A fantastic article. Admittedly, I’ve devoted a lot of my time to studying and discussion ‘games and gamer culture.’ While this article rings true, especially with the point made about there being no other ‘media cliques’ that were as prominent in history, I would argue that they do exist. “Filmies” certainly do exist, but there’s much less banner waving because I think the demographic is very broad. A lot of what being a “Gamer” is stems from the demographic itself.
The example given about how “Gamers” trampled the womans Amazon book review I think is relevant but not necessarily the rule. I would say this gets a step towards more complex then because Gamer Culture also tends to clique up in itself, and I’m sure certain social and forum groups were responsible for this.
I think my official response would be that while there has never been as big of a ‘movement’ in terms of cliquing under new media, why can’t there be now? Just in the few years we’ve been watching ‘gamer culture’ we’ve seen it grown and transform and multiply. I think that there will always be a gaming culture, afficianados and the hardcore and the ‘elite,’ just like there are with film, but times are changing and so is the social landscape.
The Church of Gamers is not only morally problematic; it also ends up working against innovation in the medium. Imagine, for example, how ridiculous it would be if all television watchers identified as their own “Tubers” subculture. It’s a humorous hypothetical precisely because a vast majority of first-world citizens watch television, from the romantics who tune in for soap operas and sports fans who catch game highlights over breakfast, to the sci-fi fans addicted to the latest Joss Whedon serial and insomniacs who watch old gameshow reruns.
The very notion of the “gamer” implies that games are a niche hobby, only for the sufficiently devoted. This exclusivity is exactly what impedes games from attracting a more diverse player base beyond the white adolescent male stereotype.
Given that more and more people are beginning to embrace games, it’s finally time to dump the anachronistic “gamer” label. We longtime players of games need not feel sad about this change. Opening games to, well, everybody can only result in a wider selection of genres and ideas.
I think many gamers do have their hearts in the right place. Wil Wheaton’s heartfelt keynote at PAX 2007, for instance, touts the importance of sharing the gaming experience with others. The problem is that the gaming community pines for two fundamentally opposing realities – one in which they maintain their sense of community and another in which they spread games to the mainstream.
I therefore cringed when Wheaton made declarations like “Jack Thompson can suck my balls” and “all that matters is that we are gamers.” The rhetoric is certainly catchy, but it is still too divisive. That kind of talk sets up a dangerous dichotomy of “us” versus “them.” As the Jack Thompson skirmishes have shown, such a division only serves to further radicalize each side. Our operating concept must instead be “everybody.”
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