The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

KirbyKid — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:48:58 GMT

Out of all the ways gamers hold back innovation in gaming, I didn't think anyone would point to the word as a key problematic source.

Actually, this post reminds me of a moment from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich when she revealed her "secret" that she was a writer and the response was something like "yeah, who isn't?" as if to say "everyone writes something. Does doing it more make a difference tot he label?"

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:50:14 GMT

@KirbyKid: I was surprised as well, though I suspect that what Wilson was really trying to attack in his GameSetWatch post was the mentality of people who call themselves gamers more than the term "gamer". But that's not how it came across. I don't think the term "gamer" is pejorative, nor do I think the term is what is holding back innovation. I recognize that games flit among fad, phenomenon,public enemy # 1 and cultural invisibility, but I don't believe that terminology has much to do with it.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

ichewlightbulbs — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:04:20 GMT

The idea is that there shouldn't be a term at all. Like Wilson said, we don't have a term for people who watch television; everyone watches/has watched television at some point. Labeling people who play games with any kind of title implies that only a select group of people partake in the activity.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Count_Zero — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:49:03 GMT

I have to disagree with ditching the term "Gamer" in part because, to a certain extent, it's older then the video game industry, and - I suspect that if somebody (at, let's say, the Oxford English Dictionary) dug through the history of the word, they'd probably find that the word dates back to the introduction of paper-and-pencil Role Playing Games in the 70s.

I bring this up, because I ended up getting from my father part of his archive of old issues of Wargamer's Digest Magazine, which is from the 1970s, and predates the original 3 pamphlets for D&D (in fact, the pamphlets are advertised for individual sale in several full page ads run by TSR). My suspicion is that the history of the term probably came out as an outgrowth of "Wargamer" to apply to those who play to RPGs.

While I recognize that what Wilson is referring to in the article is the gamer mentality rather then the terminology, the roots of the term also show a change in the meaning of the term, from those who play Wargames and RPGs, or just RPGs, onward to people who play computer games. Thus, I would posit that to to fix the damaged caused by the gamer mentality, the mentality needs to change - there needs to be a cultural shift, perhaps to something closer to the origins of the word - to someone who plays a wide variety of games on multiple mediums - not just computer or video games, or miniatures wargames, or tabletop roleplaying games, but rather multiples of the above.

Hopefully, such cultural changes would also deal with some of the balkanizations of geekdom as well (the so-called "Holy Wars" amongst the aforementioned groups). While such disputes will always remain, by the gamer mentality changing to a broader mindset, this would, hopefully, also lead to a situation where gamers would be more open to change, and thus allowing greater innovation in the games industry as well.

I'm probably already stating what you've already said, N'Gai, in fact, now that I've think about it... I suspect that I have, however I've spent too much time on this to replace it with a "Me Too" so I'll just be redundant anyway. ;-)

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

DoctorProctor — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:17:12 GMT

Personally, I see nothing wrong with "gamers". It's a bit different than TV watching because it's interactive. Baseball and Basketball are sports with worldwide appeal, yet they're still called "Baseball Players" and "Basketball Players". Being a "gamer" is not different than those labels, it just identifies what types of games (namely, the digital variet) you play.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Borgnine — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:52:21 GMT

I've always hated the term. I played a lot of video games when I was a kid, then stopped for a while in my late teens to early 20s, and when I came back all of sudden this term was in use. It always sounded so corny, in the same realm as badical or 'tude. I've never used it to describe myself, instead I am "one who plays video games, " or "I play video games."

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Marijn — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:55:43 GMT

I do think that Mr. Wilson has a point, but he stretches that point a bit too far. Sure, the term "gamer" has always struck me as being a bit ridiculous for the exact reasons he mentions (gaming should be a part of everyone's lives), but I do spend (far) more time on games than the average person (playing them, thinking about them, talking about them). Maybe there should be an analogous term to film's "cinephiles" (but not "ludophiles", 'cause that sounds like something you'd get sent to jail for), to differentiate the connoisseurs from the dabblers.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

StolenName — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:53:46 GMT

I keep coming back to the idea that in the end, there will be no such defining term as "gamer" as there is no defining term for someone who watches the television, reads books or plays sport throughout the course of their everyday lives. For instance, to describe myself as a "gamer" would suggest that's all that I do in my spare time, game, which I'd quickly have to correct.

Of course I play games in my spare time, but I also read books, read comics, skateboard, listen to music, watch movies, spend regular time at the gym. However, I wouldn't call myself a "book reader" or a "television watcher", though I wouldn't reject someone calling me a skater (though, I kind of suck at skating).

