Should Gaming Media Work to Fight Stereotypes?

An Anonymous Reader writes "Gaming Horizon has a nice editorial taking a look at how gamers are poorly stereotyped and pandered to. (SpikeTV awards, anyone?) The writer proposes that gaming media unionize to help fight the stereotypes perpetuated by outsider media and interest groups, perhaps a more "Oscar-style" awards show, and further establishing the ESRB rating system among parents."

Comments

This is not for you

[dmauro]

You like GTA III right? You shot up your fair share of aliens in Halo 2 didn't you? And you even managed to stealhily kill your way through Metal Gear Solid. But you feel upset about the way gamers are portrayed by the media that is marketing to them. It's understandable. You have this softer, smarter side that plays Katamari Damacy and Super Mario Bros. 3, and even reads Slashdot. Why doesn't Spike TV's awards show pander to this type of person? Well probably because there are so many people out there that only play these violent mainstream games, and who also completely eat this stuff up.

That conversation between the execs probably went something more like this:
Businessman A: "You'll see here on chart C that the largest group of our regular programming that could be considered 'gamers' occurs in this particular demographic shown here."

Businessman B: "I think the show could possibly draw a larger audience and generate more interest if we included some musical stars preferred by that demographic."

Businessman A: "Excellent idea. I'll look into that. Now, for endorsements, on chart D you will see that heavily caffinated beverages are a favorite among this demographic. This sort of thing fits in perfectly with Mountain Dew's current marketing campaign and I think we should talk to them abuot it."

Businessman B: "Excellent. Now I'm sorry, but I have to cut this meeting a bit short. My son has a baseball game tonight"

Please mod this post redundant since we have this discussion once a week.