The Gaming Stigma
Excuse me, do you know where I can find some gamers?
When I first decided that I wanted to steer my life somewhere onto the technological highway it was met with a certain air of disbelief. It began in college when I was all set to start studying law. Somewhere along the road I had a crystallizing moment where I decided I wasn’t doing it to be happy, just to make money and slowly lose my soul. I told my parents that games and media were my true passion and they looked at me as if I had just announced that I was attempting to ride up Everest on a unicycle.
Long story short, I took the course and then continued in the same vein in University by studying my games design and creative writing course. This isn’t an excerpt from my much anticipated auto-biography but a look into the stigma that is associated with people involved in the industry versus the rest of the world. The biography is available on request.
When people I’ve met imagine someone who works in games it is a varied visual spectrum. On one side people think those who work in games are all overweight, greasy-haired, dot eyed masses that hunch over a monitor for most of their life. Don’t get me wrong, some are like that, I’ve met them, I’ve felt the hair, seen the hunch, but a lot are not. I for one sometimes get mistaken for Christian Bale, albeit the lifeless specter of death he was in ‘The Machinist’. On the other hand, one child thought that because I worked in games I should be wearing a bow tie and suit.
With a number of friends and family games discussion is usually a no-go area of conversation. If I was having a meal with a portion of my non-gamer friends and tried to steer the conversation into that area it would be met with contempt. About as much contempt as if I had risen from my seat, walked onto the table and defecated all over the spaghetti they were about to serve. It was also served on their grandmother’s china. Not only have I humiliated myself, I have also barred myself from future conversation and gatherings. Who cares, I’m not a fan of pasta.
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Jul 8, 2010 10:00:35 (Jul 8, 2010 10:00)
