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.

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?

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.

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

[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.