What Type Of Gamer Are You?

Thanks to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (via Recordonline.com) for their article trying to characterize gamers into visual stereotypes. It starts: "It used to be that if you played video games more than casually you were labeled a nerd... Nerds, as an easily identified social group, don't exist anymore.", and goes on to describe "clans of specialist gamers" such as 'Survival horror junkie' ("Think goth kid from the '80s meets skate punk... the color for this season is black, black, and more black") or 'RPG obsessive' ("Little has changed with the outward appearance of role-playing game fans since the golden age of 'Dungeons and Dragons'") Is this simply lazy/offensive pigeonholing, or can you spot certain gamers on sight alone?

Comments

Is this a joke?

[PurpleFloyd]

First of all, while it's possible to identify what types of games people might play by their clothing and demeanor, the games are more an outgrowth of that personal style rather than the primary contributor to that style. For example, a Goth might be a fan of survival horror, and a frat boy might be a fan of sports games, but the reason they play those games is because of their personal style; they don't start out "normal," play those games, then develop a style based around that.

Second, what in the hell is going on with the description of FPS fans? The author seems to think that anyone who plays FPS games like Counterstrike or UT2k3 will become a military junkie/extreme right wing survivalist. As a fairly avid Counterstrike player and someone so far to the left Noam Chomsky would call me a pinko commie bastard, I can say decisively that this is not true. Many of my friends play FPS games, and we certainly don't obsess over guns or military jargon. While people who have an obsession with all things military in the first place are probably drawn to FPS games, people who play FPS games casually or even competitively are not going to be transformed into military killing machines. Quite simply, the author is smoking some good shit. I want some.

Re:Is this a joke?

[PurpleFloyd]

I know several people who could easily be described as "serious, dyed-in-the wool" players of games like Counterstrike, Ghost Recon, and America's Army, and they don't act anything like the author describes (dressing in camoflauge, describing everything in terms of military jargon). Basically, they're normal people who spend time and money on military FPSes rather than stamp collecting or model trains. While some people who are "hardcore" gamers probably are identifiable, I'd say that there are far more who aren't. Next time you walk down the street, see if there's anyone you can peg as a "hardcore military game player" or a "hardcore sports game player." I'd put money on you not being able to find any. While many people game as a hobby, very few allow it to take over their life. The author's premise is totally off base.

Re:Is this a joke?

[jargonCCNA]

Basically, they're normal people who spend time and money on military FPSes rather than stamp collecting or model trains.

I wouldn't call that "dyed-in-the-wool" behaviour. That's just having a hobby. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool hacker -- I've been using computers for, literally, time out of mind (goofing around on VIC-20s is among my earliest memories. Possibly my first.) and it's all I can see myself doing. I'm skinny, lanky guy with elongated fingers and a mildly shitty back. I'm surprised my vision and wrists are as healthy as they are (I have 20/20 vision in my right eye and slightly better in my left; and only after playing guitar for about three days, three hours a day after barely playing at all have I developed any wrist problems). Looking at me, you can sort of tell I use computers -- a lot. That's what the author's talking about -- the gamers that have been interested in the game's subject matter for as long as they can remember.

Re:well

[Magic Thread]

Or unemployed!

hmm

[bobbozzo]

Is this simply lazy/offensive pigeonholing...

Imho, yes.

I've played "shooters" (CS, GTA:VC (which I do NOT consider a shooter), Quake2, Doom(s), Hitman, 1942...), platforms (Prince of Persia 1 & 2, ...), "arcade sims" (NFS, Comanche, Apache, Falcon 2, Aces over the Pacific, Red Baron, subs, ...), some RPGs, ...

I don't wear camo, cargo pants, or t-shirts, and my reflexes suck (I rarely do especially well at CS, but I still love it).

I haven't (yet) played paintball, although I do shoot & hunt occasionally. Never even seen a Jane's book, although I have heard about them due to the Jane's flight sims.

Sniper was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Thank god I didn't pay for it. I loved Starship Troopers though.

