I've gamed all my life, games have been good to me, yet yesterday i was surrounded by pretty ladies at a computer course (for some odd reason i'm the only man there) and i disowned my life-time hobby! the teacher cracked a joke about not playing any video-games when we should be working, and everyone matter of factly agreed that only their children play them, including a very red-faced version of myself nodding furiously in agreement, little did they know i had been Mario-karting all night, and have played games pretty much every day since my father handed me a ZX spectrum for christmas many moons ago.

Why the heck did i not just come out and say i love games? would it have killed me? why should i care if someone thinks me childish? I was shocked by my own cowardice frankly, and amazed i was ashamed to share a big part of myself with other people, i just couldn't bring myself to say i'm a gamer, i mean it's 2012, where the game industry has taken over both the film and music industries, so why the heck am i still ashamed of saying i play games? i don't even wish to conform! but i did like a sheep.

So there you have it, cowardly me, silly me copped out and refused to come clean and acknowledge i love games, would you have been braver than me in a similar situation? am i on my own here and out of touch, or do you guys understand why i kept quiet?

One day i shall proclaim my gameyness from the roof-tops! if i can just locate my spine...

Depends on your age.

Video games are a new thing. Fifty years ago television was seen as childish and waste of time. Before that radio was a waste of time. Time goes on. Fifty years from now video games are an integral part of modern culture just as television and radio are now

Really? what age is it no longer acceptable to play games then?

I don't share my freakish knowledge of some games, but I don't hide it that I enjoy them, and I don't like the word gamer... its just weird.

You just tell yourself you enjoy games and you're proud.

Yes, unfortunately people still somewhat believe the old stereotypes.

I don't play video games. Video games are for fat guys who live in their mothers basemant, hornrim glasses, obsessively know sci-fi lore, go to comic book stores all the time, and drive their moms car to their stocking job at the grocery store.

But on a serious note, yes, I believe gaming has a strong social stigma to it, but thanks to commonplace internet, sitcom jokes, and such, it's become more accepted.

I'm old enough to not care what people think about my choice of entertainment. It's my money that buys the games and my time to spend how I wish.

Anything will carry a social stigma no matter what you do really. Gamers are socially stereotyped as being fat nerds that have mountains of empty cans near their computers. The same can be said of the person that likes anime collecting those high grade statues.

However, I feel the biggest social stigma/stereotype right now that threatens us is the notion that violent video games = violent people. This has always been the hot button topic along with graphical lyrics in music. Still remember my mom flipping on the news when I was in High School to see that massacre that happened at Columbine. People instantly blamed violent games like Doom which they said "Conditioned" the kids into killers.

Yes please, do tell. At what age is it no longer acceptable to play video games? At what age does the stigma of being a video gamer go away?

I can tell you, I'm now over forty years old and started gaming back in the mid to late 70's when there really was a stigmatism with it, much the same as there was one for older kids to still enjoy watching Saturday morning cartoons. The same kids that I grew up with watching cartoons and playing video games with are now parents and grandparents, and do you know what else they are? Still playing video games.

I do not still see this stigmatism of being a gamer in this day and age. Lots of people play games, there's nothing wrong with it, never was.

i agree with you, but something happened to me in that room and it's odd for me because i usually hate conforming, but all those eyes looking at me waiting to judge me it may well be me being out of touch, the people there may have thought no less of me had i said i loved games, but the way they joked about games in a negative fashion and said they were only for children made me cop out , i know it's pathetic, i need to stand up for myself and just be straighforward, but i took the easy way out.

I think it depends on age, sadly. There's the old stereotype of a 40 year old living in his mother's basemant to contend with.

My mum just rolled her eyes on the day I was moving to uni when I shot upstairs and started stuffing my xbox and TV into a bag. She's pretty accepting though, even when I lug the whole thing back in the holidays- I don't watch TV, I play games instead, and she never worried much in my childhood because I was more likely to be reading a book than playing a game.

My dad seems to be more fascinated by the whole thing. He bought the first computer and some Tomb Raider games that we played together. He occasionally popped his head in when I was playing Oblivion, to see what could possibly have my attention for so long, and he bought me my xbox. He was really impressed when I showed him Skyrim. I think part of him is making up for what he didn't have when he was my age.

