Hello everyone this is Bryan with my first blog entry.
Today was the first lecture on video games. The question that stuck in my mind during the lecture was "what is it that makes you a gamer?".
That triggers a lot of my thoughts about the stereotypes towards the labelled "gamers". To me, gamers are experts and enthusiasts of the games they liked. They don't treat the games as just another past-time, but rather a specialty or a serious hobby. They immerse themselves not only into the game, but into the whole culture or phenomeon that surrounds it. They are willing to sacrifice a lot of things in order to acheive a certain rankings or succeed in the competitive world. For instance, back in my home city, Hong Kong, there are many youngsters who were willing to pay real money for a virtual weapon in an MMORPG. A number of scams were generated by this trend. Another ongoing phenomen in Asia is that gamers, together with computer geeks and comic book lovers, are labelled as the Train Boy (a term coined by a Japanese fiction called Densha Otoko, directly translated as the Train Boy). The Train Boy has the traits of being anti-social, uncomfortable with females, and has no life apart from the one thing that fascinates them.
People with the above characteristics are probably consider as gamers by the public.
However, at the tutorial, Mark brought up a very good point. What makes a gamer is primarily and essentially the self-identification as a gamer. Nobody can critique one's gamer status apart from themselves.
If I consider myself as a gamer (which I don't) , it probably takes me a lot of courage to admit that in public. The reason will obviously be the generally negative stereotypes that are associated with the image of gamers, which are not entirely true. Gamers can live a normal life while identifying themselves as gamers.
All I want to say is that the gamers' image or stereotypes have been mixed up with the negative effects that video games can bring. One doesn't have to harm themselves to be a gamer.
Hey Bryan,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, just reflecting, I do consider myself a gamer, but it does not take any courage to admit that. Like you claim, gamers can take gaming seriously in tournaments/competitions, its like a sport, and like a sport, the athlete isn't afraid of claiming who they are, a soccer player won't deny claims of him being a soccer player. Yes there are negative stereotypes (especially pointed out in shows like South Park) but so do other sports, rugby/american football players get the dumb jock/thick headed, soccer players the drama queen (yes soccer players do get called that, I know from experience lol). Also it's probably a more western ideal, like shown at lecture today, I doubt many in South Korea see gamers in bad light.
I am aware (before anyone points out lol) that it comes down to personal opinion on gamers, it really shouldn't be a secret or an embarrassing thing to say "I'm a gamer".