Slashdot Mirror
Gamers Aren't (Always) Geeks
wo1verin3 writes "CNN is reporting that not all gamers are the anti-social folk they are hyped to be by parents and the media. Roughly two-thirds of college students play video games, but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base, according to a new study. Full story here."
No, they might not spend it alone, but they still only socialize with other gamers in a LAN gaming shop or whatnot. Not saying that all people in a LAN game are anti-social nerds, far from it. But still, just because they get out and socialize with other gamers is not saying much in it of itself.
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
... are jocks. It's true. Or at least it was 5 years ago. Not a single one of the guys on the football team didn't have a Playstation or N64.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base
Take THAT, mom! *goes back to GTA:VC in my darkened room
Looks like middle age hasn't been kind to action hero Duke Nukem. In a prerelease press preview, presented by Joe Siegler, the studly hero is bald with a huge beer-gut. "We wanted to flesh out the character of Duke", Siegler said, "we want to make him more a character that his fans can directly relate to".
In the new title, Duke is in a custody dispute with his ex-wife. Apparently, since he lost his job, he's in arrears on his child-support payments. When his (alien) wife kidnaps their kids and leaves for her mothers on Vega VII, it's butt-kicking time!
It pains me that this is news 2X over on slashdot in 2 days. Although it points out that while not all gamers are geeks, many of them ARE or this wouldnt be news. BTW, I'm both a gamer and a geek and proud of being both.
Newsflash: Not all users of pornography are losers who can't get girlfriends!
Not that I look at porn. I'm not suggesting that. Oh no.
Even some girls like porn. A girl told me. Well, a friend who knows a girl told me.
bullcaca!
yes there are lots of non geeks who play video games. but all the people who i know who are "gamers" do spend their days in dimly lit rooms, not showering, and eating crap all day.
the non geeks play gran turismo for an hour or so while chilling with a few friends on a lazy day. don't deny the existance of geeky gamers. they created the stereotype because of the truth.
I'd like to see a comparison study of gamers vs. non gamers from the same demographic. Included would be what thier GPA is/was, how far their career has progressed, amount of income, etc... My experience is anedoctal, but in virtually all cases, non-gamers seem to do better then gamers.
So Pale Nerdy folks _aren't_ responsible for all the NHL, NFL, Baseball, and NBA games sold each year? (Which HAS to be a racket bigger than Quicken [current year]/TurboTax [current year])
And here I thought they were just playing out their latent desire to be coordinated.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
...guess I should go outside for the first time in my 21 years of life
but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base
/. and downloading pr0n and the odd bit of coding. All night should be spent in a dimly it room blowing up computer-generated bad guys
We all know daytime is for posting on
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Articles such as these, just make me mad. Why do people have to conform in society in order to be accepted? Why can't we leverage from richness in variety within our organizational fabric in order to attain greater heights intellectually?
Different points of view are important for progress in technology and science. It's absolutely vital that we continue to nourish the development of the nerdy kid in the dimly lit basement playing Star Wars galaxies. It's more valuable to have him focus on this activity than to obtain social skills that will just hamper him in the pursuit of his research once he completes his post-graduate degree.
I say, bring back the pale geek! Cherish him! Protect him! Buy him the latest Everquest expansion pack! But do not send him out in the wild where he, God forbid, has to interact with other people. They're are a precious resource and should be treated as such.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Yes people: Even beautiful girls play Wolfenstein!
Doh! I mean here.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What exactly is the point of this story? Not all alcoholics beat their wives, but that doesn't mean we should give people cart blanch to get drunk.
It's obvious and scientifically verified that those who play video games are far more likely than their non-gaming piers to avoid social interaction, do poorly in school, resort to violent behavior, and lead unhealthy lifestyles (leading to problems like obesity and depression later in life).
This study shows that there exists a glimmer of hope for chronic gamers, which is good. However, spinning it as if it makes gaming healthy is irresponsible, and indicates a bias on Slashdot's part.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
could actually be a 100% real female in real life?!
groovy.
