Gaming, TV, and pop culture |
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Gone are the days where gamers are portrayed as basement-dwelling geeks who are in terrible need of social skills. It seems that today, gaming has gone mainstream, and has gained "pop-culture status" already (instead of the ancient esoteric association with "geek-dom"). Let's face it: gaming has become the "in thing" and the rapid influx of gaming titles, as well as the growing numbers of gamers, can attest to that fact.These days, it seems that everybody play games: may it be MMO, RTS, FPS or whatnot. Also, gaming companies such as Nintendo seem to make a conscious effort to "reach out" to the non-gaming masses with wacky rackets such as cooking games, "brain games" and the like, stretching the definition of gaming further.
Also, mass media has contributed a key role to gaming's massive success. Of course, there's always advertising, but you may have also noticed the increasing portrayal of games in TV lately. There's the WoW feature in "South Park" and the Call of Duty 2 episode in "The Office". And no, we're not talking about 3-second subliminal messages here, but gaming as a part of regular people's lives.
Although that claim may not be true for everybody, we can't doubt that the gaming population is indeed growing, and getting more varied by the minute. There are kids, there are yuppies, there are forty-somethings, parents, you name it. Gaming is becoming a past time, and an activity that's not merely scoffed at as a "For Kids Only" thing. Although exaggerations were apparent in the shows, you just can't dismiss that the portrayal of gaming in "South Park" and "The Office" is far from reality.
In fact, Paul Lieberstein, who plays HR Director Toby in "The Office", says that when they write particular episodes for their show, they take snippets from their lives and incorporate it in the story:
After a show's been on the air a couple of seasons, we have to dig especially deep into our real lives, having exhausted our imaginations. We write about other TV shows we watch, websites we visit, trips we've taken, relationships we've had, and, yes, the videogames we play. As gaming becomes ubiquitous, I imagine the references to it will become commonplace.
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User Favorites - December
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Comments [refresh]
While I have to admit that I'm happy that gaming has become more mainstream because it makes the stuff I like to do way more accessible, I'm noticing that along with this more widespread acceptance comes a general decline in game quality. Since gaming has become more mainstream, games are tailored for the trendy and popular, so those of us who have been playing games from when it was "nerdy" are getting left out in some ways.
I'm certainly not saying that all the games coming out these days suck. On the contrary, there are some seriously awesome games out now that I couldn't have even imagined when I first started gaming. However, I don't like having to sift through the hype just to find the good games that really stand out above the masses.
Just a little info about me - If you were to classify me in the demographics of gaming, I appear to be in that new group of gamers because I'm a woman in my 30's. However, I've been gaming since the Odyssey 2, so I'm not really part of that new group.
well south park got half of my town playing WOW now...