“Soon gamers will be the anomaly. If we’re very fortunate, they’ll disappear altogether. Instead we’ll just find people, ordinary people of all sorts. And sometimes those people will play videogames. And it won’t be a big deal, at all.”
As I first read this, my breath quickened. Getting rid of gamers all together? That seems like a dreary world to me. It’s all fine and well that more people play games, but we don’t have to get rid of gamers all together to make that happen. Bogost uses the comparison to movies and music to make his point. He said, once, the previous two had been the activities of only the upper crust, the higher up, the wealthy. But what I wonder is, have games ever been the exclusive products of one group? Not really. Anyone can afford games (if I can, anyone can, trust me).
It’s not like games are a big secret to only gamers. They are already like movies and music in the way that they are accessible to pretty much everyone. What Bogost wants to change is how many people enjoy video games. Personally, I think that it’s impossible to change some people’s taste. There are those that don’t like movies, or don’t enjoy listening to music. That is just the way they are. It’s the same for video games.
This is another example of the politically correct society in which we live, where everything has to be equal and the same for it to have any merit. Video games already have importance in culture, and just making everyone play it for the sake of playing it is wrong. If video games become the diluted medium that some aspects of movies and music possess, would we be off any better?
Bogost seems to think there are more people that hate video games than play them, which I can’t understand. He makes them, so he should realize the massive network of the ”hard-core” gamers, not to mention casual gamers and everything in between. He seems to make a false choice for the reader; chose the majority of gamers or the majority of haters. So when I say that I think he may be blowing this idea out of proportion, I mean it. There are already more people who do than don’t play games.
via Bogost 3.
“There are already more people who do than don’t play games.”
I think this could be a difficult point to prove. Are there any statistics to back this statement up? I know many people who love games, just as I know many people who play sports and disregard games as a “nerdy” activity.
Additionally, I don’t know if Bogost wants everyone to enjoy playing games, or if he’d rather have everyone appreciate video games for what they are, rather than belittling them.
As I noted in my response, gamer stereotypes in the media really attack the personality of the gamer, which really deters people from even trying to play. Gamers are always portrayed as nerds in movies, playing alone in their room, while everyone else goes out and does their thing. How does this affect one’s perception of games, if they’ve never played before? Surely, it doesn’t encourage them to play.
I believe that gamers won’t simply disappear until the stereotypes do.
I suppose you’re right in some ways. Bogost certainly could have meant that he’d rather see the stereotypes disappear and that these stereotypes can belittle the players. But I still believe he wanted games to become a worldwide activity, such as he said radio and television is. Although his point that we don’t label people based on TV watching was interesting. I also still think that it’s impossible to make people change their minds about a media. If someone doesn’t like watching movies, someone telling them how good movies is isn’t going to change the fact that they don’t like it.