Over at Dungeons and Dreamers Brad pointed to an article about academic acceptance of video game studies.

It is interesting to see institutes of higher learning casting a doubtful eye on video games. Then again, the problem is likely much larger. As the following essay by my teenage friend Alec makes clear, gaming has a ways to go to reach general "acceptability." -- David

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In the world outside of videogames, there are stereotypes aplenty. From racial to sexual, we have created an image of what a certain person who looks like this or acts like that or believes in this should look like. As I have somewhat covered in one of my first articles, "the video game" has been entangled with the world, almost even mocking it (gay discrimination vs. Gamer discrimination) and hopefully influencing it.

Now, thanks to videogames, a Gamer stereotype has been created and broken just like every other stereotype created. But for some reason, the Gamer stereotype has been harder to overcome than others, because with videogames, there is a huge social constraint. You can just take me (and probably many others like me out there) for example:

I play varsity soccer, have a great social life (for me anyway), have all jock friends for the most part, and play videogames on occasion (or so you would think). On the other side of me, I avidly read Electronic Gaming Monthly, my favorite magazine of all time (yes, it beats out Playboy), write on videogame websites (obviously) and get in deep videogame discussions with the few gamer friends I have (Dave being half of them). I am guessing that I have a large amount of friends just like me, "closet gamers" if you will, but just like me, they are too afraid of coming out and saying "I LOVE VIDEOGAMES!"

I believe that this is largely due to peer pressure, and being afraid of your social status being bulldozed by three simple words. Just the other day I saw a Morrowind players guide on someone’s desk, and my friends and I laughed and say, "that's a nerdy game! Who would buy the guide? It's like five pounds!" Right at that moment, it clicked. I thought, "wait a second, we all know what Scrolls of Morrowind is!"(not an extremely popular game among jocks). This gave me some hope that I have gamer friends that I didn't even know existed, and that they were right under my nose.

In the gaming world, there is the casual gamer, the sports gamer, rpg gamer and the hardcore gamer. Now there is the Closet gamer, an undiscovered species of sort that can fit under any of the above. This Closet gamer doesn't really have a certain physical stereotype like sports or hardcore gamers do, but more of a common problem (or goal, depending on the way you look at it).

All I'm trying to say here is that if you know someone like myself that is a closet gamer, please, talk to them, and help them open that door to gaming love.

-Keep on gamin-