Discrimination against gamers?

[h4x.m4g3]

Can back up everything Krylo said. Everything I say beyond this point is based on my own experience.

Yeah I play games in the majority of my freetime or work on my computer. Why? Because thats the fields that interest me. Gamers aren't social outcast we're just another social group that doesn't fit in with others. For example, in my neighborhood everyone is either "thugs" or "thugs in training" (i.e. too little to actually be in a gang, but still go around with sagging pants and throwing up gang signs.) I don't fit in with them, and don't want to fit in with them. So instead of trying to fake being a "gansta" just to get shot (yes I do hear gunshots in my neighberhood at night, a few months ago two kids were shooting at eachother with shotguns in the middle of the day.) I'd rather be what I am a gamer/geek (I hold that title with honor), instead of trying to change.

Groups like MAVLA, and others that say gamers breed social outcast contradict themself. By bringing up the existence of "gaming cults" and clans. Gamers are only social outcast when they're not around other gamers. Just like any other social class. Put one goth kid in a school full of preps, the goth is a social outcast. Put a prep/jock/any other social cast in a room full of gamers they're the social outcast. The thing is for some unknown reason its harder to pick out who is a gamer and who isn't unless you find them playing a game. I don't mean to steryotype people, but other social groups seem to have a certain dress code, i.e. goths dress all black, punks have spiked collars, band t-shirts and what not. Sure gamers have some t-shirts that say I'm a gamer, but its not some kind of "social dress code" nor do gamers get some kind of reputation outside of gaming communities. Sure we all know whos the best at what game, but does anyone else know/care?

But now that games are online, its much easier to find other gamers online. There are chat rooms/forums for everything nowadays. Its easier to find other groups around the globe. But for the most part the other social groups already have their own clique of friends that they know offline, so they don't have to spend their time online. Next gamers don't have to look for friends once they do get online. When you're playing an online game often times you aren't looking to make friends just play the game. Sometimes you may meet that one character online who invites you into a clan, and bam there is your group of online friends. Now I'm referring to non-mmorpgs in my last paragraph of rambling, games like Warcraft 3, or Halo 2 that you can play online but aren't reliant on you finding a group of friends, where every game is independent of the last for the most part. Where you don't have to know the people you play against, just whos on which team.

Thats it for my rambling at the moment.

[Greywolf]

Gamers are not discriminated against. They may be poorly thought of by some, but discrimination occurs when you can be truly stigmatized for something, be it your religion, race, or whatever. People may dislike gamers, but they will do so with the same intensity that they will dislike people with bad fashion sense, or people who like to go hunting. The fact that absolutely horrendous, morally repugnant games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are freely available is ample proof that there is no substantial discrimination against gamers, because they can still do whatever the heck they want. All the groups who have tried to alter this have failed. But when you say that people don't like gamers for being gamers, well, you can find people who'll dislike you for doing pretty much anything.

[CatManDo]

Gamers are not discriminated against. They may be poorly thought of by some, but discrimination occurs when you can be truly stigmatized for something

i think haveing your gameboy stolen at school then beging pulled to the basket ball hoops where they proceede to whip it high into the air untill it hits the ground and breaks counts. that has happend to me several times in grade school.(sometimes in more/less extream ways) or when earlyer on this thread to teens were barred from entering an arcade because of there age, by the parents of smaller childrin gameing in the arcade allredy.

if thats not discrimiation what is?

[Mirai Gen]

I think he means more of "you're black therefore you're not good enough to be around me." sort of discrimination, but yeah that's the main topic.

I'd say having hard earned consoles/games broken simply to push you around is High School, not discrimination. When there's a big white line separating a town with "Gamers" and "Normal people" on those respective sides, that's discrimination. I don't think we're getting discriminated, just pushed around for being who we are.

In a nutshell: fuck the system!

