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Which of these two statements is true:
People who play video games are 70% more likely to be nerds.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to become homicidal maniacs.
In fact neither is true, merely modern myths invented by some ill-informed moralistic rabble-rousers (Daily Mail anyone?). One of the biggest myths about video games is that they are primarily a hobby for sweaty tech-loving nerds, and indeed, that’s the way they did used to be, but have things changed since those days of bedroom coding geekiness or are games still a hobby enjoyed by geeks?
Whether or not you think games and gamers are ‘cool’ nowadays all depends who and what you want to believe and what you define as the benchmark for coolness, and although games have got somewhat more accepted and mainstream over the last few years, gaming is still probably not as cool a hobby as some might think.
Nowadays, we have clever ad men bombarding us with the idea that video games are cool with coverage in various lifestyle magazines and sponsorship of various ‘cool’ events, and they constantly try to force home the idea that gamers are the coolest people since The Fonz, but do you feel that games are cool? Do non-gamers think that games are cool?
Years ago, gamers were seen as either geeky 30 year olds, living with their parents and who enjoyed programming games on their Spectrums or partially retarded spotty social outcasts who lived in their dark bedrooms, playing controversial killing games like Doom, GTA or Carmageddon. They’re horrid images, but I’m sure that’s how gamers used to be perceived by some people.
Over recent years however, the stereotypical images have changed somewhat, with games having gone from entertainment for loners and nerds to mass-market entertainment enjoyed by a broader range of people mainly due to the wider range of mass appeal software available nowadays.
The Lord of the Rings series was probably seen to be a fairly nerdy thing not too long ago, with the typical LotR fan being a middle-aged beardy troglodyte who lives with his parents and enjoys role-playing every night of the week. But, LotR became mainstream to “normal” people with the release of the great movies, so now it’s cool to like orks and trolls and stuff like that. Strange, but it’s happened.
The same thing is happening/has happened with games, and Sony is mainly responsible. Love them or loath them, Sony has brought gaming to the mainstream, with many games having more mass-appeal than most gamers of yesteryear.
With the arrival of mass-market gaming, we have had a rise in so-called ‘casual gamers’, leading to more casual gamer style games, much to the detriment of original or obscure titles, as gaming is bigger business now, so companies can’t afford to take crazy risks on an oddball title which would go straight over the heads of the modern gamer.
So just how cool are gamers? I’ve drawn these handy, easy to read and highly scientific graphs to demonstrate the coolness of gaming past and present:
Ten years ago:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
|__________|__________|__________
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz is the aforementioned ‘benchmark of coolness’, with gamers of ten years ago not seen as very cool people, and coming up the rear (make of that what you will), is the Star Trek nerds who dress up as Klingons and attend Sci-fi conventions who have what experts have dubbed ‘minus cool’.
Fast forward to the modern day, and we have another graph:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
| | |
| | |
|__________|__________|__________
| |
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz remains as the king of cool, but gamers have got a bit cooler thanks to ‘The Sony Effect’, whilst Star Trek nerds have decreased in coolness even further, and their cool rating is falling quicker than Graham Norton’s trousers at The Blue Oyster Bar (apologies to die-hard Star Trek fans, but hey, it’s an irrefutable fact, you’re nerds).
So there’s the scientific evidence compiled from years of research, games have indeed got cooler over the last few years, and are certainly a more respected hobby than the geeky loner image of yesteryear (and still cooler than Star Trek).
For years games and gamers have strived for acceptance amongst the mainstream, and I think we pretty much have it nowadays. Although games are still not as well represented on TV or in newspapers as they deserve to be, consoles do have lots of coverage in trendy lifestyle, film and technology magazines, but video games still aren’t as accepted as movies, and people’s attitudes about games and gamers are still a little reserved which is a shame.
Can video games ever be considered a fully accepted form of entertainment to rival the movie industry? Or will they always be classed as just harmless (or harmful depending on your point of view) entertainment enjoyed by sweaty nerds?
Are we proud to be gamers? Would we run into the street and loudly proclaim that we play video games? Probably not, but what the heck we like them, so who really gives a damn what other people think.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to be nerds.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to become homicidal maniacs.
In fact neither is true, merely modern myths invented by some ill-informed moralistic rabble-rousers (Daily Mail anyone?). One of the biggest myths about video games is that they are primarily a hobby for sweaty tech-loving nerds, and indeed, that’s the way they did used to be, but have things changed since those days of bedroom coding geekiness or are games still a hobby enjoyed by geeks?
