Gamers: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Over the past several months I’ve found myself being pulled more into gaming. I had about a ten-year hiatus from video games. School, work, and derby had monopolized my time. But now that I’ve learned to manage my time better, I’m
I keep my dice in a video game themed bag, so what do I know?
finding myself with time to enjoy this hobby again. Claire also introduced me to the world of tabletop gaming by inviting me to her weekly casual Dungeons and Dragons game.
As I enter into the world of gaming, I’ve questioned if I can be considered a gamer. In an unrelated post, Horrible Night posted a blog about how we shouldn’t be trying to set up an arbitrary set of criteria for “true gamers.” When I shared this on our Facebook page, there was a discussion about if video gamers at all should be considered “true gamers.”
I found the discussion fascinating, but it also a little sad. Games, video or tabletop, are still unfortunately considered a “children’s activity.” We are both stereotyped as male, lonely, lacking a life, and immature. And quite frankly, this kind of arguing just plays into the latter. We should be looking to each other as allies, not as enemies. We need to show others that you can play these games, have a good time, and not fall into that stereotype. We need to stop this “I’m not going to let you in my club” attitude.
Not only that, but these games compliment each other. I would have never gotten into tabletop RPGs if I hadn’t played video game RPGs. Likewise, I’m sure there are tabletop gamers out there who decided to pickup WoW or Skyrim because they wanted to play outside of their weekly game.
Does the medium really matter? At the end of the day, aren’t we all just looking to lose ourselves in a fantasy world for a little while?
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Nicole is a Software Quality Engineer, music collector, and chronic project starter. In her free time she enjoys reading trashy romance novels, catching up on her game backlog, and bourbon.
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I think you’re right on with how the two are related. For example, I started on video games when I was 4 years old. Then when I was about 7 or 8 I started playing AD&D with my family. I find so many striking similarities between both. The point I make is if you play games, you’re a gamer. Perhaps gamer, however, receives too much negativity. I can never figure out the immaturity argument beyond that is often the loudest minority of gamers. The average age of gamer is 32. That tells you something.
Great article! And I completely agree, a “gamer” is always placed in a childlike light. For one reason or another people who play video games or tabletop games are viewed as exactly stated above, “male, lonely, no life, immature”. Which is funny to me because (as a gamer, at 30 years old) I am only one of those things, a male. I have a very fulfilling full time job and a highly reputable company. I have the amazing love of my girlfriend, who is also a gamer, and I for one don’t consider myself immature. Childish…ehh…well…you hear someone fart in a quite movie theater and not laugh, then come talk to me about it :).
While I’ve never been one for tabletop games, I would never discriminate against someone for enjoying them. If that is your passion, then who am I to say that you are not a gamer? I play video games to relax, I play them because I love CG, I play them because they are 85% of the time better written than the movies that are coming out these days. They have better plots, better characters, better graphics, and I enjoy them for a far longer time than a 2 hour movie.
Again, this is a strict video gamer speaking. I am not saying that tabletop games are not as exciting or great, I just don’t speak on what I don’t know. The bottom line is though, if you are passionate about gaming, then you are a gamer. There is no need to segregate between tabletop or video. A gamer is a gamer.
I kind of said my peace on your Facebook post, but I keep getting hung up on that fact you mentioned: “we should be looking to each other as allies.”