Mouthbreathing Troglodytes (a.k.a. gamers)

I'm glad I work for the HMV flagship store, when a game comes out and I want it I buy it there...more often than not thats just good financial sense as well since I get 30% off my games (meaning a £39.99 game becomes like £24.99 for me to buy brand new) I also merely get served by one of my colleagues who are generally very understanding that we all in some way class as "geeks" whether it be music, books, films or games we're in to in a big way. However would I ever actively introduce myself in the way of: "Hey I'm Steve and I'm a gamer?" Hell no. I merely introduce myself as Steve. I don't actively class myself as a geek either, I'm in to my cinema, music and games and I read a lot but I also do a considerable amount of socialising and other activities (sports included) Therefore I'm just a man who manages to fit more in to a day than most imo.

I don't normally necrobump, but there's a hilarious follow-up. I ran into the friend of the large guy. You know, the one who introduced himself as a Mario fan...

Well apparently the large fellow has just recently reached World 8 and is quite proud of himself. This blows my mind considering he seems like the type that sits down and plays games hardcore with his poopsock handy. It's also hard to imagine someone who would consider themselves a Mario fan and one who is certainly old enough to have grown up playing it on the NES... would have such difficulty completely NSMBW.

Context clues (via the slender friend who apparently works at Wal-mart who I've now had many brief conversations with related to his friend) lead me to believe that the large chap is and has been unemployed and may indeed be playing this game a lot - mind you in our original meeting it was the slender friend giving the large one a lift to Wal-mart at midnight. I asked what other games he played and the question petered out without an answer. I assumed maybe he played a lot of WoW and didn't have time to dedicate to the hardcoreness that is NSMBW, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The slender one told me he wouldn't tell his friend about me finishing it so as to not make him feel bad.

I don't know how to feel. The guy didn't seem horribly mentally deficient, just socially inept. Part of me wants to laugh, but then I wonder if he's seriously troubled.


Also, on the topic of this thread, I'm about to head to Wal-mart to try my hand at procuring White Knight Chronicles at midnight.

Absolutely none of the Mario games are hard enough not to be beat in the time frame given, most of them can probably be beat in like a week of decent game play.

I feel kind of bad for this guy, huge and not very good at his obsession?

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Originally Posted by Yeargdribble

whereas there is no such group of people who don't watch movies.

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Hasidic Jews and the Amish.

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Originally Posted by Momiji

Frankly, they disgust me as much as the annoying stereotypical gamers. If you're buying games to display them on a shelf, never to be opened, you're missing the point.

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Well, that means you're disgusted with me, then. 'Cause I'm one of those people who likes to have a full series of games and not just bits and pieces. If I've played the previous games and don't like them but I like the sequels, I'll buy the whole series (if money allows) and just play the games I like.

It's also a great boon when money problems come up! Just recently I had to sell a few high-priced games to pay my student loan.

Also I think it's kinda crazy to consider gamers to be "nerds." I mean, we're all wasting time doing the same things, so why the name-calling? I'm not aiming this at one specific person (though I think Yeargdribble's take on the whole thing is interesting). It's just absurd to be talked down for liking games. The whole "oh, he likes Star Wars/model trains/whatever, he must be a nerd" thing must stop at some point as well. We're all people. We all poop the same color poop. We all breathe and function in the same way. :jess:

In my opinion, if a person is socially awkward/inept/whatever, it's not because of games or other so-called "nerdy" tendencies. It's because of experiences they've had with other people in the past. That's a discussion for another thread, though. I'd know plenty about this subject because for anyone who knows me, they know I'm a misanthrope.

I like games and I guess I may look like a bit of a nerd. I have myopia and I prefer my thick-framed black glasses over my gunmetal gray wireframe Hugo Bosses (which only come out at job interviews and dates, really). I even have a Super Mario T-shirt (though it's just part of my summer jammy collection).

But I also like to have a beer with mates, go out with my girlfriend, go to the footy and meet new people. I'm not socially inept, though I am prone to using big words more often than I need to. Though I'm sure if you got all my close friends to line-up alongside me, you'd pick me as the 'nerdiest looking'. Of course, not everyone who plays games is a nerd. It just so happens that I look like one. Just a little.

One of my friends plays DotA at least 3 hours a day and plays competitively in LAN tournaments whenever he can, but he wouldn't look out of place in a Coca-Cola commercial on a beach somewhere with a surfboard tucked under his arm. My girlfriend can be classed as a hardcore gamer on the premise that she owns every Sims game and expansion pack ever released, she's also taken recommendations I've made for her like Little Big Planet, Katamari Damacy and Okami, but she certainly doesn't fit the bill of a reclusive nerd.

Once upon a time, it may have been easier to pick a gamer out of a crowd on looks and mannerisms alone, but these days, you might as well try and pick out someone who prefers Coke to Pepsi.

*i'm thirsty*

I can't believe I actually read all three pages of that. People who just met me have a hard time stereo-typing me. Especially now in the winter when I go out I have a baggy sweater with sleeves that are too long. Really they hang like six inches from the end of my finger. I'm clean too (I'd really like to know how the unclean stereotype started, all my friends shower every day too) and I'm not a wide load or a stick, I've been a healthy 185 lbs. since 10th grade. And I'm just cheerful all the time too. And it's like Dreddz said way back on page 1, most gamers are quiet and seem to be ashamed of what they are. And I agree with him, it's sad.

And I'm with Momiji and people who hoard there games. Games want to be played. But what pisses me off worse are not the people who hoard them, but buy multiple copies of games just to sell them on eBay a few months down the line at inflated prices. Those guys are dicks.

