Poll: The Stigma of Gaming

[AwesomeFerret]

There is no stigma anymore. Games are very much a mainstream form of entertainment. Everybody plays games these days. It's the fourth pillar of mass-media pop entertainment, along with movies, television and music.

QFT

Sorry OP, but you're a bit out of date here.

I fail to see how that is. Look around you. Do you see a utopian society where gaming is just as accepted as say, sports? Does the international media pay close attention to what happens in gaming? Does it seek to change the stereotypic image of a gamer? No it doesnt. Thus, there is still a problem.

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

It's kind of amusing that after all these years of wanting the rest of the world to take up their hobby, gamers are completely oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world has.

 

[captain underpants]

Professional athletes get paid the amounts they do because they entertain millions of people. Just because you aren't a sports fan it doesn't mean it's a waste of money.

'Waste of money' is purely subjective. What I said was that it doesn't contribute to economic growth, and put video games in the same category, as a response to the 'generating money' comment. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a sports fan or not. Sport is a great thing, actually, for participants (and for keeping thugs off the street, I guess).

 

[FinalHeart95]

Are you kidding? There are people in my school that walk around with game boys playing pokemon. I literally don't know a single male in my school who hasn't played Modern Warfare 2.

If there's one thing people DON'T get picked on for around here, it's gaming.

 

[bigass]

Professional athletes get paid the amounts they do because they entertain millions of people. Just because you aren't a sports fan it doesn't mean it's a waste of money.

'Waste of money' is purely subjective. What I said was that it doesn't contribute to economic growth, and put video games in the same category, as a response to the 'generating money' comment. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a sports fan or not. Sport is a great thing, actually, for participants (and for keeping thugs off the street, I guess).

Why do you think city's pay millions of dollars in tax payer money to get a sports team in their town? Just to waste money?

Anyways, I remember in school a kid was being picked on for never playing a video game. Defiantly a stigma of gamers at work.

 

[Jorias]

Don't have to be a kid, I was in the Marine Corp for 8 years. I played WoW for a long time and basically was a gamer (but still preformed at a Sgt. Level Marine which i got out as). Everyone that was not into games that i worked with absolutely hated us gamers...

 

[Gardenclaw]

No, If anything i'm more likely to get treated well for likeing gaming. i work in a customer service role and if someone comes to me for help in a game related t-shirt they are more likely to get better service from me as it gives me a connection to them. If i think "yeah thats awesome" i'll go out of my way to help them....

 

[superbatranger]

I've never been picked on for being a gamer. In fact, that's how I've made friends some times. They'd see me with a gaming magazine, and ask me what kind of games I play, and it went from there.

 

[Fappy]

I agree with what many people have already stated. The stigma used to be pretty bad, but its not that big of a deal anymore. By the time I have kids old enough to experience a video game related stigma it will be all but extinct (except within the old person community of course).

 

[gamer_parent]

I've actually lost dates in college because my date found out that I gamed right before our date.

 

[Theron Julius]

Actually there is still a massive stigma around gaming and I can't believe think otherwise. Unless you game console and play mainstream games people still look at you wierd. Everyone in my school thinks that consoles are better than PCs at CoD because the graphics and controls superior. Bit of a facepalm there but the latter can be a bit of opinion.

Seriously try talk about Beyond Good and Evil or Team Fortress2 and unfortunately most people won't know what t he fuck your on about. No one in my school had even heard of any controversy around MW2 and most bought it because it was hyped. So the moral is if you want your game to sell on consoles screw the informed community just stick a label on it and just hype it up up and away.

Yep. What I find weird is that I'm a geek without a doubt, but football players actually play games more than me! Albeit it's usually only a single game. It's still strange hearing conversations about nukes and AC-130s between rants about losing the game yesterday. I've tried talking to them about PC gaming and they just stare at me like I just said that I saw a UFO. I swear, if I didn't own a copy of MW2 they would have shipped me out to an asylum, because I'd apparently be stark raving mad for playing other games on anything more reliable than the Xbox 360.

At least there are a couple decently informed jocks who I can tolerate hanging around with when my nerd group decides to have an accursed political argument. The shear popularity of gaming has broken up cliques in my school, eliminating harassment save for the few general assholes, who would've harassed me anyway.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

snip

I'd just like to say the Orange Box is on the xbox but most people ignored it because Valve is not a big label in the cnosole market. Another reason being is that Microsoft want the game updates to be payable DLC apparently.

snip

The thing that really annoys me about gamers like that is that they become uninformed sheeple and just buy shovelware mainstream title and dilute the genres because they will buy mediocrity if it has a label on it. It also gives console players a bad name as uninformed idiots even though this is not the case as there are plenty informed console gamers just they are in the minority I think. If only there was a way to bring them into informed community.

Never have, no. Gaming is too mainstream nowadays for people to treat anyone else differently because of it.

