The community, the culture, and more

When people hear the word gamer it usually is followed by a bunch of other words in their head. Nerd, Geek, No Friends are probably some that come to mind. That isn't really the case and people really don't realize how video games are being used to bring people together and create a community and even to some extent their own culture. I myself have been playing video games since before i can remember. My family had a original Nintendo in the house and i would play it all the time. I loved the fact that i could do all these cool things that i couldn't do in really life. Ever since I've loved playing games and i often got made fun of from my friends because i had almost every system that came out. But that was my thing, a hobby like collecting bottle caps or building airplanes. Everyone has something they love to do and it's stupid that some people find things to do that label them outcasts. I play games and i don't think of myself as a nerd or a loser. I like to hang out with friends and go to parties as much as the next person.





Even in the beginning games were social. Multiplayer games were a great way to spend time with friends and other people who loved games too. But with the birth of the Internet gaming took a huge leap into becoming a culture. Online games started bringing people from all over the world together to play games. Working as a team or against people from all over the world is an amazing thing if you think about it and there's really no other way to do it as easily as playing games online. Inevitably this also made gaming appear to be less social because one could sit in a room alone playing a game and even thought they were playing with other people it still appeared on the outside that they were playing alone. Although there are people who fit the stereotype of a gamer, those people are few and far between the gamers who are just like everyone else.



The Internet also made the way for websites dedicated to games and bringing gamers together. Sites like http://gametrailers.com/ and http://kotaku.com/ provide the latest game news, review new games, and even have a forum where people can discuss classic games, modern games, game development, or anything at all. While these sites show that gaming has become a community there are other sites that show gaming as a culture.



Sites like http://screwattack.com/ make videos that interest gamers. The reason i like this site is because the crew that manages the site also make daily videos that a usually related to games. There have been a few videos where they've just done random stuff like a salsa eating contest (didn't work out to well). Because the people that run the site also make the videos, the people that frequent the site know them by their first names and it's almost like you know them in person. They also are very close with the people that are members of their site. Every Sunday they put up a video submitted by a member and they even held a convention this July were members could go and play games and enjoy other events.



In later blogs I'll talk about the culture of gaming in more detail such as music and viral videos. but just remember that just because someone plays video games doesn't mean that their not cool people that like everyone else.