Game Over, Man. Game Over!
Derek Hidey
Issue date: 5/9/07 Section: The AT Wire
This will be my last column in The Bottom Line. I’m graduating this month after four years at Frostburg State and a little over two years writing for The Bottom Line. Because this is my last column, I’d like to cover a few issues that I think are important in the gaming world.
he correlation between video games and violence is slowly diminishing as a mainstream idea. Thanks to gamers and right-minded individuals, the playing of video games is becoming less of negative idea and more of a positive one.
I had someone comment on one of my columns this semester saying that gamers are not part of a unique subculture, but rather they are merely a “market-base.” Granted, we are a targeted demographic for a lot of products on the market, but to say we are nothing more than a market-base would be incorrect.
We gamers have our own unique style and code. To most people, this code may appear chaotic and sometimes barbaric in nature. We have our own unique tastes in music, sometimes preferring video game soundtracks to mainstream bands, artists and genres. FFS, we even have our own unique and stylized way of speaking and writing that most cannot understand.
Just the other day in a mass communications class, we were talking about television going to the Internet. I told the professor about PurePwnage, the Internet series that parodies the life of a professional gamer, at www.purepwnage.com. It took everyone in the class at least five minutes to grasp the concept that the word “pwnage” is pronounced the way “ownage” would be, but is popularly spelled beginning with a “p” instead of an “o.” This shows how unique we are in our subculture.
One argument against my gaming subculture belief is that because so many people play video games, there can’t possibly be a subculture. However, when I refer to gaming as a subculture, I’m not talking about the dude who plays Madden ‘07 on the weekends with his football buddies. I’m not talking about the kid who sits down and plays two to three hours of games a week. The subculture can’t be accessed nor understood by merely playing video games, because that is not what it is about – it is a lot more than that.
Gaming is about interaction, despite the popular idea that gamers are socially awkward introverts who have a difficult time finding a girl and a suntan. This culture is greatly supported by online gaming, and if a gamer isn’t immersed in it, they aren’t part of the subculture.
There is a movement both subtle and progressive that is shifting some big ideas about video games for the better. And, like the Internet, there isn’t anything anyone can do to stop it.
/Uninstall.
he correlation between video games and violence is slowly diminishing as a mainstream idea. Thanks to gamers and right-minded individuals, the playing of video games is becoming less of negative idea and more of a positive one.
I had someone comment on one of my columns this semester saying that gamers are not part of a unique subculture, but rather they are merely a “market-base.” Granted, we are a targeted demographic for a lot of products on the market, but to say we are nothing more than a market-base would be incorrect.
We gamers have our own unique style and code. To most people, this code may appear chaotic and sometimes barbaric in nature. We have our own unique tastes in music, sometimes preferring video game soundtracks to mainstream bands, artists and genres. FFS, we even have our own unique and stylized way of speaking and writing that most cannot understand.
Just the other day in a mass communications class, we were talking about television going to the Internet. I told the professor about PurePwnage, the Internet series that parodies the life of a professional gamer, at www.purepwnage.com. It took everyone in the class at least five minutes to grasp the concept that the word “pwnage” is pronounced the way “ownage” would be, but is popularly spelled beginning with a “p” instead of an “o.” This shows how unique we are in our subculture.
One argument against my gaming subculture belief is that because so many people play video games, there can’t possibly be a subculture. However, when I refer to gaming as a subculture, I’m not talking about the dude who plays Madden ‘07 on the weekends with his football buddies. I’m not talking about the kid who sits down and plays two to three hours of games a week. The subculture can’t be accessed nor understood by merely playing video games, because that is not what it is about – it is a lot more than that.
Gaming is about interaction, despite the popular idea that gamers are socially awkward introverts who have a difficult time finding a girl and a suntan. This culture is greatly supported by online gaming, and if a gamer isn’t immersed in it, they aren’t part of the subculture.
There is a movement both subtle and progressive that is shifting some big ideas about video games for the better. And, like the Internet, there isn’t anything anyone can do to stop it.
/Uninstall.
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Hingalou
Mike Dicks
posted 5/09/07 @ 8:19 AM EST
Congratulations Taldren!
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