Battling the Stigma of Gaming

“In 2003, I was elected the team leader of 25 random men and women. We spent our leisure time competing in an ongoing strategy competition with three-month seasons. The league was composed of over one thousand teams. The team had previously performed poorly, and after I joined, I became very vocal about strategy changes and ways to improve. After some discussion, a majority of the team decided I would be best suited to lead.

The inherited team was fractured and lacked commitment. We were not competitive in our current state, so similar to any basement-dwelling sports team, we needed to reevaluate and enter a rebuilding period. I began by laying out a plan for success, including communication guidelines and commitment requirements, which was tailored to push boundaries while accommodating our leisurely nature. I created a ‘cabinet’ of four committed teammates, and we had one-on-one meetings with all active members to discuss communication and teach our strategy. Some less-active members were asked to leave, and they were replaced by new, random members, whom we asked to commit to our system if they wished to stay. The process was difficult, but we believed it was necessary to achieve success.

After two (three-month) seasons of rebuilding, the team went from near the bottom of the league to the top 5%, including winning our division. We increased committed members from near 50% to 96%. We defeated teams in one-on-one competitions that were beyond our consideration just six-months earlier and were asked to join some of the top world alliances. My leadership team and I had convinced 25 random strangers to commit themselves, in their free time for no monetary compensation, to study a game and spend additional leisure time for the competition.

In 2003, I joined a random team in the text-based game “Utopia”, convinced a group of people that I was best-fit to lead, and managed that team to success. In 2003, I was 15 years old.”

If at some point you believed this story would have been compelling for a job interview, I implore you to hold that sentiment because in the reality outside the gaming industry, this story is job-interview suicide. It did not happen in the real world. It wasn’t productive. This was a kid playing a game. If this had been about bringing together a soccer team, completing a school project, or teaching a group of people to trade stocks, this story would be very impressive. Yet, the moment you mention a video game, the story’s context overshadows its content. Leadership inside a video game does not count as real leadership.

The stigma surrounding video games is still very real. For many, gaming is seen as a solo activity, and the mainstream portrays gamers alone in front of a television eating bags of chips drowned with a Big Gulp. Gamers in the media tend to look a certain way, be a certain sex, and act in a particular manner. Gamers are thought to only play video games, as if they have no other hobby other than being behind a screen.

Worse than all these stereotypes is the constant reminder that video games are a waste of time. This stigma keeps gamers quiet and helps mask how important video games have become as a social, educational, and recreational tool. Is gaming less productive than reading a book, watching television, drinking in a bar, having a chat with a friend, or browsing the internet? And why does it seem so many people are afraid to say they play?

At a dinner party in 2015, I made an acquaintance through a mutual friend. We discussed work, sports, traveling — your standard ‘nice-to-meet-you’ conversation topics. He was a young male professional with a 50-hour-per-week job, and he enjoyed going out with friends and working out for fun. As part of the conversation, I broached the subject of video games with a simple, “So, do you play any video games?” While his initial answer was, “I play a little,” follow-up questions showed him to be quite the active computer gamer, playing multiple hours a week on a variety of game titles.

This isn’t uncommon. Many people don’t want to be associated with the anti-social stigma that comes with gaming. Instead, they prefer to discuss other anti-social, yet less stigmatized hobbies such as watching TV, reading, or running (pop-culture, intellectual, or athletic). Gaming also comes with the high-profile and too common issue of online harassment, particularly against women. But with more than 1.2 billion people worldwide playing video games, it’s time for society to adopt a fresh perspective.

Video games have come a long way since the days of arcades and 2D computer games. Games today are more social and skills-driven than ever before. Video games today are played with thousands of other players — whether in large communities/worlds in massively-multiplayer online role-playing games, or in teams in multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs). Not only do gamers play together, but they discuss the games together through online gaming communities, and millions of fans experience the games by watching video game recordings (now: electronic sports, or E-Sports) or live streams. Gaming has become a fantastic means of staying in touch with those that move about the country, allowing friends to actively remain connected.