Whether or not you think games and gamers are ‘cool’ nowadays all depends who and what you want to believe and what you define as the benchmark for coolness, and although games have got somewhat more accepted and mainstream over the last few years, gaming is still probably not as cool a hobby as some might think.
Nowadays, we have clever ad men bombarding us with the idea that video games are cool with coverage in various lifestyle magazines and sponsorship of various ‘cool’ events, and they constantly try to force home the idea that gamers are the coolest people since The Fonz, but do you feel that games are cool? Do non-gamers think that games are cool?
Years ago, gamers were seen as either geeky 30 year olds, living with their parents and who enjoyed programming games on their Spectrums or partially retarded spotty social outcasts who lived in their dark bedrooms, playing controversial killing games like Doom, GTA or Carmageddon. They’re horrid images, but I’m sure that’s how gamers used to be perceived by some people.
Over recent years however, the stereotypical images have changed somewhat, with games having gone from entertainment for loners and nerds to mass-market entertainment enjoyed by a broader range of people mainly due to the wider range of mass appeal software available nowadays.
The Lord of the Rings series was probably seen to be a fairly nerdy thing not too long ago, with the typical LotR fan being a middle-aged beardy troglodyte who lives with his parents and enjoys role-playing every night of the week. But, LotR became mainstream to “normal” people with the release of the great movies, so now it’s cool to like orks and trolls and stuff like that. Strange, but it’s happened.
The same thing is happening/has happened with games, and Sony is mainly responsible. Love them or loath them, Sony has brought gaming to the mainstream, with many games having more mass-appeal than most gamers of yesteryear.
With the arrival of mass-market gaming, we have had a rise in so-called ‘casual gamers’, leading to more casual gamer style games, much to the detriment of original or obscure titles, as gaming is bigger business now, so companies can’t afford to take crazy risks on an oddball title which would go straight over the heads of the modern gamer.
So just how cool are gamers? I’ve drawn these handy, easy to read and highly scientific graphs to demonstrate the coolness of gaming past and present:
Ten years ago:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
|__________|__________|__________
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz is the aforementioned ‘benchmark of coolness’, with gamers of ten years ago not seen as very cool people, and coming up the rear (make of that what you will), is the Star Trek nerds who dress up as Klingons and attend Sci-fi conventions who have what experts have dubbed ‘minus cool’.
Fast forward to the modern day, and we have another graph:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
| | |
| | |
|__________|__________|__________
| |
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz remains as the king of cool, but gamers have got a bit cooler thanks to ‘The Sony Effect’, whilst Star Trek nerds have decreased in coolness even further, and their cool rating is falling quicker than Graham Norton’s trousers at The Blue Oyster Bar (apologies to die-hard Star Trek fans, but hey, it’s an irrefutable fact, you’re nerds).
So there’s the scientific evidence compiled from years of research, games have indeed got cooler over the last few years, and are certainly a more respected hobby than the geeky loner image of yesteryear (and still cooler than Star Trek).
For years games and gamers have strived for acceptance amongst the mainstream, and I think we pretty much have it nowadays. Although games are still not as well represented on TV or in newspapers as they deserve to be, consoles do have lots of coverage in trendy lifestyle, film and technology magazines, but video games still aren’t as accepted as movies, and people’s attitudes about games and gamers are still a little reserved which is a shame.
Can video games ever be considered a fully accepted form of entertainment to rival the movie industry? Or will they always be classed as just harmless (or harmful depending on your point of view) entertainment enjoyed by sweaty nerds?
Are we proud to be gamers? Would we run into the street and loudly proclaim that we play video games? Probably not, but what the heck we like them, so who really gives a damn what other people think.
Fonz rules all.
I think games aren't just for 'nerds'. You have the whole 'after the pub' thing.
I think games aren't just for 'nerds'. You have the whole 'after the pub' thing.
darn, the alt + 0160 trick doesn't work.
Totoro wrote:
> ___Fonz___
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |__Gamers__
> | | |
> | | |
> | |__________|__________
> | |
> | |
> |__________|
> Star Trek nerds
I tried to sort this, may/may not turn out good.
By the way, excellent post, and I wish gaming was still uncool.
Before gaming was cool, I only needed on egame a year, now I need one a month. Because gaming is cool, they're not as good as they used to be, as they are rushed more to milk more money etc.
