Gaming = Nerd AMIRITE

I’ve seen people who are overweight, who do nothing with their lives, who don’t ever clean their ears or comb their hair – and frankly, I’ve also seen people like me – skinny kids with friends who are also “popular”, engaging in healthy activities while also being a hardcore gamer. Now, the definition of a video game nerd has changed. Now, a video game nerd is simply anybody who is “lame” or “uncool” and just so happens to play video games. No longer is a person uncool because they play video games. Why? Because they conceal it, or they are casual gamers. Casual gaming is fine – if you have a 360 and play Madden and Call of Duty, good for you. But if you play World of Warcraft or “nerdy” games that only hardcores would play, then you’re considered a nerd. Why is gaming considered to be such an invaluable hobby?

Hate to break it to you, but it’s because people aren’t familiar with such hardcore games. Their idea of a game is a fun, short, burst of entertainment. They don’t have the mind to contemplate a calm before the storm, or any lack of edge-of-your-seat fun. Thus, Wii Bowling may be fun, but games such as WoW might get boring in the middle of a leveling slump. They’re just not familiar with how in-depth games are, and second, they consider games to be fake. They say you can’t get anywhere with video games. Well, they’re idiots. What’s their hobby? Watching TV? Even take for example BMX biking. Sure, you can become a pro – but how many kids at the skatepark become pros? They think that I spend my nights pretending to be an elf, or pretending to be a knight. And last but not least – the loneliness.

This is a big one. Sure, there are single player games, but there are hundreds of amazing multi-player games. So, the idea of a gamer is a fat dude with no job who sits in his basement in the dark. But non-gamers have an idea of gamer isolation that is simply ridiculous. Take for example my friend’s opinion. This is from a teenage girl who plays casual, online multiplayer games – such as Maplestory, Club Penguin, Gaia Online – the point is, the games have no real combat design or intense gameplay. It’s for talking to your friends online and having short, casual fun. I told her the games were poor excuses for Facebook, she said it wasn’t her fault that I spend my life alone in my basement. Oh, stereotypes. Games like World of Warcraft have you surrounded with all sorts of friends and people of which you never would have known until they bust that hilarious one-liner in Ventrilo. With WCRadio, I’ve already met many friends from the IRC and community forums – and we’ve got together to play Borderlands or Left 4 Dead. Gaming isn’t about sitting alone, you have tons of friends – virtual friends, but there’s always a face behind a monitor, many of which can be seen at BlizzCon.

The idea of this gamer stereotype should extinguish as Madden games continue to make their annual $2 million from casual gaming teenage boys, and as games like Call of Duty which survive off an easy-to-learn shooting/war simulation gameplay, designed to slap your friends with your e-peen, rise to the top, this stereotype will no longer become one, but become fact, when PC gaming dies out so Valve can produce Hello Kitty Island Adventure: Episodes from Liberty City 7 for the Wii.