I don't know if I'll grow out of it or get bored of it, only time will tell. As long as great games keep being made then I guess I'll keep playing.

How old are these people? If they're in their 30s or 40s I can understand their ignorance.

I'd say gaming is almost mainstream, now. Even my sister and her husband, who are in their 30s, play (hidden object) video games, and they're about as mainstream as you can get -- white, conservative, Christian, and middle class.

I would say the stigma is about 15% still there. It's nowhere near the, OMG YOU NERD!! that it was when I was in say middle school, but it hasn't completely gone away. Still, I think it's pretty much non-existant in the younger crowd, except for a few exceptions. I think the majority of the gaming stigma comes from older people.

Did you lie when asked a direct question about gaming? If not I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It would take something pretty important for me to try and convince a room full of ignorant people of anything.

Really? I know plenty of forty something video gamers and not a single one of them lives in their moms basemant. In fact, most of them actually own their own homes and are raising families and have grandchildren. That old stereotype is just that, a stereotype. There's a stereotype for just about every nationality, ethnic group or what have you, but it does not make any of them accurate, in fact they just show the ignorance of those that still hold on to them.

If you like video games, fine, don't be ashamed of it, there's no reason to be. You might be surprised at how many of those that are publicly snickering at people who play video games, actually play games themselves.

Well i'm in my early 30's myself, and i would guess the rest of the class were around my age


Interesting point, perhaps my generation are less embracing of games and people who play them in general.


Well i was dishonest i guess, i pretended to agree with everyone when they laughed at the idea of playing games.

i don't tell anyone i play video games, unless they ask me or talk to me about it

Aww yeah that's the good life right there

I'm the same way. I don't run around avdertising the fact that I play games but if it comes up in conversation I wouldn't lie about it.

BTW I am 41 and also have been gaming since the 70's.

Social stigma? Well, I don't think admitting you like to play video games means people think you're a leper.

But there is still an attitude that video games are a waste of time...that is, akin to vegetating on the TV...and I don't know many people who think doing the latter is an "advlt" thing to do, either. I think in this day, most people don't think it's weird if you like to game a little, just like no one thinks you're weird if you watch a few TV show or movies, but if you tend to regularly obsess over it to the point of not doing much else entertainment wise, they start thinking you're a bit weird.

For teenagers yes, but the stigma is a shadow of it's former self. In the advlt world, it's more prevalent for people to realize you're a big person now, the idea that you MUST impress others and seek their approval of what you do (or alter doing the things you like/do out of their possible disapproval or them giving you [censored] for it) is significantly decreased as an advlt, when more people realize you can tell someone to [censored] themselves, it's kinda pointless later on.

I graduated high school in 2000 (so HS years were 96-2000), I got into more MMO like games that people played in the library or career centre when I got kicked off the football team having a fight with the coach who stupidly called me (at the time the shortest/near most thinnest player) a bully, and back then in HS it was indeed a stigma. But for all the kids who got [censored] for playing games and made fun of, no one ever gave me any. One friend asked me WTF I was doing (literally), when I explained it to him he tried it, didn't like it, and henceforth just used the library computers to download naughty pictures/videos to the old 3.5" floppies and sell them to other classmates until he got caught and was suspended. Anyhow, that was the closest I got to receiving any crap for playing games, I was amongst the lucky ones in my generation.

Sorry Fraggle, I borrowed your spine to have more spine power as I asked my boss if I could skip a meeting next Wednesday so that I could play D&D.* In all seriousness though I'd just be honest about gaming, if someone can't accept you because of your harmless hobbies then that's their problem and they have some growing up to do before their opinion can become any sort of a concern to you. It may be intimidating to have a lot of people judging you but if you believe that games can be a form of art and if you feel that you can argue the points for gaming in a manner that shows that, then you have nothing to worry about. Even if you and gaming is still being judged after you make your argument then you can still feel content that at least you made your argument and that their judgements only stem from being close minded.

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This
Apart from playing Pong and Space Invaders with us when we were kids my parents never played a videogame (although my mother happily plays bridge, mahjong etc on her PC)
I'm 47 and quite a few of my friends play videgames but only the ones who've been gamers for years

Depends on the age of the people you hang around.. If they are around your age no, if twice as old maybe they might prod you.