On "Gamers"

[Alan Williamson]

Last night, I was editing copy for Issue 2 of Five out of Ten (coming soon to a digital store near you!) and one of the writers had used the word 'gamer' extensively throughout. As I edited, I basically did a bulk Find and Replace of the term. I hate it.

My rationale is that I read 'gamer' is analogous to 'film buff' or 'music snob': someone who is obsessively dedicated - an otaku, if you like -  with the blinkered mentality that implies. A 'player' is someone who is playing the game, analogous to viewer, listener or reader. FooT is for players and people who want to understand players. It's not for gamers. I think most of the time people say "gamers" (especially "we gamers"... I don't call myself a gamer, so don't paint me with that brush please!) they actually mean "players".

This might just be the side effect of seeing a million different websites and publications that have abused the term 'gamer' to the point where it is no longer salvageable but... can I have a sanity check here? Am I just being ridiculous?

- Alan

[Dan Golding]

Yes, to all of this. I didn't ever like the term 'gamer', but it wasn't until I read this scholarly article that I stopped using it altogether (that's behind a SAGE paywall; if anyone would like this and doesn't have another avenue for getting hold of it, send me a message).

[psepho]

How do you feel about the word 'gaming' as referring to the wider field/activity of games?

I can certainly see where you're coming from on 'gamer' though. To my mind there are twin angles on this: first, all the cultural baggage that goes with 'g4mr' stylings; second, the rather condescending marginalization that goes on when businesses/academic/journalists use it as a way putting players into a pigeonhole.

Of course, I am also guilty to the extent of calling my blog 'Commuter Gamer' -- although that is probably overshadowed by the brilliance (or otherwise) of the pun.

[Nate Andrews]

I do the same for anything I edit at NWR. It's not the worst habit, but I've always found it too insular.

[Ethan Gach]

I usually just gauge my audiece first. Am I talking to people who self-identify as gamers, or a more diverse audience?

 

If I'm posting on an IGN blog, then yea, I'm going to talk about gamers and gaming. If I'm submitting a pitch to 5outof10, then obvioulsy I'm looking to engage with an audience which, at the very least, doesn't identify exclusively or even mostly as "gamers."

 

The important thing to note is that it depends less on whether you think gamers are your audience, then whether gamers is something your audience overwhelming identify as (as oppose to: general media ethusiasts, readers, human beings, etc.)

[Brendan Keogh]

I was going to link the very article Dan linked.

But yes, 'gamer' only refers to a very narrow and specific (and highly gendered) subset of people who play videogames and should pretty much always be avoided unless you are talking about a very specific niche or really want to exclude a whole range of people, which you probably don't. 

I couldn't fault anyone for having it in their blog title, though. It's one of those words you don't realise is so problematic or cringe-worthy until you've been writing/reading games stuff for a while. I was having a rant about it on Twitter a few months back and someone pointed out I still had 'gamer' (worse, 'life-long gamer!') in my 'Profile' on the side of my blogger that I had written many years earlier and then forgotten about >>_>>

On Monday, March 4, 2013 9:30:55 PM UTC+11, Alan Williamson wrote:

[Alan Williamson]

On Monday, March 4, 2013 2:20:11 PM UTC, psepho wrote:

How do you feel about the word 'gaming' as referring to the wider field/activity of games?

'Gaming' is fine in my book. It's an arbitrary distinction, but it doesn't carry the negative connotations of gamer. At least, not to me.

[Kaitlin Tremblay]

Same here. I think that's because it's not used to delineate one's saturation in the field. "Gaming" isn't specific to anyone person or group (any one can play a game), whereas "gamer" has been used to denigrate and exclude, in a way, so I can definitely see where the two part ways.

[Shane Liesegang]

FWIW, historically, "gaming" has specifically referred to gambling. I don't think the examples given were being used in this context, but some people take umbrage if their work is referred to as "in the gaming industry," preferring "games industry."

[Zoya]

I guess as an editor your biggest question is 'could this alienate the reader'. To me, the answer is yes.