More info on this topic can be seen here.
In other news, it has been determined that not all of the editors at Slashdot post dupes.
I think it still depends on how you do your gaming. Non-geeks are way more likely to be into console games than PC.
Also, the genres of games being made show that it's not just for geeks anymore. A lot more sports games, GTA3, etc.
I think the tendency for FPS and RolePlaying games to be online first, still shows the PC is home of the geek gamers (leading tech edge).
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
New discovery: not all stereotypes are valid!
But there's still hope! And you - yes, YOU - can make a difference!
Clearly, we've been slacking off. This article is a clarion call for all us nerdy guys who do spend all day in dimly lit rooms blowing up computer-generated bad guys, to stop reading this and get the hell back to those pimp gaming rigs we spent hours casemodding, and get back to what's important in life: fragging n00b azz!
We've got an image to uphold, dammit!
Not all netadmin's are geeks either. Some of them are MCSEs.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I consider that bullshit.
It's either they were talking to the wrong people or the wrong people were responding to the survey.
I was a "gamer" since the C64 days. I was not allowed to have a console machine when I was younger (parents told me I had a computer and it played games, that was that... fair enough). I got hooked on Quake1CTF in my freshman year of college... I still went out w/my friends drinking, I was an active D1 athlete, and I was dating. I had several friends that I played CTF with that were exactly the same.
I figure that they interviewed Internet junkies or the "typical gamer" which is not interesting to the opposite sex.
I want better information on the type of individuals interviewed before we start jumping to conclusions.
they still only socialize with other gamers
Excuse me, but what is your point? Golfers hang out with other golfers, quilters hang out with other quilters, runners hang out with other runners...
Anyone with a hobby, likely socializes with others who have the same hobby.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
wo1verin3 writes "CNN is reporting that not all Slashdot readers are the anti-social folk they are hyped to be by parents and the media. Roughly two-thirds of college students play video games, but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base, according to a new study. Full story here."
Every lan party I have ever been to has been anti-social folk. That is why we are at a lan party, and not out drinking, and sleeping with the opposite sex.
Nerdy guys, and Nerdy girls shooting each other, and vying for mines.
Since we've grown up, we are more attractive, hold better jobs, drive nicer cars, etc.
But we are still all a mangled verison of that.
http://use.perl.org
This means you.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Oh come on...this better not come as a surprise. Has the media really warped everyone's minds enough to have us all believe the only people that play games are geeks? Since the dawn of time, games were fun. My parents used to play the Atari 2600 (Mmm...remember Yar's Revenge?) with me all the time. And they are far from being geeks. And my grandmother was addicted to Burger Time on Intellivision.
I think the perception is that when you walk by the computer cluster at school, you see the kids playing Netrek and go "games are for geeks" and then you step outside and see the "jocks" playing football. What you DON'T see is everyone grabbing a beer and blowing each other up at Halo or Twisted Metal. In fact, I can think of more metal-heads and punks playing games than geeks...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
..that doesn't exist, and produces product nobody consumes.
hahahaha!
..don't panic
CNN has "Surprising findings about video game players"
:)
Well, if you are a 40+ year old person who uses the computer only to play Solitaire and solve spreadsheets, yes, that could be surprising (the fact that most computer players are NOT geeks or recluses).
This should however come as a natural for everybody who maybe learned to type sooner than (s)he could handwrite...
The "game world" is just an extension of the real world, with several advantages (interaction possibilities, a huge potential community, somebody "available" to talk to at any given time) and disadvantages (Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna' get (F.Gump) - never know who will be or how will be the next person you encounter and interact with).
I hope I don't need to remind anybody that information can be both a curse or a blessing, and that's what you get when you're "on-line-gaming" - sometimes too much information... It's up to you to deal with it.
In conclusion: everybody's playing, has played or will be playing...something... sooner or later. There are no limits to the categories that will play computer games.
