As we get near the end of 2014, there should be a big flood of gaming news, especially considering the holiday season is just around the corner. Except now there may be a movement against the term “gamer,” which is like film geeks trying to disown the term “geek.”
So what’s the story? Are gamers tired of being stereotyped? Is the term too limiting? The Daily Beast reports, game writers are trying to disavow the term, and maybe like certain racial epithets, they’re trying to make the term go away.
Apparently gamers aren’t happy about video games being pushed too much into the mainstream, but what’s wrong with gaming getting mainstream attention again? It’s great that gaming came back from the dead, and is still doing pretty well all things considered.
As the Beast writes, “’Gamer’ was never an inclusive term. It segmented the population between people who identified themselves with video games and those who didn’t. Anyone who disagrees need look no further than the addition of adjectives to the Gamer. They splintered themselves into two categories: ‘Hardcore’ and ‘Casual.”
Yes, labels and stereotypes are terrible and limiting, but why deny what you are? Gamers aren’t just gamers, although there’s some who desperately need to get out of the house and breath the oxygen, we all know this, but that can apply to any obsession.
I truly hope the term gamer will be with us for a long time to come, and I haven’t played video games in years myself. (Love writing about gaming though.) Gamers came out of the geek closet a long time ago, so let that gamer flag fly.
