Tell me you’re reading beyond the bullshit in this article and coming to the same conclusion I am:
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/192107/Opinion_Lets_retire_the_word_gamer.php
So Game Developer magazine has banned the word gamer because apparently it’s “regressive.” They say that it is also exclusive and that if you’re a gamer you’re that and nothing else (funny, that’s not contained in the definition of the word).
What a load of horse shit. You know what I see going on here? I see this industry – one which will pander endlessly and exclusively to the nerdy “hardcore” gamer – upset with the stigma that arises from this pandering. Rather than go into Wii/NES/Atari mode and make games for everyone (Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Wii Sports, etc.), this regressive industry (correct usage of the word here, haha) would rather go full nerd mode and attempt to treat the symptoms (ridicule from society) without treating the disease (the hardcore gamer).
No one ridiculed the Wii except for the nerdy “hardcore” gamer. Hell, TV journalists loved it! And look what happened there.
This industry thinks that it can keep pandering to nerds and then force everyone else in society to change. It is sorely mistaken.
I’m going to go through this below.
The below are quotes from the article:
__________________________________________
In the early days of games, you had the Atari 2600, the ZX Spectrum, and others of their ilk. These were all billed as cheap family computers that you could balance your checkbook on – but they also happened to play games. They were meant for everyone. TV ads showed a full, smiling family gathering around the television screen.
But at some point it became obvious that games were selling these devices. And games were for kids, it was supposed, so these “home computers” became kids’ toys.
Atari 2600 marketed as a computer? Let’s take a look at the very first commercial from 1977.
Does that look like the Atari 2600 was marketed as a computer?
Game consoles became associated more with kids because of the NES. The NES exploded in popularity due to Super Mario Brothers.
It is scary that someone has banned a word (why ban a word?) based on marketing reasons when the author cannot get the marketing history of the industry correct.
It defines someone who plays games, to the exclusion of all else.
That is ‘hardcore gamer’, not ‘gamer’. It seems the author is more upset over the hardcore connotation that gamer has today.
Unfortunately, that’s also when most mainstream media representatives stopped paying attention, and their cursory relationship with that era represents the depth of their knowledge. For evidence of this, watch any recent news program about games – it’s almost guaranteed that they will either talk about how they don’t play games and “hey, remember Pong?” *or* they will say “games have come a long way since Pong.”
Now he is blaming the ‘mainstream media representatives’.
The PONG players came back to gaming with Wii Sports. I thought everyone knew this. They would say today, “Hey, remember Wii Sports?” “Games have come a long way since Wii Sports.”
Then these game players grew up, and they kept playing games. This was viewed as regressive — people still playing with children’s toys. From here, you got games as villainous, creating a Peter Pan syndrome in our youth, or the “basement-dwelling manboy.” The impression is that “gamers” are just playing with their childhood toys. In the 90s, there was a mainstream view of the older game player as a deviant.
The author is clearly complaining that society is hostile to the ‘hardcore gamer’. Society loves gaming like Pac-Man and Wii Sports. It hates gaming like God of War and Grand Theft Auto.
I have a friend whose mother works in film. A film associate of hers decided to make a movie based on who he thought my friend was, depicting him as a pathetic Japanophile who did nothing but play games and siphon money off his parents. (My friend is a very smart, well adjusted, and successful guy, by the way). The impression of “gamer” as an adult child runs deep in aging media.
“Wah! They keep making fun of me being hardcore. Wah!” How else can I read this?
But that impression of the game player as a do-nothing, thoughtless drone persists to this day. And that impression is perfectly encapsulated in the word “gamer.” That is the word marketing people created to target and describe the basement-dwelling manboy. The person who just wants to play games and cares about nothing else. That person who only exists to shriek with horror and offense on internet forums about something he or she absolutely loves. And yet we have embraced this word with open arms, and proudly display it on our twitter tags. Microsoft even has its Gamer Points.
In other words, the author is butthurt because The World Agrees With Malstrom. I’ve been complaining about the hardcore since forever. I loved with the DS and Wii how Nintendo finally went hostile against the hardcore and BOY OH BOY did that bring in the sales for Nintendo. It caused the hardcore gamers to foam at the mouth, but it shows where the mainstream society is at.
The word “gamer” is regressive. It accepts the portrait of us painted by the mainstream news media, and every time I hear it or read it it actually makes me feel a little sick.
No, the ‘hardcore gamer’ is regressive. Gamer, itself, was depicted as a great positive. Disney even made a movie lionizing the gamer in Tron. Let’s not forget The Last Starfighter. Orson Scott Card’s career was made with his science fiction hit book that was about video games: Ender’s Game.
Throughout the 1980s, video games were seen very optimistically. The change was not ‘gamers’ but the birth of the hardcore gamers. The hardcore gamers have taken over gaming as if drunks have taken over the adult beverage industry.
Gaming used to have class. It was a type of technological, Vegas flash, or even cerebral class. Hardcore gaming has no class whatsoever. Hardcore gaming does nothing to hurt the precious egos but only stir their passions in a worthless time sink. At least the kids growing up with Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and Metroid had to learn patience, discipline, and amazing eye-hand coordination in order to finish the games (and many were unable to finish them!).
The problem isn’t the brand of hardcore. The problem is the hardcore. Hardcore gaming must be destroyed! If you wish to preserve gaming, to grow gaming, then you must declare war against the hardcore.
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