Everyone who has ever told me that they are not a gamer has in fact had experiences with games that are culturally and historically really important, and have had smart things to say about those experiences. For example, one person who told me they were not a gamer turned out to have been instrumental in setting up some of super interesting experiments with interactive fiction and poetry in MUDs in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure any creatively-minded game dev would love to work with them. Something about gamer culture makes people feel excluded even though they have so much of value to contribute.

[Bryant Francis]

This thread is fascinating to me. My answer at first would have that the phrase is "absolutely" valid, because to me, "Gamer" has come to represent a wide-encompassing term that simply covers people who play video games...

BUT, looking around, I can see that's not the case, and I had no clue about that! Fascinating. The company I work for tends to throw the word "gamer" around a lot when we're trying to talk about "gamers are interested in this" "gamers care about that." (I often try to take the side of opening up the definition of that word, but I wonder if I'm fighting a futile battle, and shouldn't just suggest we seek a new term.

[Mark Duval]

Yeah the word 'gamer' is a term I'm somewhat hesitant to apply to myself these days due to the negative connotations (sexism, homophobia, hypermasculinity etc) associated with the word. I used to have 'gamer' in my Twitter profile but I've since removed it for that reason. In the past, I always referred to myself as a gamer because I felt that I had an interest in videogames that was greater than most people in society, so why not embrace the term gamer, right? To me it was like how someone with an intense interest in film might refer to themself as a 'cinemaphile'. However, I'm not so sure anymore, as videogames are no longer a niche hobby and are played these days by a diverse range of people. It was the exclusionary actions of some so-called gamers that put me off the word when I saw dudebro gamers mock women for playing games, e.g. 'lol, they only play The Sims, they're not REAL gamers", or mocking people for playing Facebook games or iOS games, or insisting that to be a "real gamer" you had to have an unhealthy diet, embrace sleep deprivation as a badge of honour, and be socially awkward. Nope! No thanks. Then I saw the marketing that went along with the word gamer that was promoting a lifestyle that didn't exactly appeal to me anymore.

So in conclusion, I guess I still consider myself a 'gamer', but what I mean by that is likely not what some other more stereotypical 'gamers' mean by that. So, eh, whatever. Labels are limiting maybe :/

-Mark

On Monday, March 4, 2013 9:30:55 PM UTC+11, Alan Williamson wrote:

[TheGameCritique]

Got to go with the majority of this one. Gamer, unless I'm talking about something community has done, is one of those words I'm excising out of my vocabulary. I have no use for the word and isn't specific to what I'm talking about. I use player, audience or a pronoun almost exclusively.

[Alan Williamson]

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 8:32:41 AM UTC, Mark Duval wrote:

It was the exclusionary actions of some so-called gamers that put me off the word when I saw dudebro gamers mock women for playing games, e.g. 'lol, they only play The Sims, they're not REAL gamers", or mocking people for playing Facebook games or iOS games, or insisting that to be a "real gamer" you had to have an unhealthy diet, embrace sleep deprivation as a badge of honour, and be socially awkward. Nope! No thanks. Then I saw the marketing that went along with the word gamer that was promoting a lifestyle that didn't exactly appeal to me anymore.

This. The meaningless distinction between "hardcore" and "casual" is what has really ruined the word gamer. It doesn't even matter if we find the distinction meaningless, because a lot of people do and language is based on consensual understanding if nothing else. I think my hope behind using 'player' instead of 'gamer' is to show that this hobby is for everyone, whether you're my girlfriend playing The Room on an iPad or me playing Halo 4 in the dark after she has fallen asleep. 

[Ryan Thompson]

While I don't disagree with any of the opinions regarding some negative connotations regarding the word "gamer" in certain contexts, I would suggest that excising it from our collective vocabularies is a very dangerous road with a slippery slope.  Permit me a quick digression to explain...