So, stop acting surprised
On-line games are all about interaction and socual aspects, how do you expect to find somebody else playing it?
I mean, you wouldn't expect to find nuns playing American football, but you would definetely expect mathematicians playing chess...
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Of those surveyed, 60 percent of women said they played online and computer software-based games, compared with 40 percent of men. About the same number of men and women said they played video games on PlayStation, Xbox and other systems.
foldplay your photos won't know what hit them.
...now I'm not even cool compared to other gamers.
Thanks Slashdot, you ruined my day.
IMHO I believe everyone is attacking the wrong side of the problem. Social issues are just budding only recently. Why is this? Gamings been around for a while. It hasn't been common widespread until the last 5 years. And now its about to explode. What is going on here? Much of it has to do with the fact that these games are now Internet Multiplayer.
[1] Internet has made the gaming activity less non-social over conventional games from past. I guess this is good atleast people are interacting with others instead of just "the machine"
[2] It has also made gaming more anti-social by reducing accountability through anonymous screen names and providing a means to act out fantasy irresponsibilities. ie. killing, stealing, maiming, torturing among other players. This is bad. Even if we understand this is fantasy, are we letting the dark side enjoy too much time out of its box? Nobody would call you deranged if you pulled the wings off a fly. Do it all day and I'd say its getting to you.
[2] It has made the activity more addicting due to the unpredictable nature of other player interactions, almost replacing social real life interaction.
So now they are spending the time socializing in virtual environments, when they could be with their next door neighboor in the vacinity of moms, dads, other kids, older, younger, shop owners, policemen, firefighters, accounts, doctors, garbage collectors, and any other people that might be wandering as they ride on their bike down their street.
My point being our children are growing up spending a good chunk of time in an environment where consequences are not real. And please nothing about "They know the difference between real and games". Judgement be what it is, behavior is learned. Especially when its repetitive. Everyday. For 3-5 hours a day.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
In my findings, at least in the tech field, hardcore gamers tend to fair better than non gamers. Hardcore gamers tend to know something about hardware and how to get the most out of it. Even when it's not strictly hardware, the hardcore gamers I've known have known enough to fix a multitude of network and other issues. You can't overclock and case mod sucessfully if you don't know your hardware.
That was the tech field. In other fields I find that casual gamers fair better in many cases than non-gamers or hardcore gamers (yes, hardcore gamers have their place). Face it. Gaming requires large amounts of abstract, or at least alternative thinking. I've found myself implementing the types of strategies I've used in video games to organize my work habbits. Item placements, order of operations, that sort of thing, all honed from video games. Hardcore gamers in other-than computer fields can do well, but based on what I've seen they don't work in other fields, and when they do it's usually flipping burgers or something until they can get another techie job.
I don't think I've worked with a single person on a job simular basis who wasn't at least a casual gamer since I've been in the tech field. I've only seen non-gamers in other fields, usually the ones that hired me to take care of their computers.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
There are a few meanings of the word "anti-social", everything from mass murdering rapists and software pirates, to people who prefer their own company. I will accept that the mass murdering rapist type definition of anti-social as being bad, but this does not appear to be the topic of the article. For the purpose of this post, consider anti-social to mean someone who prefers their own company.
What I do not understand is why people who prefer their own company are considered somehow "broken". I do not know of any facet of human physiology which REQUIRES other human contact beyond a base desire to procreate. Why is there such a bad connotation to being anti-social?
Society itself does not need a hive mind. In fact, I would argue just as strongly that it is dangerous, irresponsible and something we all should actively try to prevent in our children. The world needs independent thinkers, people who think outside the box and come up with original solutions. People who don't let the hive mind dictate their response. Somehow I see from high school that civics classes about the glory of democracy has led people to a very wrong conclusion: that the majority is always right. That's such a horribly incorrect thought that is so pervasive (esp in MTV pop-culture) that it makes me want to lock myself in a room and slay myself with a BFG-10k.
