The Ironic Position of Gamers

Social stereotypes are a horrible thing. What happens when they are applied to our part of society. If you are a gamer, you probably see us as a progressive type group always looking forward to better the world. If you are not, you may see gamers as fat, basement dwellers who have poor hygiene and send rape and death threats to figures that oppose their own opinions on what gaming should be. Wait. Hold on a minute. People actually did that?

Let's look at some of the bad, it's so bad that Law & Order: Special Victims Unit made an episode based on the events surrounding Anita Sarkeesian. They took it much further than what actually happened, but it wouldn't be a regular SVU episode if someone wasn't raped and humiliated. Seriously, why do people flock to this show? All is does is destroy faith in humanity. Sarkeesian is a very outspoken women's rights activist that has tried to call out the games industry for its virtual crimes against a specific gender. Just as with any group of people, the loudest contingent gets the most press and sent the above rape and death threats to Anita along with Google Earth images of her residence. This is seriously screwed up and uncalled for. Remember, there's an astronomical amount of hate slung toward Islam from the acts of a fringe group. It's not hard to imagine the idiot kids who insult your mother issuing these threats.

But what's that you say? For decades games have allowed players to solve events in diplomatic ways and some even allow you to go through them without killing anyone. I agree, there isn't anything much more satisfying than talking a computer out of wiping out humanity in the original Fallout. Hopefully by making these options viable and well known, the view on gaming could be less grim than all of the murder, death, kill, The X-Files painted almost two decades ago in its video game episode.

Sorry guys, we've got our heads so far up our own asses to realize that we are a minority. Sure gaming is a multi-billion dollar a year industry and has been getting more and more visible by the regular media, but it's still collectively seen as a hobby and not the "meaning of life" activity that seems to be popular among forum die hards. The reality is that someone can make a living creating, criticizing, and promoting video games. Someday there will be integration of the masses; hey, gay marriage is now legal in all 50 states! I dread the day where gamers' rights have to become a successful movement.

That's enough pointless meandering. The bottom line is that every person is a representative of whatever group they identify with. Ambassador may be a bit too strong of a word for every person of a group, but it is true. Don't do stupid things. Really. Respect others and remember all of the important lessons you learned in kindergarten.

Sometimes It Has Character

People make deep connections with strong characters all the time. Get your head out of the gutter and keep safe search on for this one, we're not here to corrupt the world any more than the internet already has. Whether someone wants to grow up and walk on the moon like Lance Armstrong or wants to remain cool and collected in a crisis like their mother, character inspiration comes in a myriad of forms. Naturally video games being such a huge medium for kids these days the next generations are going to be partially shaped by interactions with imaginary characters. Like we needed another excuse for children to not be exposed to Trevor from Grand Theft Auto 5.

Being a grown up who has played games all of his life I have probably been somewhat shaped by the characters I interacted with. I'm a sarcastic, arrogant jerk face. I gravitated to the loud mouthed, wise cracking, assholes. Here is my namesake, his name is Rune from Phantasy Star IV and immediately ridicules the main character for being too short to be a hero (and breaks the fourth wall by saying you're not strong enough to face a certain boss). Good thing he's best wizard in existence.

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that main heroes tend to be the most boring of characters. I realize that they are supposed to be your window into the game world and it's been common practice to make them just as much of a bystander as the player. Seriously, all of those silent jRPG protagonists should have been able to equip a bag of popcorn for when they aren't saying "...". It seems impossible to avoid generic tropes when characterizing video game characters as you could drag and drop characters from one game to another and have little affect on the overall experience.

It is pretty easy to write a single note character and just as easy to piece them together on traditional sides of a narrative. This makes it refreshing when you have an original character trope in any sort of media kind of like rooting for the serial killer in Dexter or loving the whore mongering, alcoholic, bureaucrat who happens to be a dwarf in Tyrion Lannister. The real tragedy lies in the fact that once an interesting type comes along they tend to be run into the ground over the next decade.

How many silent protagonists, brooding bad asses, innocent virgins, old sages, childhood companions, sultry seductresses, overprotective mothers, old perverts, lovable lunkheads, fallen idols, dumb brutes, amnesiacs, and evil rich people have you been exposed to? Think really hard about the characters that shaped you, not just things in the real world. Who are you?