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

Awards Show?

[inkdesign]

Let me just say that giving anything an "Oscar style award show" is not the route to legitimacy!

Article Makes Some Good Points

[bubblewrapgrl]

I think that there is a pretty negative stigma attached to being a gamer. It's very difficult to overcome. I don't think a games award show (be it Spike's horrible monstrosity or otherwise) is going to help the situation. There are a lot of gamers who are good people. The first big example that comes to mind is the guys over at Penny Arcade who set up the Child's Play Charity - http://childsplaycharity.org/ - in response to the negative image of gamers in the media. I'm sure there are others, but that was the first that came to mind.

I think the biggest problem is not that there are violent videogames. The games are rated for a reason. If you don't want your child to play GTA, Hitman, Halo, etc., don't buy them. I used to work at Target as a cashier. As a cashier, you're supposed to check IDs for games rated M (must be 17 or older). I'd ask people for them and they would have no clue that the game was rated or what the game was even about. The problem is that people like scapegoats for the way our society is. Violent videogames and movies are easy targets. They are easier to make go away and "fix" things than actual fixes are.

Re:Article Makes Some Good Points

[kingsmedley]

I think that there is a pretty negative stigma attached to being a gamer. It's very difficult to overcome.

Really? I've never been singled out and mistreated because I enjoy playing videogames. Nobody has ever pointed at me as I walked out of the local EB Games and shouted "frag lover!" I haven't been forced to sit in the back of the bus, or in any other way felt I have suffered the brunt of a negative stigma.

This negative image we talk about is in fact attached to a faceless, nonexistant media cliche of the videogame fanatic. I am yet to meet anyone that fits this image. Difficult to overcome? There's nobody to persecute!

Of course I am speaking in terms of the gamers themselves. I will concede that game developers, publishers, and retailers have been targetted with unfair accusations and absurd lawsuits; and the financial burdens associated with this treatment is very real.

The problem is that people like scapegoats for the way our society is.

This is absolutely true. But how could the gamer media solve this? That would only be preaching to the choir. It is the mainstream media that has created this stereotype, based not on actual people but on the hype generated by special interest groups (and lawyers) laying blame for society's ills on the game industry. Correcting this image can only be done through PR campaigns that will draw attention to evidence that refutes the hyperbole that has already been published. (And published so often that it has accepted by the public as established fact, when in truth it is nothing more than assumptions, theories, and conjecture.)

Bah.

[The-Bus]

A number of issues, which I will list but not enumerate.

• What does a regular player of The Sims consider herself? Surely not a "Gamer" -- but that gaming title can be a nice "gateway drug" to other types of gaming in a similar genre. Just because you like Simming does not mean you want to play Halo 2.
  
• Advertising. I don't think I've seen games being advertised in "mainstream" magazines. Of course the advertisements that do run in Maxim and FHM and GamePro and GameBizMonthlyTech or whatever they are called are well, male-oriented. I've seen a lot of TV advertisement but you could very easily buy print ads for that same amount of money.
  
• Retail outlets. Where can you buy video games? In Best Buy, EBX, GameStop... Not extremely "female-friendly" places, or "mom-friendly" places. Even the games section at Wal-Mart always seems really cramped. Where's a video game Apple Store?
  
• A bit more PR? We need some more positive news or less negative news in media. A million bucks will go a long way with a good PR agency, one that doesn't send "Press Releases" to GameSpot.
  
• Mainstream audiences already exist, but they are not all tied together. Where's the focus on non-Gamers?