I am hard pressed to come up with any thing the hive MIND has produced that has either been correct or somehow useful. The hive mind has historically resulted in: slavery, bigotry, religion (in the "belief in unfounded/unproven philosophy in the face of contrary evidence" sense), senseless wars, mass murder, and most horribly reality television. Let's face it, "society" is valuable only as a workforce commodity. When it comes to thinking, we're better off with Forrest Gump than any 10 people.
Why is it that those who choose to not "join in" are persecuted? I contribute to the whole, and I make it possible for us all to walk forward. I do so just as much as the next guy. I am not taking anything away by not talking to you. Even if I firmly believe that you are all incredibly stupid and not worth my time, I'm not really hurting you am I? As long as I do my job & earn my keep, I have fulfilled my obligation to others. Leave us alone.
Ironically, I introduced my senior at work, who is more than twice my age and approaching retirement, to PDAs and he reintroduced me to video games. After less than six months working together he bought a handheld and i bought a PS2. Erik Erikson, the Einstein of psychosocial stuff, had a book with the title of "Play". In that book he mentions a follow-up to a study of some children, whom when interviewed decades later were found that those of them who managed to retain a playful attitude to the world had the most satisfying lives.
Yeah, CS _was_ a rather addictive fad. I wish I could regret the fact that I dedicated at least an hour per day (for several months) playing it.
However, something good did come from it. Once you decide to stop playing CS, you honestly don't miss the crappy game, and it makes it so much easier to swear off video game addictions completely, and simply feel content with gaming only in moderation.
I just feel sorry for those of ya'll still addicted to Everquest. Unlike Half-Life (cs), that game really is junk.
The next door neighbor boy spends his average summer day inside about 4 hours playing video games. He also spends a substantial amount of his allowance and money I give him to wash my car on video games. To top it off, he spends a good portion of his time thinking about video games, talking about video games, and buying/trying out video games.
In my day, we would blow an allowance in an arcade, but it just seems kids spend a lot more money and invest a lot more time into them nowadays.
In part, I think it accounts for the decline in event sales. (Termed Arena events) Kids just aren't interested as much in live action / interaction anymore. This contrasts to my childhood where going to play a video game was just that, GOING to play. Video arcades at least allowed interactions, walking, standing, and well... an event. What is eventfull about sitting on your bed?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
It's a shame that priestly vocations have been so vilified, when many of these young "geeks" might thrive in an intellectual, all male, celibate atmosphere. I know I do my part, whenever I hear of a "LAND" party near my parish, I stop by with flyers advertising the local Mass. Sometimes I even bring in a young priest who "cut his teeth" on games like Asteroids or Space Invaders, who can better relate to these gamers.
A. Rightmann
Being a college student, and having spent two years in dorm life, I can tell you it's a rarity not to see a came console in most people's rooms, be they jock, geek, or otherwise. The most commonly played titles are sports games, mostly Madden 200X and NBA games. Bond and Mario Kart were the N64 games. Fighters are popular, but you only really saw various iterations of Mortal Kombat. I never really saw any of the female population playing console games, but quite a few enjoyed PC games like The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and simple puzzle games like Snood (which tookover everyone's life during exam week).
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
If you walk into my room you'll find monitors, cases and parts all over. I don't know a single person at my school who knows half as much about video games as I do.
Meanwhile, I was the president of my junior class, and during my relationship with a very *hot* and certainly not geeky girlfriend, I had to be pretty damn careful because other girls seemed to be trying to ruin our relationship (but don't we all *think* that). All this, and the only nights I spend out are with my girlfriend and with my silicon friends. And yes, I have plenty of other friends, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten where I am now.