What's kinda funny about is that unless your gaming is mainstream nowadyas you will still be looked at like you have two heads. Unless you own a PS3 or Xbox 360 and play mainstream titles and sports games people will still think you're wierd for enjoying a bit of Half Life, Ico, Shadow of Collossus, TF2, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.

 

[Manji187]

There is no stigma anymore. Games are very much a mainstream form of entertainment. Everybody plays games these days. It's the fourth pillar of mass-media pop entertainment, along with movies, television and music.

That's a very general (EVERYBODY?!) and quite hypothetical statement. Must be the succes of the Wii that makes you say such things. Still...just because people purchase something doesn't automatically mean they will make extensive use of it.

Things like frequency (how often do people play over a period of a week/ month?) and intensity (how long do people play; hours a week/ month) are completely overlooked.

And by "games" you prolly also mean things like "Bejeweled"... or the "desperate housewife" (as I like to call it) category, shovelware and cell phone games.

Sure, if one casts the net that wide...then we're pretty much all gamers nowadays.

EDIT: IMO there is still a stigma against high frequency/ high intensity "difficult" gaming (usually console "hardcore" gaming).

 

[AwesomeFerret]

I'm glad more people who realise what I mean have commented, It seemed at first that people were either casting the net of the definition of gaming too wide or were in denial.

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

And by "games" you prolly also mean things like "Bejeweled"... or the "desperate housewife" (as I like to call it) category, shovelware and cell phone games.

They're still games, and they're still playing them, and many of these people are playing them a lot. Hell, even my mom, who had never touched a game in her life until a couple years ago, plays Peggle, Bejeweled and mah jongg puzzles from the moment she sits down at the end of the day up until the point where she goes to bed, while she watches TV with my dad. She plays games for a solid 4 to 5 hours a day, which is more time than I spend daily playing games.

The way the "hardcore" gamers look down on "casual" gamers is equal parts depressing and hilarious. The idea that they somehow aren't "real gamers" because of the types of games they play is incredibly moronic.

The stigma isn't against gaming, it's against the gamers who play obsessively, often neglecting responsibilities and obligations. The same stigma would be applied to anyone who is detrimentally obsessive about their hobby, the hobby itself is irrelevant.

Also, to the people saying people think badly of them because of the types of games you play, when they ask what games you like do you simply tell them the titles of the games or do you do that horrible thing nerds tend to do and start gushing and geeking out.

Also also, if you think that there is a stigma associated with videogames, try telling someone you're into tabletop gaming, that you're an adult who sits around pretending to be an elf or that you play with toy soldiers.

 

[Keepitclean]

I have no idea what the OP is talking about. I have never seen or heard of anyone being picked on because they play videogames.

 

[Svizzara]

Sports generate billions of dollars each year and give third worlders something to do.

Sports do not 'generate' money, they merely move it around while producing nothing that can even be remotely regarded as growing the economy. Of course, the same can be said for any entertainment, including video games, but at least games aren't produced by and for morons, mostly. The obsession with sport is a sign of a civilisation in decline imo.

'Waste of money' is purely subjective. What I said was that it doesn't contribute to economic growth, and put video games in the same category, as a response to the 'generating money' comment. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a sports fan or not. Sport is a great thing, actually, for participants (and for keeping thugs off the street, I guess).

Get off your high horses.

 

[Limzz]

The term gamer is pretty broad. I think the people who have had problems because of gaming are more of the stereotypical nerd types. Like the kids who say in my dorm's common room every night playing games. I'm sorry but I consider it strange for anyone over 12 to play a handheld (in public at least but why would you play it at home?).

 

[likalaruku]

I've never been picked on for anything, probably because I was a complete basketcase as an elementry school kid, who got in trouble for unprovoked attacks on random students.

Well, there was that time my new ADHD medication made all my hair fall out & I had to wear a wig; this one kid made fun of me & we got into a brawl; he ripped my shirt & I tried to bite his jugular lion-style: it failed; he got a black eye, a cheek welt, a hickey, & suspended for ripping a girl's ahirt.

 

[Kurokami]

I'm sure you've all seen it happen. A kid getting picked on because he would rather play some Super Mario Brothers than football. Or someone being excluded just because of the type of game they play. Yes, I'm sure everyone here is aware of The Stigma of Gaming. We have all been there, treated differently because of our hobby. It may seem like things like what I referred to are just cases of childish bullying, but I think the problem is more serious. Serious as in, this.

I read recently of someone being rejected from a job for no good reason. What was the reason? They were a gamer.

I don't know what sort of job it was, nor does it mater. The point was, it was deemed perfectly acceptable to deny some one work simply because of their hobby. And the thing is, it is apparently quite common. While the game in question was World of Warcraft, this stigma branches out to gaming as a whole.

What I want to ask you, The Escapist, is if you have experienced the stigma and why you think in this day and age it can be such a problem. Why should a gamer be considered any lesser than other? Why is it that so often they are?

Only by my grandmother, but then she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Not that I hate her, but she's very ignorant, perhaps a sign of senility or just her time.