But I got off topic. I'm not ashamed of my hobby. I pump well over 30 hours a week into my games. Putting that much time into something and being ashamed is just weird to me. I love talking about what I do. Even if they are being condescending I don't care, I'll talk there ear off. Maybe someone who cares will overhear I'll make a new friend. It's happened before. My story time now.

Alright me and my friends went to watch 9 awhile back, but arrived early cause there's a G2K Games built on the side of the cinemall. I was just broasing over the PSP section, not really looking for anything. But this guy came up and picked up Class of Heroes and made a rude comment about the art style and said the W-word. Now I was offended, I mean it was probably my copy. I beat and probably wasn't going to play it again so I sold it to give someone else a chance. But this guy called the people who played it the W-word. So I went up to him and told him it was more akin to old school western games like Wizardry and you build your teams and go dungeon crawling. But he was moron (like most people who use the W-word) and had no idea what I was talking about. He bought a movie for his PSP and left.

He left and this guy came up and looked like 24 from the Venture Bros. You know over weight and with a pony-tail. I was disappointed when he opened his mouth and didn't sound like 24. But anyway, he came up and we started talking about those old school first person dungeon crawlers. It was awesome.

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Originally Posted by Shattered Dreamer

Man to tell the truth I hate buying video games anywhere because you are immediately thought of as a nerd by everyone with in ear shot of the cash register. I hate to be sexist but I've found female store workers get incredibly dismissive of you when they see you buying video games. They go from being bubbly & over polite to oh good another nerd! I am most certainly not a nerd.

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Not for me. There's a hot one at a Gamestop in a mall that I go to ocassionally and going by what she says and her enthusiasm, she's a gamer too. Just wish I could have some kind of chance with her.

Looking back I the couple of gaming friends I had did go under the sterotypical nerd appearance. When i had my gaming class last semester, I saw it was mostly people who didn't fit that description although I'm not too sure if I'm a good judge of that. You can find me and som e of my class mates in tthe beginning and end of this video.

YouTube - STREET FIGHTER 4: BISON (John) VS RYU (Tim)

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Originally Posted by NorthernChaosGod

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Originally Posted by Yeargdribble

whereas there is no such group of people who don't watch movies.

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Hasidic Jews and the Amish.

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And no one stereotypes or makes fun of the Amish.

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This is a major beef of mine (the gaming stereotype, not the Amish one), but coming at it from somewhat of an opposite direction. I grew up, and continue to be highly involved in, a high-performance sport environment. Most athletes are not usually very interested in video games, especially compared against the same age demographic of, say, university students. As such I have extremely few friends who have an interest in video games. I'm not a very social person by nature, so it's not like I've made a concerted effort to go meet people of a similar persuasion, but virtually every time I meet someone who is very interested in video games like I am, all I can think of after I get to know them better is "wow, you are a loser." Which makes me sad because, a) I don't have many gamer friends, and b) that is the demographic I feel I am a part of.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

Not for me. There's a hot one at a Gamestop in a mall that I go to ocassionally and going by what she says and her enthusiasm, she's a gamer too. Just wish I could have some kind of chance with her.

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/facepalm /facepalm /facepalm

Nooo... please don't be that guy. This is the reason Gamestop is starting to employ tons of chicks, most of which have no clue about gaming (much like their male co-workers I might add). I mean, that's great if your chick might really be a gamer and might really be cute and all that.

Problem is, they are preying on the loner-nerd stereotype that rubs his hands together excitedly at the though of even talking to a girl. It's part of a fantastic business model for this horrid company.

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Originally Posted by Mo-Nercy

I like games and I guess I may look like a bit of a nerd. I have myopia and I prefer my thick-framed black glasses over my gunmetal gray wireframe Hugo Bosses (which only come out at job interviews and dates, really). I even have a Super Mario T-shirt (though it's just part of my summer jammy collection).

But I also like to have a beer with mates, go out with my girlfriend, go to the footy and meet new people. I'm not socially inept, though I am prone to using big words more often than I need to. Though I'm sure if you got all my close friends to line-up alongside me, you'd pick me as the 'nerdiest looking'. Of course, not everyone who plays games is a nerd. It just so happens that I look like one. Just a little.

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To me you don't sound that nerdy. While you can make a snap judgment on looks alone, it's usually the follow up conversation or even an overheard conversation where my mind is just blown.

Problem for me is that I am a huge gamer nerd, I'm not slim by any stretch of the imagination. However, I can wash myself and talk to people. I understand that some people have problems and the large fellow obviously has more than I suspected if it's taken him nearly 3 months to make it to World 8 of NSMBW.

I'm stuck somewhere between frustration and irony that so many gamers I do run into fit so cookie-cutter into the negative stereotypes the world has of gamers and that only makes us look worse. I don't care if you have glasses or acne, but wash yourself and wear clothing that doesn't look like you dug it out of Goodwill's rejection bin.

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Man to tell the truth I hate buying video games anywhere because you are immediately thought of as a nerd by everyone with in ear shot of the cash register. I hate to be sexist but I've found female store workers get incredibly dismissive of you when they see you buying video games. They go from being bubbly & over polite to oh good another nerd! I am most certainly not a nerd.

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Haha, I've seen this happen plenty. It's similar with codgery old men. There's an obvious disgust. Then there's the mid-to-late 20s guy who think he's so cool. When he sees you buying a gaming or asking for one you can tell that he immediately feels superior because being a non-gamer talking to a gamer puts him in the higher social strata. Of course with all of them I'm always thinking, "Hey buddy... you're the one working at Wal-mart." This is especially true for the grumpy old codgers you think I'm wasting my life.

None of this bothers me. I'm old and married. I don't care about the idiot girls. I don't care about the bitter old men and I don't care about the guys who are naive enough to think they can keep acting like a stud playing the field until they are 50.