> ___Fonz___
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |__Gamers__
> | | |
> | | |
> | |__________|__________
> | |
> | |
> |__________|
> Star Trek nerds
I tried to sort this, may/may not turn out good.
By the way, excellent post, and I wish gaming was still uncool.
Before gaming was cool, I only needed on egame a year, now I need one a month. Because gaming is cool, they're not as good as they used to be, as they are rushed more to milk more money etc.
Darn, I knew those stupid graphs wouldn't come out right :)
Anyway, you can roughly see what they show.
Grrr.
Anyway, you can roughly see what they show.
Grrr.
Which of these two statements is true:
People who play video games are 70% more likely to be nerds.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to become homicidal maniacs.
In fact neither is true, merely modern myths invented by some ill-informed moralistic rabble-rousers (Daily Mail anyone?). One of the biggest myths about video games is that they are primarily a hobby for sweaty tech-loving nerds, and indeed, that’s the way they did used to be, but have things changed since those days of bedroom coding geekiness or are games still a hobby enjoyed by geeks?
Whether or not you think games and gamers are ‘cool’ nowadays all depends who and what you want to believe and what you define as the benchmark for coolness, and although games have got somewhat more accepted and mainstream over the last few years, gaming is still probably not as cool a hobby as some might think.
Nowadays, we have clever ad men bombarding us with the idea that video games are cool with coverage in various lifestyle magazines and sponsorship of various ‘cool’ events, and they constantly try to force home the idea that gamers are the coolest people since The Fonz, but do you feel that games are cool? Do non-gamers think that games are cool?
Years ago, gamers were seen as either geeky 30 year olds, living with their parents and who enjoyed programming games on their Spectrums or partially retarded spotty social outcasts who lived in their dark bedrooms, playing controversial killing games like Doom, GTA or Carmageddon. They’re horrid images, but I’m sure that’s how gamers used to be perceived by some people.
Over recent years however, the stereotypical images have changed somewhat, with games having gone from entertainment for loners and nerds to mass-market entertainment enjoyed by a broader range of people mainly due to the wider range of mass appeal software available nowadays.
The Lord of the Rings series was probably seen to be a fairly nerdy thing not too long ago, with the typical LotR fan being a middle-aged beardy troglodyte who lives with his parents and enjoys role-playing every night of the week. But, LotR became mainstream to “normal” people with the release of the great movies, so now it’s cool to like orks and trolls and stuff like that. Strange, but it’s happened.
The same thing is happening/has happened with games, and Sony is mainly responsible. Love them or loath them, Sony has brought gaming to the mainstream, with many games having more mass-appeal than most gamers of yesteryear.
With the arrival of mass-market gaming, we have had a rise in so-called ‘casual gamers’, leading to more casual gamer style games, much to the detriment of original or obscure titles, as gaming is bigger business now, so companies can’t afford to take crazy risks on an oddball title which would go straight over the heads of the modern gamer.
So just how cool are gamers? I’ve drawn these handy, easy to read and highly scientific graphs to demonstrate the coolness of gaming past and present:
Ten years ago:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
|__________|__________|__________
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz is the aforementioned ‘benchmark of coolness’, with gamers of ten years ago not seen as very cool people, and coming up the rear (make of that what you will), is the Star Trek nerds who dress up as Klingons and attend Sci-fi conventions who have what experts have dubbed ‘minus cool’.
Fast forward to the modern day, and we have another graph:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
| | |
| | |
|__________|__________|__________
| |
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz remains as the king of cool, but gamers have got a bit cooler thanks to ‘The Sony Effect’, whilst Star Trek nerds have decreased in coolness even further, and their cool rating is falling quicker than Graham Norton’s trousers at The Blue Oyster Bar (apologies to die-hard Star Trek fans, but hey, it’s an irrefutable fact, you’re nerds).
So there’s the scientific evidence compiled from years of research, games have indeed got cooler over the last few years, and are certainly a more respected hobby than the geeky loner image of yesteryear (and still cooler than Star Trek).
For years games and gamers have strived for acceptance amongst the mainstream, and I think we pretty much have it nowadays. Although games are still not as well represented on TV or in newspapers as they deserve to be, consoles do have lots of coverage in trendy lifestyle, film and technology magazines, but video games still aren’t as accepted as movies, and people’s attitudes about games and gamers are still a little reserved which is a shame.