I've seen plenty of people balance these out. And I'm not including the people with an xbox and an n64, I'm talking about the kids who brag about their graphics cards. I admit the two conflict. During my relationship I came to a point where I decided, "You know what, I haven't been playing enough video games" and so I would stay up a couple of hours later after spending the night with her. Certainly there are the couple that feel awkward away from the flickering screen, but I've known that's a horrible generality for years
Almost everyone at my college plays counterstrike. I suppose that as soon as it reaches a certain penetration, it becomes a social norm.
The geek/gamer revolution is really incredible, and an insane (probably not isolated) case of what happens when teen gamers grow up can be found in the evolution of the (recently troubled! hosting issues) tribalwar.com forum community.
This largely teen/early twenties group of gamers started off like any other gaming community, but they just blasted off from there. The LAN's these guys have organized have had 200-300 attendees, and they ALL KNOW EACH OTHER! Some of these kids are growing up, getting good jobs, and they're all helping each other out, staying in touch. They go out for a night of clubbing in New York -- and they bring their digital cameras to document it, and they post their pictures on the forums for others to live vicarously through them. "Pics or it didn't happen" has become a mantra there.
They help each other find apartments, sometimes even jobs, they room together, and they have LAN's whenever the urge arises.
An interesting example: one member of the TW community grew up and joined the Navy. With all of the money he's been saving, he was able to buy a beachfront house and property in the Florida Keys, all while being a 'internet geek'. He grew up, got responsible, and has more girls than he can handle (pics or it didn't happen) -- and he's a gamer geek. He's on the forums, he's playing the games. And he opened his house to ANYONE in the game community that could make it down to Florida, for a massive "Beach Party Extravaganza".
From the 35-year-old dude who wielded a claymore as UVALAN's "Security guard" (CF I think), to the people that proudly post pictures of their brand new BMW's, houses, chic 4-star restaurants, and children -- this is a community with a great proportion of thriving, economically stable, responsible people, who also happen to be part of a massive gaming subculture.
At what point do these people stop being "geeks"? At what point does the gaming "subculture" stop being "sub"?
Which is why it (mildly) bugged me that the headlines for this study's results said something like "Surprising Facts About Gamers." Why should this be surprising? It's only those who never lost their narrow view of what these games are about and who plays them who are surprised - anyone who plays the games, reads about them, or looks at the people in EB could tell you that there's no one subculture surrounding them. Yes, perhaps the hardcore gamer still mostly fits the picture, but why should the extreme examples define the majority? With games moving into the mainstream in a huge way, it's damaging to the industry's and the individual gamer's image to allow these ignorant stereotypes to be perpetuated.
Just my $.02 + karma bonus. Now I'll be thinking about Jedi Knight II all day until I can get home and play it...
Was that out loud?
Is this some kind of perverse Onion article gone legit? Maybe CNN could do a "Not All Old People are Angry Can-Wielding Geezers" article and see how well that goes over with the mass audience. Grr.
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
This is something that has bothered me...well, barely bothered me, but bothered nonetheless. Why is it that almost every female video game character is, in some way, a sex object? I'd be perfectly content with playing a game that had, as a main character, a female that didn't have a rack bigger than her head. Tomb Raider immediately comes to mind.
OK, maybe a sorceress in Diablo qualifies, but you hardly get a good view of the character... Blizzard can afford to make the character unattractive because she's too small to matter. Seriously, when was the last time you played a game that had a male main character that, in another situation (ie: not shooting at bad guys), would be a sex object?
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Stereotypes are there because they are perceived, whether the perceptions are actually accurate is another question. I'm the chick who hides in the kitchen at parties, (first grab at food and the company of those creative enough to be putting things together and not just consuming the results.)Not all non-geeks are living it up. They have hobbies, too, they have everyday obsessions. I've asked.
I'm not really a geek. Do i have an active social life? Yes, although it probably isn't 'active' in the college coed sense. Do i game? yes, occasionally, although see above re: college coed. I'm just not as into the social games, EITHER kind, and it would never occur to me to pay for an online group game. My point is that i agree with Saige: 'social' needs to be a little more clearly defined here. (i can hear bill watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame... 'Define "well adjusted."')