I don't know what a "Survival Horror" is (I've never seen any of the Resident Evil games, etc., but DoomIII looks like it will be fun, if that counts.

Basically, the author couldn't think of anything to write, so he wrote this? And he totally left out sims (no, not The Sims, although he left them out too, along with RTS's).

Gamers grew up faster than him it seems

[Attaturk]

Takes a sterotype to know a stereotype. Now let's see...

"It used to be that if you wrote tired copy for dodgy online 'journalism' you were labeled a hack. That was before the seedy and drunk took sweet revenge on corporate America with their Media degrees and bullshit fluency. But even with fat arses they still went unnoticed all too often; socially inept and most at ease alone in front of a monitor.
Low tier journalists were - and still are - a lonely bunch."

I used to be a journalist. I think I'm venting something here - humor me.

-A

P.S. I bet he hates being misquoted too. ;-)

This is amazing!!!

[magores]

All this time, I thought I was hiding my RPG-geekness from the world, and now some guy has figured out the fact that I wear a loincloth and carry a 2-handed bastard sword actually means something!

Shh... Don't tell those guys at work about this. You know, the ones that are wearing the camo pants and carrying big guns.

this kind of crap really isnt valid any more

[Milkhorse]

consoles destroyed the nerd strangelhold on gaming. 15 years ago when you HAD to have a PC to play the GOOD GOOD high tech games, being a nerd was a prerequisite to being a serious gamer, because you had to invest a lot of money in a computer that most people had no need for AND you had to havet the expertise to run it. Once consoles caught up with PCs in terms of gaming power(which wasnt too long ago), all of that ended. Now ANYONE can pretty much play any game they can wrap their brains around. I work for a "large multimedia rental chain" and I can tell you the people coming in to rent games are NOT nerds.

RTS'er

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just picture an RTS'er like myself...

Physical characteristics: The typical penny pincher, only spending their hard mined gold or vespan gas on what they really need.
Other distinguishing characteristics:You can always point them out in a crowd...because they are always pointing at other people giving commands and hot grouping those with like characteristics.
When not playing games, most likely to be: Framing their signed PGL card of Tillerman.
Least likely to be: Anything unorganized, lacking any well balanced activities, or involving people who have no idea what they are doing (newbies).
Favorite movies: Warcraft3 Replays
Dream Job: Whip cracker, Hive Mind, or any general managing position.

As you can see, I really had no idea what to put as in the case of this article...soooooo I just filled in the blanks with random crap! I should be a journalist too!

Everquest

[cybermage]

Is this simply lazy/offensive pigeonholing, or can you spot certain gamers on sight alone?

I don't know if it works for all types of gamers, but I've been able to recognize friends who've gotten into Everquest by their sudden, prolonged absense. Does that count?

Dunno if it fits the genre.......

[Dark Nexus]

But "hard-core" survival horror players aside....

Anybody who lists Resident Evil among their favourite movies has GOT to have serious issues and an all-round hatred of life.

Either that, or they REALLY need to see more movies.

pigeonholed

[evilWurst]

How many people like only one kind of gaming and have only one hobby? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, that's what I thought. This reads like it was written in the early 90s, and the "author" merely updated the names of a few games. It was narrow-minded then, and it's narrow-minded now.

Comedy By Numbers

[DarkZero]

So people that like horror are goths, people that like things dealing with the military are gun-toting right wing nutjobs, and sports fans are obsessed with... sports. Wow, that's some great Comedy By Numbers you've got there, Mr. Taves. Did you pull it out of a "What type of movie-goer are you?" article from 1970 or did you take a trip to the library and find a "What type of reader are you?" article from an 1880 newspaper archive?

I wish I could get a job plagiarizing the same oft-plagiarized hunk of bullshit that's been kicking around the journalism industry for longer than any of us can remember. I bet it's a really fun job, like being a taste tester at a cookie factory, or one of those jackasses that gets their name on TV by calling movies "thrill rides" or "a tour de force".

Part missing from the article

[MaverickUW]

If you look up Mr Taves at the Seattle PI you'd find he's actually the video game columnist. And I have to add one thing, the article did a bad job of quoting the article.