Video games are also becoming increasingly difficult. As gamers evolve and become more skilled with technology, not only are complex games created, but the level of competition increases. Some games, called ‘sandbox games’, take difficulty to the next level and give players nearly complete freedom. ‘Minecraft’ allows players to build anything imaginable — a virtual Lego world. ‘Rust’ mimics a post-apocalyptic survival world where nearly everything will kill you (including potentially other players) and you must figure out how to survive and then how to live and play. ‘EVE Online’ mimics the real economic and political world with its virtual corporations, miners, fighters, and wars.

The benefits of video games stretch beyond the social and entertainment aspects. Games can teach a person how to type, how finance works, or how Charles Martel turned back the Moors in 732 A.D. at the Battle of Tours. Players obtain valuable skills solving problems in games, from learning how to work with people from across the globe to creating new ways to counter conventional game strategies. Players quickly have to coordinate and adapt to be successful in video games. What defeated someone once will likely defeat them again, and gamers quickly learn to improve upon their situation. Leaders emerge and groups form in order to complete larger objectives or to better position themselves for future endeavors. Watching players consolidate in games is repeatedly watching civilization evolve on a micro level.

With so many gamers, it’s time to break the stigma surrounding video games.

• Talk about gaming like you talk about TV. The more we talk about video games, the easier it becomes to accept games as part of everyday life. In 2014, 93 million people were playing Candy Crush Saga everyday. 67 million people play League of Legends every month. 23 million people have purchased Minecraft. These are just a few statistics from a select few video games. Players are out there, but we remain quiet. Say hello to a fellow gamer playing Candy Crush on the train. Ask a new coworker if they play any video games. Let’s open the communication channels for video game conversation.
• Fight gaming stereotypes. We have to actively work to break the stereotypes surrounding video games. Just as many females play games as males. Gamers come in all ages from all backgrounds. But it isn’t enough just to break the stereotypes; we also have to fight gaming harassment. The gaming industry does not talk about harassment enough, and the actions of the few immensely impact the perception of games. Women online tend to not disclose they are women for fear of harassment. People can say almost anything anonymously, and bad manners/taunting runs rampant. Children on games find role models in other gamers who may support (or don’t actively combat) online harassment, and the cycle continues. We cannot let the stereotypes perpetuated by the minority drive the perception of the community. We don’t encourage the playground bully, let’s not feed the online trolls.
• Educate the world on video games. Video games are more than just another slot machine, and gamers do more than pull the handle. Gamers should promote the benefits of the games they are playing as real-world applications, particularly on the frontier of leadership and competition. If a person leads a 100-person global organization in a game, that’s leadership. If a person reaches the top 1% of players in a game with 2 million users, that’s dedication. Video game companies should also promote their games with real-world applications. Will Game A teach you history? Does Game B create the opportunity for elected leadership? Games can be more than just fun: they can be tools for success.
• Promote gaming skills. Gamers should not be afraid to promote their skills obtained from video games. We need to bring these skills into the open and work on developing ways to consolidate those achievements into quantifiable terms. What does a Grandmaster Starcraft II player mean? What accomplishments come from being a World of Warcraft guild master or raid leader? How do you quantify Dota 2 MMR? Can we create a system that helps prove skills based on the games we play?
• Actively encourage gaming. Games are fun, and we use them for social interactions and entertainment. Yet, video games (really, all games) naturally encourage learning, and can be used as an educational tool. We already learn strategy and adaptation from video games, but what if games were used more heavily in teaching? What if our entertainment video games taught physics or our character names were those in English literature?

Gamers are traders, diplomats, leaders, strategists, generals, architects, explorers, outlaws, artists, and engineers. In reality, those professionals are gamers, too. We are happy to talk about the newest episode of our favorite show, or tell someone “I can’t believe you haven’t seen that movie!,” but not the new mobile game release that we started playing. It’s time to take games out of the basement and start thinking positively about gamers and gaming. After all, we are all playing in our own sandbox game every day; some of us just choose to practice online.