:p

[Gorefiend]

A few points, in my experience:

1. Games don't make bad people. Bad parents make bad people. I've played videogames all my life (minus a few years in which I was too young to hold a NES controller) and I've never been more violent that someone who is stuck in a long line, or who is trying to reason with a close-minded person. Those are the situations in which I have found myself where I feel like punching someone, and I think many people would agree that the feeling to puch someone is (somewhat) natural. (varying from situation to situation. When I wanted to punch someone for being stuck in a long line it was because the hold-up was caused by someone's stupidity)

2. Everything in excess is bad. That's what I agreed with, and what I said should be considered for a website. And, two activities, reading and gaming, which are more often than not done alone, have the same, interchangeable results, as Krylo showed a few posts above. Now, why is reading considered good, while gaming considered bad, if both are done alone, and both contain violence? (Ever read Dune? There's kids who go out to kill wounded people after battles in there!)

3. Yes, games MAY make you antisocial. I don't particularly enjoy going out. I used to like going out. Why the change? Cause I was always different from all my classmates, so they ostracized me, and THEN I picked up a controller. (and, in my school, everyone played videogames.) Truth is, games make people antisocial only when people are already in a situation to become antisocial (or are maturally introverted, as I may be, since being alone doesn't bother me)

4. I have friends. They are gamers. One of them is as hardcore a gamer as me. One of them is either as hardcore a gamer as me, or moreso. One of them only likes videogames. One of them likes books, and videogames, and some extreme sports. All of the above like videogames, to some extent. Truth is, I don't have a big problem making frineds. I have trouble finding someone I can hold a discussion with for over five seconds. (then, there's you guys. You fall into a special category. I don't know how close to put you, but you are much better than strangers.)

5. Some videogames are bad. GTA should NOT be bought by/for anyone under the age of 13 AT LEAST (that would be to the parent's discretion. I knew the difference between reality and videogames at about 8. (maybe 10, at the latest) Some children learn it later. However, some games (Nintendo comes to mind) aren't violent at all. And, someone who made the comment about Warcraft, dead on, man! My parents feel queasy about buying Diablo, even though I've explained to them that it's more about KILLING the devil then BEING him. And that it's not as gory as they probably think (you kill HELLSPAWN. Isn't that supposed to be GOOD?)

About whether or not we are discriminated against, yes, some of those anecdotes are High School, but the arcade thing was from the assumption that teenage gamers either 1) will go on a shoot-out, or 2) do drugs and will distribute them. That's prejudice. And, next to prejudice lies discrimination, about 90% of the time (if not more).

[Greywolf]

I want to address point 2 alone, because that's the one that struck me the most. I am firmly convinced that gaming is vastly inferior to reading. This is primarily because gaming sets you down passively in front of a product of someone else's imagination, whereas reading forces you to use your imagination and thus exercise your brain. Games, including RPGs, generally have okay to terrible writing, (especially next to well-written books.) Even the best RPGs have a few very good quotes. Good writers have sentences of that quality on nearly every line. In some people's cases video games can have an effect on one's nervous system. Books force you to add to your vocabulary, think critically and confront ideas you have not considered, something that very rarely happens in videogames. Games are fun but ultimately a mere pastime -- but books are essential to one's proper development. That's why one is bad and the other is good. The two simply cannot be compared.

[Krylo]

want to address point 2 alone, because that's the one that struck me the most. Gaming is vastly inferior to reading because gaming sets you down in front of a product of someone else's imagination.

Books are just as much a product of someone else's imagination as a game. The difference is this: A game provides you with the graphics so you don't need to imagine the world, while a book provides you with all the movement, talking, etc. so you don't have to interact with the world. I'd say, given that, neither are a whole lot better, innately, at forcing someone to think.

I'll address that further in a moment.

Games, including RPGs, generally have okay to terrible writing, (especially next to well-written books.) Even the best RPGs have a few very good quotes. Good writers have sentences of that quality on nearly every line.

Might I point out Harlequin romances, Choose your own adventure books, and Anne McAffrey? Just because some books are better written than most/all modern games does not make games themselves inferior. Games have been around a few years, books have been around centuries. You NEED a company backing you to even begin to create a game, complete with all the censorship that comes with that, and the other people changing your writing. You can write a book alone and get it self published.

There has been more time to produce books, and better means of producing thoughtful ones because a book writer doesn't HAVE to worry about selling it to a company.

That's not to say that games won't become better written and better at telling stories as time goes on.

