Gamer Culture

Keira Peney

Posted on Fri 16 May 2008 by Keira Peney under Community , Links .
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Like most subcultures, the gamer culture has an identity of its own. If we call ourselves a gamer, then on some level we are subscribing to that identity. Of course, ‘gamer’ covers a lot of diverse people, with a lot of diverse opinions. To attempt to define this culture would be a near impossible task, without alienating someone.

In an interesting article at GameSetWatch, Douglas Williams said he couldn’t stand gamers. Rene Patnode made a rebuttal stating that gamers weren’t all that bad. Michael Abbot of The Brainy Gamer also wonders at the hatred and juvenile obscenity spewed out in some places. As he points out, there are no easy answers. The anonymous and competitive nature of many online games gives license to homophobic, misogynistic and obscene comments.

Part of the problem is the lack of objective knowledge about games - by which I mean their history and their context, rather than how to beat them. Costik at Play This Thing! says this is why game studies are important.

Meanwhile Daniel Primed, of DP’s Gamer Blog, discusses the negative aspects of fan-culture. He suggests we all need to respect each other more.

I’m not quite sure where the knee-jerk, random insult shouting ‘response’ that many gamers indulge in comes from. I do know that they probably aren’t reading these blogs, or thinking about how damaging it is for first-time players to be exposed to such extreme hate. After a while of playing online RTS and FPS, you get a thick skin and barely notice the insults anymore. But I know at least two gamers who simply don’t play online because their initial experience was so bad.

What can we do about this as developers? Consistent moderation is difficult to manage, especially with popular games and multiple servers. The negative few do drive away players, however, and that does affect both the bottom line and the industry as a whole. I don’t have any answers, apart from trying to make sure we always behave in as mature and grown-up fashion as possible.

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2 Responses to “Gamer Culture

Daniel Primed Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Interesting thoughts there Keira. Thanks for linking to my article. I don’t think that my logic was very clearly presented. After reading your thoughts and the links to the various other articles though I have formed a much better methodology to approach culture. I’ll be writing up my thoughts soon, thanks for your ideas.

Michelle Wyttenbach Says:
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:37 pm

Super blog. You have earned a brand-new regular reader. Please keep up the fabulous work and I look forward to more of your intriguing posts.

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