By on 17 Apr, 2012 at 11:00 AM
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Gamers, Who Are They?

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“You know, when I was 15, 16, 17-years-old , I spent five hours a day juggling, and I probably spent six hours a day seriously listening to music. If I were 16 now, I would put that time into playing video games. The thing that old people don’t understand is – you know if you’ve never heard Bob Dylan, and someone listen to him for 15 minutes, you’re not going to get it. You are just not going to understand the form, and the same thing is true for gaming. You’re not going to just look at a first-person shooter where you are killing zombies and understand the nuances. There is this tremendous amount of arrogance and hubris, where somebody can look at something for five minutes and dismiss it. Whether you talk about gaming or 20th century classical music, you can’t do it in five minutes. You can’t listen to The Rite of spring once and understand what Stravinsky was all about.

It seems like you should at least have the grace to say you don’t know, instead of saying that what other people are doing is wrong. The cliché of the nerdy kid who doesn’t go outside and just plays games in completely true. And it’s also true for the nerdy kid who studies comic books and turns into this genius, and it is also true for the nerdy kid who listens to every nerdy thing that Led Zeppelin put out. That kind of obsession in a 16-year old is not ugly. It’s beautiful. That kind of obsession is going to lead to a sophisticated 30-year-old who has a background in that art form. It just seems so simple, and yet I’m constantly in these big arguments with people on the computer who are talking about, “I would never let my kid do this and this in a video game.” And these are adults , who when they were children were dropping acid and going to see the Grateful Dead.”

- Penn Jillette -

The above quote speaks chapters on how us as gamers feel about our hobby, and how frustrated we get when it’s stereotyped in mainstream media. Two years ago at PAX 2010, presented by Wil Wheaton (you know, the dude who played Westle Crusher in Star Trek), there was a great speech regarding gaming as a culture. I watched the whole thing, however only the first 10 minutes struck a cord in me as a gamer.

As a 31-year-old guy who still enjoys playing games, I often get asked the question: why would a grown man still enjoy playing games? This is a stigma that has clung to gamers, like myself, since the very dawn of gaming. It is also something I like to expand and debate about to other non-gamers whenever they bring up the topic. I cannot speak for all the gamers out there, but I think most of us will agree with what Wil had to say in his keynote.

With all that in mind, take your mandatory 30 minute smoke/coffee break and read this great interview with Penn Jillette, where after that, you should and watch the video below and throw your opinions into the mix.

 

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Name: Charl den Dulk
Location: Pretoria
Position: Author, Exclusives

Charl has published 37 posts. Read all of Charl's posts.
  • http://twitter.com/larchZA Charl den Dulk

    I take cash/card and or donations ;)

  • NeoN

    ^ The best “nation” in the world. :P

    Enjoyed the read, and so true, when my dad asks me to listen to some of the music he grew by listening to, it sounds like kak to me. xD Maybe I just don’t see what he sees it in, since as you said, he probably spent hours and hours listening to it. I know my parents feel the same way about gaming, and every now and then still tell my bro and I to give it up. Say what?!

  • Shaun Sanders

    You can’t watch a single episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and understand why it is so popular with 20+ year old males ;)

  • AG_Sonday

    I love the way you get creative when you’re lazy to type :P.

    It’s true though, as a 90′s kid there are certain shows that would be utter shit if I watched them for the first time today but I love them because of the nostalgia and a lot of it has to do with the memories attached to them. I grew up with cartoons and video games and will likely never give them up because they have become staples of my life, defining parts of me really. In the same way that a kid who played soccer every day of his life well into his teens will alwys be found playing a game now and then with friends, the same holds true for other hobbies such as gaming. they become engrained in you, almost like a habit if you will.

    There are some hobbies or fads that we mostly outgrow (Yugi-Oh cards etc) but there are some that yu just cotton onto and cling to forever. Gaming is one of those that you simply can’t outgrow, especially thse days because there really are games for mature audiences that stimulate you on an intellectual level. Besides, we all have our own way of having fun, right?

    The problem is that ‘society’ still sees gaming as an anti-social hobby for overweight nerds when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Gamers represent a wide cross-section of the demographics and is more of a uniting banner for all sorts of people than anything else. It’s one of those things that can get two complete strangers talking like old friends in the same way that sport does. To give you two examples, during the World Cup, after the Portugal game in Cape Town, we were walking back to the bus stop and struck up a conversation with a random gentleman about Portugal’s chances of winning the trophy. At the last couple of 2upGamers events, I struck up conversations with people I would never have normally met and we were talking about various games at length because it was a shared interest.

    Society as an entity loves to hold its preconceived notions and stick to them for decades on end, that’s just how the world works whether you like it or not.

  • http://twitter.com/larchZA Charl den Dulk

    My social circles aren’t limited to people who game, most of my clientèle I do work for don’t really game due to the fact that these are big corporates run by people from generation X. My wife is not really a gamer and same goes for the rest of the family. The people I have met and are friends with till this day I met at Mayhem (Boksburg) back in my PC LAN days. Rest of the folks are from either Facebook or some or other forum I used to be on.