that it forms a part of who you are rather than, well, something to do while you're on the toilet with your tablet or whatever, then you are a gamer. So, only qualification: call yourself that.

I have personally never identified as such, even though gaming has occupied most of my free time for 24 years now. Mostly due to the social stigma, I suppose.

 

[medv4380]

The broad definition is best. It needs to be more specific because there are already well established definitions that the context changes the meaning of the sentence.

The the phrase
Lets do some gaming.

Does it mean lets go gambling? If I'm in Los Vegas it very well might.
Is someone who is passionate about gaming passionate about Gambling, or are they passionate about Computer Games?

Does it mean lets pull out the table and get out our character sheets?
Can someone be a Gamer who is passionate about table top RPG's, but isn't passionate about computer game?

All the definitions are technically correct, but context is the only thing that specifies what the word really means. Unfortunately we need to get a handle on the debate because the word Gamer is becoming slang. If you can't easily tell what meaning a word might have it is ether slang, or becoming slang.

 

[Elijah Newton]

Hm. The flow of this thread seems to be to sweep this under the carpet - even me, by blaming trolls. While most of the gamers I know are good people, I would say the preconception of the gaming community as not being welcoming is valid. The environment in most multiplayer games is pretty toxic.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

This hobby represents the largest entertainment industry that ever was. We aren't going anywhere, despite the wishes of some.

 

[MerlinCross]

Hm. The flow of this thread seems to be to sweep this under the carpet - even me, by blaming trolls. While most of the gamers I know are good people, I would say the preconception of the gaming community as not being welcoming is valid. The environment in most multiplayer games is pretty toxic.

That probably has more to do with human nature and less to deal with 'being a gamer'. We like winning and we hate losing.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah, I have no idea where that stereotype came from. When I was a kid my friends played games, we all got excited for when Super Mario Bros. 3 was coming out. (yes I'm dating myself). I remember reading those Nintendo comics that were published for a while. I didn't even know that stereotype existed until, well the internet came along.

 

[Rad Party God]

I think the term is delutting at the same rate as "harcore" and "casual" and it goes hand in hand with those other terms.

To me, "Gamer" is "he/she who plays games" and that's it, just like "casual" or "hardcore", can depend on how many games and how much time you spend playing said games, just like you won't name a movie enthusiast a "cinephile" just because he/she enjoys to see a film every now and then.

 

[JET1971]

I find sports fan(atic)s to be much more rabid when it comes to opinions than the average gamer but socially being a fan of sports is more acceptable than being a someone who enjoys and plays video games. Sports fan and gamer is the same thing for different mediums. It's a broad term that says this person enjoys this. Sports fans watch whatever sport is in season and has a favorite out of all the teams and gamers play many different games and has favorites. There is no difference except what they are fans of. And yet being called a gamer is used as an insult by people who do not play games and used as some badge of honor by many who do.

Saying "I am a gamer" should be the same as "I am a sports fan". It should mean I enjoy playing games for my entertainment just like the other says I enjoy watching sports for my entertainment. It should never be used to define who you are as a person and yet it is used that way.

 

[mmiki]

So, no, people have read what was written, and it wasn't about a death of a subculture.

Seems you missed things like this.

"All of us should be better than this. You should be deeply questioning your life choices if this [article from a non-gaming site about Zoe Quinn being harassed in the wake of her ex's allegations] and this [article from a non-gaming site about Anita Sarkeesian being driven from her home] and this [an article from a non-gaming site explaining the spread of Vivian James and how she exists because of spite] are the prominent public face your business presents to the rest of the world.

But they aren't. Abuse is a shitty thing being done by shitty people. It has nothing to do with gaming or gaming culture. When a radical feminist abuses someone on twitter (and oh boy there's plenty of them), you don't see me decrying all feminism to be abusive. It's a dumb argument that ,if anything, got me questioning my life choice of reading Gamasutra.

Had this been one website it wouldn't have been half as bad, but when other websites jumped on board the 'gamers are dead' ship it stopped being something you can wave off with your hand, it became a coordinated attack on the gamer identity. Most other sites didn't use this kind of vitriolic language, but the damage is already done.

Yes, how dare they criticize gamers for being douchebags to other gamers who want to talk about something other than graphics and cursory gameplay and look for actual meaning in the game.

You completely ignored the whole part of the article that I quoted that was filled with insults directed at gaming and gaming subculture. Someone who says those kinds of things loses the right to tell other people that they shouldn't be douchebags. It's an article that laments the tone of the conversation while engaging in insults and the worst of the re-hashed stereotypes. And that doesn't strike you as the least bit hypocritical?

And I'm sorry, but the journalists writing those articles have miscalculated. They all operate in a market economy and not a hipster paradise where they are the people that get to decide what's cool this week. The market ultimately decides what is dead and what isn't.

If you want to talk about something beyond graphics and gameplay and look for actual meaning, do it, but it's not a duty of your audience to be interested in what you want to talk about or what you personally find interesting.

Don't see the part where the writer calls all people who play games "socially inept lonely kids who are consumerist zombies".

