Ramos,+Ronald

Stereotypes In Video Games
Video games are often misunderstood as childish, influentially negative, and a process towards violence. However studies are slowly helping put out a more serious analysis of what video games cause and relate to. There are two main stereotypes when it comes to gaming. A gamer is thought of as being anti-social and reclusive from the rest of the world, we picture a gamer as someone that sits alone in a dark room only lit by his monitor. When teenage violence occurs as well, the first thing that congressmen will point to are video games and their influence, often ignoring parenting, education, drug use, etc… There are two recent studies that put these stereotypes under scope.

Gamers are Antisocial
Ipsos MediaCT and IGN Entertainment created a study called “Are You Game?” in which they research gamers and general facts about their lives. First of all they could not generalize what a gamer was so they had to break it down into different groups, ranging from “Traditional Core” and “Weekend Warrior” to “Family 3.0” and “Social Troopers”. Roy Bahat of IGN claimed “This study is a first-of-its kind look at how video games and video gamers are breaking away from stereotypes that have been in place since Pong, This was more than a quantitative survey; we visited gamers in their homes and received incredibly personal feedback about how videogames influence, enhance and affect their daily lives, familial relationships and friendships.” The study found many interesting things that breaks the away from the common conception of a gamer and his social life. For example the study found that gamers are more likely to do many social activities than non gamers, such as 13% more likely to go to the movies, 11% more likely to play sports and 9% more likely to just go out with friends. Gamers can also be seen as trend setters since they are as twice as likely to buy products that feature new technology, and are more relied upon to keep family members up to date on technology, movies, TV shows and entertainment news in general. Gamers are bigger media consumers in every aspect from listening to music more or spending more hours online. Over half of the gamers were married, and overall gamers go out on dates twice as much as non gamers in a month. Adam Wright, Director of Research for Ipsos MediaCT said “based on the research, its obvious that the gaming market has outgrown many commonly held stereotypes about the relative homogeneity of video gamers… gaming has become a mainstream medium in this country.” An important addition to games that has drastically changed social interaction is online gaming. Due to this feature in the majority of games, people can interact with strangers and meet new friends all through the process of playing video games. Though it is a different experience from meeting new friends face to face, it does not lose value as a social experience. Games have evolved from simple move and score games like Pong to virtual reality worlds like Second Life. The study showed that more than 75% played either online with people or with friends next to them. That means that three out of four gamers are experiencing a deep social interaction. Even playing in between family members was seen as a fun way to interact by 47% of the gamers in the study. Games are no longer restricted to just strictly having fun, accompanying this you can find games like Brain Age or Wii Fit that educates, helps both cognitive and physical training, while you have fun at the same time. The study shows that gaming has become an addition to an active social lifestyle that compliments it by giving easy access to sharing time with people across the world much like an instant messenger, webcam conversation or blogging would. Today’s society also focuses on technology a lot, and gamers are always on top of it since most of the time it is directly related to the hardware they use every day.

Video Games Lead To Violence
The University of Rochester and Immersyve Inc. published a psychological study that shows that violence does not motivate gamers to play a videogame more, nor does it lead to further enjoyment or violent behaviours. This is mainly because players are not attracted to the violence of the game but rather the challenge of it, in most cases violence ended up decrementing a game’s fun factor. People were tested before gaming on a 29 point scale, from “given enough provocation, I might hit someone” to “I sometimes feel like a powder keg ready to explode”. The study revealed that violent content was only preferred by a small group of more aggressive people, but even then they did not report increased pleasure when playing. Whereas the gamers in general appreciated the challenge, strategy and choices that video games have. “Video games, are enjoyable, immersive, and motivating insofar as they offer opportunities for psychological need satisfaction, specially experiences of competence and autonomy, to which violent content per se is largely unrelated” said Scott Rigby, president of Immersyve. The study does not only show that violence is not derived from gaming but rather that violence tends to keep gamers away from gaming or it limits their fun. Even aggressive players that would normally be thought of to enjoy violent games did not get further enjoyment out of it than any other type of game. This study helps break the unfounded link between violence and videogames.

Just like a gamer is not more social because he plays games, he is also not more violent because of them either. Playing games are simply a part of their lifestyle that is independent of their ideology or attributes. They manifest themselves through the games because that is what they are there for. It is conceivable that someone could be different online than in real life through multiple identities but this is not related to gaming but rather the anonymity that the internet can provide. Gamers can no longer be seen as a single identity but rather an attribute. Anyone can be and is a gamer, from grandparents to scientists, even celebrities enjoy gaming. Being a gamer does not carry a lump of set characteristics any more than being a blogger does, anyone can do it. Because of the fact that gaming now is so broad, interactive and appealing to a wider population than before it is inevitable that stereotypes will be broken as gaming becomes a social activity rather than a violent, introvertive lifestyle. I'm Ronald Ramos, I love playing poker with friends, cooking for my girlfriend, sleeping in, watching Lost, playing tennis, i'm a huge soccer fan and i'm a gamer.