If you go to the article (which can be found here you will see that there is one additional line to the article. And I quote: "Scott Taves is a lifelong nerd who favors shooters and survival horror games."

I don't think the article was meant to be taken at face value... (but if you search his other articles, he does pick Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness as a hot pick) but I think the ommission of that last line from the article on the website linked above does leave out something interesting and insightful.

Just for the record, since the PI is my local large market newspaper (even though I'm 150 miles away), and my favorite of the two Seattle papers, I am writing a letter to the editor (by email of course) pointing out the backlash this article has created in the gaming community (as well as mentioning seeing if putting slashdot in the newspaper has a slashdot type effect). I'll let you know if it gets printed

Re:Part missing from the article

[DarkZero]

I agree with your sentiments. This article is a tongue in cheek social criticism of gamer culture. If previous posters had bothered to read it, (which they don't seem to have, or not very well) they would have noticed this at once, as the entire article has a cheecky and jocular tone to it. One wonders if the person who posted this story also ran to the Humane Society after seeing Bonsai Kitten. (Yes, I have a cat)

The thing is, it's not even a tongue in cheek social criticism. He took vague assumptions that could apply to any medium and applied them to video games. RPG players are geeks, people who play military games are nutjobs in camouflage, people who like anything regarding horror are goths... someone who knows nothing about video games could've written this.

A better tongue in cheek social criticism would have an anime fangirl who's played Final Fantasy X eighteen consecutive times, a bunch of pale, deluded gamers sitting in an arcade dutifully playing 2D fighters as if they were brand new games, and a vast army of Korean kids screaming, "ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKEKEKE!". But he didn't write that. He wrote a vague piece of crap that just as easily could've been "What type of movie-goer are you?" or "What type of reader are you?". Sports fans are obsessed with sports and wear nothing but jerseys, horror fans are goths... someone could've wrote this thirty years ago. But it still wouldn't have been funny.

Re:Part missing from the article

[PurpleFloyd]

If it's social satire, where's the element of truth? Good satire needs to have a kernel of truth "stretched" to the extreme; think of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, being force-fed by a machine while he works on an assembly line. While factory owners never actually attempted to make their workers work and eat similtaneously, Chaplin still made a point: that factory owners were willing to sacrifice workers' basic decency for higher rates of production and more profit.

I don't see a corresponding "basic point" here. Is the author trying to tell us that games can take over our lives? Maybe, but that doesn't seem to be a major social problem in today's society; for every one gamer who allows games to take over his or her life, there are many who treat gaming as a fun and relaxing hobby. While some people do treat this as a problem, the identification of this writer as the P-I's videogames columnist seems to rule that possiblity out. Still, the article seems to be written by a person who is somewhat afraid of computers, but wants to write something on the "gaming culture." There's no point that it tries to make; the only humor is weak and solely derived from hyperbole. Social satire should be funny and have a point; this posesses neither of those characteristics.

As for the analogy with Bonsai Kitten, there's very little similarity. BK is a troll, designed to shock people into an emotional response. I see no evidence of this being similar; if it were going for shock value, it would probably describe gamers as somewhat similar to this. If this is a troll, it's a fairly weak one: it doesn't appeal to any emotions, but rather simply makes you want to point out the author's errors and move on.

While one does get the sense that the author is trying to be funny and perhaps a bit controversial, there's no content that makes me laugh or think. Instead, I get the same feeling you might get from a comedian whose jokes aren't getting a response. I think, "what a moron!" and move on; not the response that either a humorist or troll would look for. It doesn't matter whether you rate the article on humor value, shock value, or informative content: it fails on all three counts.

You never can tell.

[atholbrose]

Once, I was standing in the game store talking to the clerk when nobody was around. In came a big stereotypical biker dude -- leather vest, chain wallet, big bushy beard, do-rag, the whole nine yards. He comes up to the counter, and the clerk says "Can I help you?"

In a gruff voice, the guy says "Yeah. I heard that Animal Crossing came in today. Can I pick one of those up?"

I asked. I HAD to. It was for him.