Can video games ever be considered a fully accepted form of entertainment to rival the movie industry? Or will they always be classed as just harmless (or harmful depending on your point of view) entertainment enjoyed by sweaty nerds?
Are we proud to be gamers? Would we run into the street and loudly proclaim that we play video games? Probably not, but what the heck we like them, so who really gives a damn what other people think.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to be nerds.
People who play video games are 70% more likely to become homicidal maniacs.
In fact neither is true, merely modern myths invented by some ill-informed moralistic rabble-rousers (Daily Mail anyone?). One of the biggest myths about video games is that they are primarily a hobby for sweaty tech-loving nerds, and indeed, that’s the way they did used to be, but have things changed since those days of bedroom coding geekiness or are games still a hobby enjoyed by geeks?
Whether or not you think games and gamers are ‘cool’ nowadays all depends who and what you want to believe and what you define as the benchmark for coolness, and although games have got somewhat more accepted and mainstream over the last few years, gaming is still probably not as cool a hobby as some might think.
Nowadays, we have clever ad men bombarding us with the idea that video games are cool with coverage in various lifestyle magazines and sponsorship of various ‘cool’ events, and they constantly try to force home the idea that gamers are the coolest people since The Fonz, but do you feel that games are cool? Do non-gamers think that games are cool?
Years ago, gamers were seen as either geeky 30 year olds, living with their parents and who enjoyed programming games on their Spectrums or partially retarded spotty social outcasts who lived in their dark bedrooms, playing controversial killing games like Doom, GTA or Carmageddon. They’re horrid images, but I’m sure that’s how gamers used to be perceived by some people.
Over recent years however, the stereotypical images have changed somewhat, with games having gone from entertainment for loners and nerds to mass-market entertainment enjoyed by a broader range of people mainly due to the wider range of mass appeal software available nowadays.
The Lord of the Rings series was probably seen to be a fairly nerdy thing not too long ago, with the typical LotR fan being a middle-aged beardy troglodyte who lives with his parents and enjoys role-playing every night of the week. But, LotR became mainstream to “normal” people with the release of the great movies, so now it’s cool to like orks and trolls and stuff like that. Strange, but it’s happened.
The same thing is happening/has happened with games, and Sony is mainly responsible. Love them or loath them, Sony has brought gaming to the mainstream, with many games having more mass-appeal than most gamers of yesteryear.
With the arrival of mass-market gaming, we have had a rise in so-called ‘casual gamers’, leading to more casual gamer style games, much to the detriment of original or obscure titles, as gaming is bigger business now, so companies can’t afford to take crazy risks on an oddball title which would go straight over the heads of the modern gamer.
So just how cool are gamers? I’ve drawn these handy, easy to read and highly scientific graphs to demonstrate the coolness of gaming past and present:
Ten years ago:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
|__________|__________|__________
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz is the aforementioned ‘benchmark of coolness’, with gamers of ten years ago not seen as very cool people, and coming up the rear (make of that what you will), is the Star Trek nerds who dress up as Klingons and attend Sci-fi conventions who have what experts have dubbed ‘minus cool’.
Fast forward to the modern day, and we have another graph:
___Fonz___
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |__Gamers__
| | |
| | |
|__________|__________|__________
| |
| |
|__________|
Star Trek nerds
As you can see, The Fonz remains as the king of cool, but gamers have got a bit cooler thanks to ‘The Sony Effect’, whilst Star Trek nerds have decreased in coolness even further, and their cool rating is falling quicker than Graham Norton’s trousers at The Blue Oyster Bar (apologies to die-hard Star Trek fans, but hey, it’s an irrefutable fact, you’re nerds).
So there’s the scientific evidence compiled from years of research, games have indeed got cooler over the last few years, and are certainly a more respected hobby than the geeky loner image of yesteryear (and still cooler than Star Trek).
For years games and gamers have strived for acceptance amongst the mainstream, and I think we pretty much have it nowadays. Although games are still not as well represented on TV or in newspapers as they deserve to be, consoles do have lots of coverage in trendy lifestyle, film and technology magazines, but video games still aren’t as accepted as movies, and people’s attitudes about games and gamers are still a little reserved which is a shame.
Can video games ever be considered a fully accepted form of entertainment to rival the movie industry? Or will they always be classed as just harmless (or harmful depending on your point of view) entertainment enjoyed by sweaty nerds?
Are we proud to be gamers? Would we run into the street and loudly proclaim that we play video games? Probably not, but what the heck we like them, so who really gives a damn what other people think.