Misconceptions

There are many stereotypes attached to the word “gamer.” When someone hears the word, they probably think of a teenage nerd with glasses and acne sitting in front of their monitor with Doritos, Mountain Dew, and stacks of pizza boxes. They have no social life, few friends, and little athletic ability. That is how gamers tend to be depicted in popular media. However, these are all popular misconceptions. In fact, most people that play video games are adults, and females make up a large portion of gamers as well.

 

People that play video games are actually a lot more social than you would believe. Many video games are made today to involve a social component. Most games released today have cooperative, multiplayer, or online options. In large AAA release such as Battlefield One or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the most popular game mode is the online multiplayer. In recent years, we have seen the rise of video games that encourage cooperative play to achieve objectives and defeat enemies. The popular online game Destiny is a great example. Players cannot complete raids without the help of others. The complex puzzles even go beyond by encouraging players to interact with one another to solve them by using a microphone or text chat if necessary. The entire MOBA genre requires high levels of team coordination and communication in order to succeed. According to an essay by MIT professor Henry Jenkins, 60% of frequent gamers play with friends, 33% with siblings, and 25% with spouses or parents. In a study by Penn State researchers, people standing in line waiting for the midnight release of Call of Duty: Black Ops were asked to fill out questionnaires. Among the 166, participants the average time spent playing per week was 20.5 hours, with the upper level being more than 100 hours per week. However, even the players playing video games for more than 100 hours did not appear to be troubled socially. For many, their friendships were related to video games. Video games do not appear to be socially damaging, but actually they may be socially stimulating, even offering a place for individuals to develop social skills in a more comfortable environment.

Video games are not even a man’s realm anymore. According to Pew Research Center, 59% of females ages 13-17 play video games. Girls do not appear to be big consumers of video games because they tend to be less social when it comes to playing them. 47% never play online and 27% never play when someone else is in the same room. The biggest consumers are not even children, but adults. Adults are 66% of the personal computer market and 62% of the console market. Overall, 49% of adults play video games. The market for video games has greatly expanded and almost anybody can enjoy playing video games today. The notion that video games are just the entertainment choice of the nerdy teenage boy is simply false.

On top of the stereotypes of who plays video games, there are many misconceptions about the people that make them. There are more than just coders and programmers that make video games. There are also composers, writers, graphic artists, testers, and many other roles involved with producing that final product you play. There is a common notion among the gaming community that developers are lazy because it takes forever for them to do anything, but quite the opposite is true. The industry is actually famous for the “Crunch” in which developers and others spend way more than 40 hours per week developing a video game. Sometimes developers are spending 80 hours a week at work for months at a time. Fixing bugs isn’t easy either. When a bug appears, it can’t get fixed immediately. Bugs tend to be rare and only appear in certain situations which many may never experience but if they do happen, then developers have to search through thousands of lines of code to find the problem and fix it while avoiding the creation of other bugs.

Arguably the biggest misconception is video games cause more violence and aggression in users. This misconception probably originated with the 1999 Columbine High School killings because perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were said to be obsessed with the video game Doom. Early studies on the subject seemed to connect that violent video games actually did cause users, especially children, to become more aggressive and violent. However, more recent studies have challenged that notion. Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, measured the consumption of violent video games against youth violence rates over the past 20 years. In his study he concluded the rise of violent video game consumption coincided with a fall in violent crime perpetrated by 12- to 17-year-olds. He also argued in his study that early laboratory studies on the subject actually took the experiences out of real-world contexts and created an environment that made participants more aggressive by sanctioning the opportunity of participants to be violent. In another study by German researchers, 15 men who had played violent video games for at least four years were tested against another group of similar men who had little to no experience with violent video games. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as participants looked at images of violent and neutral scenes. Looking at the scans and questionnaires from the participants, the researchers were unable to find any discernible difference between the two groups. They both displayed similar levels of aggression and empathy. The common notion that video games caused increased aggression and violence appears to be, at most, a casual correlation created by poorly planned studies.

These are just a few of the stereotypes and misconceptions that plague the gaming industry and its consumers. There is a chance that many visitors of this website have fallen into the trap of the various others that exist. What are some stereotypes that you may have formed about gamers?