I'm all for Marijn approach to classification actually. I'd consider myself a games connoiseur, having spent 20 of 22 years playing games - yet I wouldn't call many of my friends connoiseurs, even though they play games weekly as they haven't really got a good overall knowledge of games.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Jaffee — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:41:05 GMT

I think this is the right prescription for the wrong problem. I agree with the notion that it is absurd to blanket-label people who play video games like this just as it would be absurd to blanket-label people who watch TV, but adding some form of nuance to the labels isn't going to change the culture.

If you focus on the idea of just broadening the culture of video gaming, then I think we might be on to something here (and this seems to be the theme of the next Big Idea, of which I'm working through the blog posts at the moment). For most of my life, playing video games has been considered geeky, and to call someone a "gamer" has been more negative than positive in pop culture. Obviously that has been changing in the past several years, but I still get negative reactions from some people when I say that video gaming is one of my big hobbies.

But at the same time, just broadening the term won't broaden the culture. Things like Wii Sports are going to be doing that much more effectively. Once the medium broadens, it's more possible to drop the blanket term. Though isn't that what the idea of dropping the term was all about in the first place?

Yeah, I just got myself stuck.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Ginger Yellow — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:30:04 GMT

"Of course I play games in my spare time, but I also read books, read comics, skateboard, listen to music, watch movies, spend regular time at the gym. However, I wouldn't call myself a "book reader" or a "television watcher", though I wouldn't reject someone calling me a skater (though, I kind of suck at skating)."

Well I do consider myself a comic geek, a blog junkie, a book reader, a film buff and a gamer. No one descriptor defines me, of course, but they're all accurate labels that distinguish me from people to whom they do not apply.

"Given that more and more people are beginning to embrace games, it’s finally time to dump the anachronistic "gamer" label. We longtime players of games need not feel sad about this change. Opening games to, well, everybody can only result in a wider selection of genres and ideas."

This seems, as N'Gai says, to mistake the symptom for the disease (if you want to use that metaphor). Non-gamers aren't put off by the fact that there is a subculture of gamers. They're put off by the games that gamers usually play. Wii Sports appeals to non-gamers because it's intuitive. Madden requires you to learn about 20 buttons and countless playbooks, so it only appeals to gamers. If you want to "open up games to, well, everybody", then make and market games for, well, everybody. Don't spend your time fretting about labels.

re: The Big Idea: Is the Term 'Gamer,' Um, Played Out? And If So, What Should We Replace It With?

Tarmanydyn — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:54:44 GMT

This reminds me of the issue of the terms "comic books" vs. "graphic novels". Like with the term gamer, comic books seem to evoke the stereotype of nerdiness and adolescence, even when the medium has long since transcended those misconceptions (for comic books at least), the public perception hasn't followed suit. Therefore, some people have felt the need to shed the old label of "comic" to "graphic novel", a label that reflects the mediums maturity.

Naturally, some people have taken issue with this proposition. I among them, I think it cheapens the whole thing, to shed a large part of the medium's history seems nothing short of snooty. Take a copy of The Watchman and any comic off the $1 rack, both are still considered "comic books". Much like how Schindler's List and Meet the Spartans are both considered "movies". It's not the term that defines the quality, far from it.

Of course, this argument isn't directly applicable necessarily. Firstly, my argument references the medium itself, while this discussion seems relegated to the terminology of those who *consume* that said medium (and I'd like to point out, like how there's no "tuber" term, there's also no term for comic book reader). And secondly, modern gaming, sadly, hasn't transcended into something beyond, not in the way movies, comics, novels, or any other established artforms have. Though I think that's obviously a whole other discussion.

With all that said though, how do I feel about the term Gamer, surprisingly conflicted actually. I've come to embrace all things geeky, and I feel that "gaming" is a large part of my identity. However, I also feel that the term "gamer" is extraneous, and even alienating. The latter I sometimes prefer, given my elitism, but I know that the medium won't grow if the audience and pool of talent doesn't either.

With that in mind, I initially sided with Wilson's article, and felt it best if the term was abolished. But I realized that I just contradicted my "comic vs. graphic novel" argument. I've since had a change of heart, and I think it's best if we keep the term, and embrace it (more so?). That way, when Gamers *do* mature, and I hope they/we will, the public perception will change along with it.

Certainly no one still thinks D&D players are Satanists right?...