The mainstream Christian church has lost control of a single word, and it has become a powerful barrier to new people joining the church today.  By taking ownership of one word -- evangelical -- conservative denominations of the church (Campus Crusade for Christ, etc.) have not only removed a powerful word, but have used that control to erect a variety of confrontational barriers by defining those confrontations in terms of "evangelism."  Has anyone ever been asked "Have you been saved (by Jesus Christ)?"  This question (which is inappropriate in myriad ways, beyond the scope of this post) stems from the idea that the conservative church owns "evangelical" and can therefore define "evangelizing" on their own terms.  

Back to gaming, I would suggest that someone playing The Room on an iPad is a gamer just as much as someone who can beat Ninja Gaiden Black.  We should be powerfully denying any comparison that rates the person who plays Street Fighter, Halo, et al as "better" in any way than someone who plays Audiosurf and Zen Pinball.  By yielding the word "gamer" to those who would make those comparisons, we acknowledge that there is some truth to it -- a notion I reject.  We should not be letting others define what it means to be a "gamer" and therefore what it means to play games.

[Mark Duval]

This is true, and it's why for example, conservative Christians hate Rachel Evans Held because she identifies as an evangelical Christian, but her theology doesn't match with theirs. They think, "hey, you can't be in our club!"

[Johannes Köller]

Perhaps I'm strange for not disliking the term enough, but for me it's more a case of "hate the game, not the gamer". I see it as a voluntary badge for showing something is exceptionally important to you, just as you might call yourself an avid reader, or cinephile, audiophile etc. Of course things get muddy and generally unpleasant when you deny others the right to membership and argue over arcane rites of passage, but while that kind of snobbery is frequently associated with such terms, I don't think it's an inherent, defining feature. Being a writer isn't about telling other people what kind of goal to meet in order to finally be a real, genuine wordsmith either (though in my experience it means spending quite a lot of time wondering about these things yourself).

On the other hand it could certainly stand to be used less frequently and I tend to avoid it when I can. Only I prefer this as a stylistic consideration over simply seeing a word as evil and wanting it to go away, because the linguist in me doesn't like that idea. Connotations can change, might well be we can one day retake the term gamer, and hopefully in a more dignified manner than gamers retaking Mass Effect.

Cheers,

Joe

P.S.: Turns out what I wrote in the opening of Issue 3 of Haywire is somewhat related, in case anybody wants to read that. http://bit.ly/VTpLRz

[psepho]

It's also weird how little relation to reality the hardcore/casual dichotomy has: is a game like Dys4ia hardcore or casual? It's not mechanically challenging but it sure as hell isn't 'easy' mass market. What about your CoDs etc? apparently hardcore but they don't present a significantly different or harder challenge than previous iterations. Is it really 'hardcore' to be playing a game that is (more or less) the same as one you beat a decade ago?

And I'll bet that a ton of people happily play both Halo 4 and The Room at different times.

[Bryant Francis]

Well it also has to do with basic required skills. Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed or really any console game aren't that difficult to anyone who grew up learning how to move in 3-D spaces like that, but it's waaaaaaaaaaay harder to those who haven't. Call of Duty may not be "hard" but imagine time after time if you're unable to continue through the story because your body/thumbs isn't used to orienting itself by way of the controller. 

What this really points out is that difficulty is largely arbitrary and relative to the gaming population. That's one advantage that mobile, tablet, and motion gaming have had in attracting larger audiences--the difficulty curve is less intrusive to people without traditional gaming backgrounds. 

[Kaitlin Tremblay]

I think the problem is that while "gamer" isn't inherently bad it's being used in a territorial fashion now. I think it's been pointed out that words and connotations change, and I think once we accept the word "gamer" as widespread as a term like "reader" then it's power in being used against people will lessen. But the problem with this is that it is being used against people (I've come up across it against myself and it's laughable, but also incredibly sad in that people do think that way), so a change in terminology can help a change in attitude. 

[Cha Holland]

Gamer isn't a useful term in most of my writing, but I do use it a bit in a more personal sense.  I wouldn't call someone else a gamer, unless possibly I know they self-identify that way, but I would say that I'm a gamer, and it's precisely because of all these issues.  I very clearly don't fit the narrow definition of gamer that pops into people's heads, and so I have the potential to broaden people's minds.  It might be a bit theoretical, but that's important to me.