FFX goes a long way toward this. Their story telling was almost impeccable. If it weren't for poor translations and maybe some imperfect writing, it would have been able to match quite a few well written books in that realm.

Might not be a match for Lord of the Flies, but I suggest you look at my essay on GTA for 'art' and 'expression of humanity's flaws' in games.

Books force you to add to your vocabulary, think critically and confront ideas you have not considered, something that very rarely happens in videogames.

I disagree entirely that critical thinking rarely happens in videogames. That's all videogames are. Critical thinking, motor skills, and timing. If you have something with a strong story, it also forces you to add to your vocabulary occassionally. I haven't had to in awhile, but then I haven't added to my vocabulary from reading in about a decade either.

Every puzzle in a puzzle game, adventure, or RPG requires critical thinking. Every level on an action game requires either hair trigger instincts of route/attack planning. Every mission in GTA past the first few introductory ones require for you to plan ahead, buy what's needed, and use it all properly (critical thinking).

I can't remember the last time I had to 'critically think' to understand a book. If you have to sit there and ponder over a book to understand it either your comprehension abilities are pretty low or the book isn't written that well. You write a book to communicate an idea. If that idea is not communicated without extraneous thought by the reader either you're a failure as a writer or the reader has poor reading skills.

And, really, as far as the 'ideas you have not considered' that depends on what kind of game you're playing. Wild Arms 2, for instance, provides many themes, or 'ideas', that are pretty unique. Most of them revolve around the meaning of heros. One is that there can not be a hero without a disaster to combat, and so, the lack of heros is a good thing because it means there are no disasters. Another is that 'heros' are just sacrifices put up on the altar so that others can live peacefully, and, further, that being one is bad because of what it does to the people who care for you.

Games are fun, but books are essential to one's proper development.

Communication is essential to one's proper development. It doesn't matter if you're taught math from a TV or a book. Books are a form of communication, and some contain ideas and idealogies that are merely not contained elsewhere, or not contained as WELL elsewhere. The same goes for movies, however.

Sure, reading Lord of the Flies or Johnny Got His Gun is going to expose you to new ideas and force you to think. So will watching Memento, or playing a well written game.

All are merely mediums through which to transfer ideas. Books only have the advantage of being there longer and thus having a greater volume of items to chose from. They are not inherently better.

For every Lord of the Flies, Johnny Got His Gun, Canterbury Tales, or Hamlet there are thousands upon thousands of romance novels, choose your own adventures, or things written by Ernest Hemingway.

The two simply cannot be compared.

Again, I state, that they are both merely mediums with which to transfer ideas. Neither is inherently better at it, as they both have their strong and weak points. One forces greater use of imagination in order to visualize a world, the other requires direct interaction, which allows far better transference of certain ideas.

Also, Ernest Hemingway and Anne McAffrey suck. So does Herman Melville. That's completely off topic, I know, but I felt the need to say it.

[Greywolf]

I am not gonna get further into this, because we've both stated our positions, but compare a Final Fantasy to something like the Lord of the Rings, and the differences in quality become apparent. Finger twitching and reading are not the same thing.

[Krylo]

I am not gonna get further into this, because we've both stated our positions, but compare a Final Fantasy to something like the Lord of the Rings, and the differences in quality become apparent. Finger twitching and reading are not the same thing.

Of course if you compare FFX to Dragonlance (a very decent, if not amazingly good, fantasy series), the differences in quality aren't nearly as apparent.

Video games haven't had any 'masterpieces' yet. They've also only been around for about 20 years, and have only had the capability of REALLY telling stories for about 3 or 4.

[Greywolf]

Originally Posted by krylo

Of course if you compare FFX to Dragonlance (a very decent, if not amazingly good, fantasy series), the differences in quality aren't nearly as apparent.

Video games haven't had any 'masterpieces' yet. They've also only been around for about 20 years, and have only had the capability of REALLY telling stories for about 3 or 4.

What I am saying is that comparing the best videogames to merely decent books yields similar results. The best books can't be matched. I don't think it's possible for a videogame to have a masterpiece. A masterpiece has to be an intricate storyline, which would be made very difficult by the interactivity of a videogame, not to mention its time demands.