For me, a lot of my social does get done online. Group conversations (not random chatrooms), posting boards, things like that, because that's where my mobility lies. I do get out, i do meet people, but i don't go to bars and clubs like my work peers do. I do have an S/O and we did meet in a bookstore. (A science fiction bookstore. Technically, right outside a science fiction bookstore.)
I think we had this discussion somewhere about the stereotype against girls playing pinball, too. There are girls who hide in basements reading comic books and playing computer games and there are some of them who are fantastic and some of them who aren't. Not all girl geeks are alike, either. Stereotypes by nature only describe a spectrum, not an individual (that's a generalisation again. *sigh*) Adding 'girl' to a label might shock some people, but it won't shock girls, because we know that we're people, and that we do things. Some girls play football, some girls play rugby (and tend to be even tougher than the girls who play football, in my opinion, and i mean BOTH kinds of football) some girls can sew renaissance costumes and then wear them to beat the tar out of some unfortunate SCAdian, some girls play video games. some do all or none of the above. (My rugby days are over.) The world works that way.
So i see no reason why the geek world should work any differently, namely why it should consist, well, completely of geeks. There isn't some threshold at which point the robot trundles up and stamps your forehead with the secret seal- (and if it were, i wouldn't tell you what the threshold was it was or what the seal looked like, although i will say that it's only visible by the light of a monitor, a flexible worklamp, or a librarian's special geekreader lenses) so while the rest of the world gasps in shock, the geeks will peacefully keep on with what they were doing. Including the girls.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
...two anime ("Serial Experiment Lain" and "Legend of Black Heaven") that have scenes were a mother is sitting down and playing a Playstation with her young son. We need more parents actually playing video games with their children, sharing in the experience with them, and offering their point of view. This needs to be done the very first day that a game console is brought into the home. It needs to be done at least once a week or so. You must engage yourself in your child's life in order to know them.
I have seen far too many people using a game console as a surrogate babysitter and never, ever playing with their children. These people are irresponsible parents. There are far too many.
Everyone who uses stereotypes are racist, bigoted, neo-Nazis!
(If you don't get the irony, go back to school.)
but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base
I heard the Oval Office is very well lit, and the computer-generated "bad guys" are now so realistic its hard to tell the difference between them and real people.
*rimshot*
Why are you knocking Ray Charles? The man plays piano without his eyes. You probably can't play piano with your overrated hand-eye coordination. I'm certain that if there was a way to convert different areas of a game screen into audio, he'd kick your ass at hockey.
Since you are severely analogy-challenged, perhaps you should stick to simpler language like, "all of them have poor hand-eye coordination."
But this is /.--a place where some geeks act out on their desire to be cool.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Ironically, that was sarcasm.
having played much counterstrike, I feel qualified to say that CounterStrike does not require (Nor does the counterstrike community possess) more braincells than a console game.
Thats a ridiculous distinction.
Sure, the highest end computer wargames are more complex than the highest end console games, but the popular games on both are at the same level.
Its not 1989 anymore, PC games are no longer aimed at sn audience that is comprised of well educated programmers.
I've played a MUD (GemStone III) for about 8 years.
;)
About two years in a met a girl and hung around with her in game, and after 4 or so years, she decided that we should meet and hang out for the week, despite about a 1500-mile distance issue. She was a pretty hardcore player. Definitely consumed 15-20 hours a week of her time (I played about 10-15 in comparison).
Well, went to T.F. Green in Providence to pick her up. Just waiting around... holding up a sign with her last name on it. Then all of a sudden some attractive, blonde, Britney Spears lookalike comes up to me and hugs me shouting "Rob" quite happily.
Yeah, I'd say that the stereotype is pretty off-base!
----- ----- -----
Do you play videogames?
1. Yes
2. No
Are you a big huge dork?
1. Yes
2. No
C'mon, how valid do you think this survey is?