Lets have it one more time because you missed it the first time around:

I often say I'm a video game culture writer, but lately I don?t know exactly what that means. 'Game culture' as we know it is kind of embarrassing -- it's not even culture. It's buying things, spackling over memes and in-jokes repeatedly, and it?s getting mad on the internet.

It's young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don't know how to dress or behave. Television cameras pan across these listless queues, and often catch the expressions of people who don?t quite know why they themselves are standing there.

'Games culture' is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online 'wars' about social justice or 'game journalism ethics,' straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of video games.

Young men with plush mushroom hats. Socially awkward, professionally inept. They don't know how to dress or behave.
At the mercy of marketing companies, because they can't form their own thoughts.

I think my summation was correct, and this is not the last time this stereotype has been perpetuated throughout this clusterfuck that I've desperately tried to stay away from.

Here is the thing about that. Nobody is stopping anybody from playing their games. You don't have to participate in any discussion about a game that you don't want to. There's a lot of games I've played that I could write essays about, but I don't, and when somebody like, say, Errant Signal, makes a video about Civilization and the implications of gameplay that lies within, I don't have to get in a huff about it like some of the twats people in the comments do.

If you don't want to be a part of this, you don't have to. There will never be a requirement to participate in a big discussion about a game to play the latest AAA adrenaline rush. I don't sit in the frozen food aisle of my local grocery store yelling at people who dare to prefer Rocky Road to Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Yet that happens whenever anybody tries to evaluate a game further than answering "Is it fun?" and "Does it prettyful graphics"

I have no idea who or what you are arguing with. Maybe you should find those people who have problems discussing artistic merits of a game and argue with them rather than bringing that baggage into this discussion.

Errant Signal gets idiots in his comments (I've been watching his videos for years so I know that). Newsflash, everybody gets idiots in their comments. Totalbiscuit turned off his comments ages ago, and yet no one started a culture war over that. YouTube comments system is horrible, and Google doesn't seem to be interested in making it better. And that's not limited to gaming, just mention evolution or climate change in a video and you'll get an injection of crazy that you never thought was possible.

 

[Deadcyde]

Yeah, so long as there is an idea that generalizing anyone that games as a fat white misanthropic person whose hygiene is a second to watching animated breasts and hates women as he feels wrongly (oh the irony) persecuted by them and the rest of the mainstream at large.. ala a neckbeard.. There are going to be people defensive of their hobby of gaming.

Sadly this is generally used as confirmation of the generalization of misanthropy rather then treated as legitimate on a case by case basis. Though to be fair, deliberate trolls muddy the water in this regard. Nonetheless, "nerd shaming" and whatever else you care to call it, is still prevalent. In fact it's hit a massive resurgence with this gamergate nonsense.

I think it's pretty jerkish, but as we've seen, "neckbeards" give as good as they get.. (though they don't so much claim the victim despite what I'm saying here)

But is being a gamer dead? Course not, because gaming is separate from social constructs (as much a people would like to deny that) and people will continue to game no matter what, even if they must find a different way to achieve it.

Nonetheless, this is all very first world issue, like 3rd wave feminism. When compared to other issues, such as the fact there are still people killed based on race -in the west-. It does seem to make issues like whether or not you're actually a neckbeard or someone else gets 3 percent more money then you, seem a little disingenuous.

EDIT:

And I'm sorry, but the journalists writing those articles have miscalculated. They all operate in a market economy and not a hipster paradise where they are the people that get to decide what's cool this week. The market ultimately decides what is dead and what isn't.

I wish moderators remembered this too. They contribute to a site as much as "Journalists" (even if by omission) and despite the fact we're all human and subject to bias, trying to force that bias onto your consumer base isn't going to aid your site.

EDIT 1.5: No this isn't aimed at the escapist mods in particular, every mod could do to remember this.

EDIT 2: really? The Barbarians in Civ are allegory for uncontrolled elements, not "lesser" especially considering they can overwhelm supposedly "advanced" civilizations as well as earlier civilizations. That basically makes the idea of civilized vs uncivilized a point of relative perception that is massively interpretation based. Yet suddenly we have some guy holding up the banner saying "civilization is a game that's technologist due to how i perceive it after some heavy hand holding descriptors" and people aren't allowed to roll their eyes and just as he is indulging his right to opinion indulge theirs by telling him he's an idiot? Not only that, these "perceptual offenders" are being toted as horrible crimes or sexism and racism and then being touted as the only export of gaming.

That is some ridiculous cognitive dissonance. No wonder people who actually game just go back to actually gaming instead of taking part in this nonsense debate.

 

[Deadcyde]

I wonder would what would happen if "Gamers die"? Would people just stop using the term, except to refer to an ancient sub-culture of hobbyists that once existed?

Wouldn't that be a "good" thing? We, the people would exist, but the label would die. We'd just be called "people", and we'd have the same status of what you call people who read books or watch movies or listen to music or watch TV: Nothing. They aren't given labels, and their communities are doing just fine.

Should we even have a label? Should we want to have one?

If only, tell me, what did they call people who play D&D? Nerds. Geeks. and now? Gamers.

This is all some big jumped up ideal so people can basically lord over another by socially assassinating them. It's racism and sexism in our "politically correct" world.

And the simple fact is once one title dies, there will simply be another created so people can continue to diminish others to elevate themselves.