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Death of the Gamer, Redefinition of the Audience

Posted by John Constantine

Ian Bogost, he of the ever-progressive Persuasive Games, has an essay up on Edge Online (formerly Next-Gen) entitled “The End of Gamers”. Bogost proposes that the true hurdle preventing videogames from being broadly acknowledged as a mature medium is not that they are viewed as children’s toys or puerile entertainment but that they are not given a wide enough contextual berth.

Videogames suffer under the weight of many misconceptions. Some of these are all too familiar: questions about whether games promote violent action or whether they make us fat through inactivity.

One that some people have tried to overturn is the idea that games are only for entertainment. So-called “serious games” claim to offer an alternative: games that can be used for serious purposes like education, healthcare, or corporate training.

But games, like photography, like writing, like any medium, shouldn’t be shoehorned into one of two kinds of uses alone. Neither entertainment nor seriousness nor the two together should be a satisfactory account for what videogames are capable of. After all, we don’t distinguish between serious and entertainment books, or music, or photography, or film. Rather, we know intuitively that writing, sound, images, and moving images can all be put to many different uses.

Bogost goes on to cite numerous creations that use games as a model of experience beyond entertainment or raw utility, many of them popular titles played by a mass audience. He also doesn’t point the finger at any one party for being responsible for these misconceptions (though the title of the piece could be interpreted as an indictment of gaming’s rabid enthusiast base.) Gamers are resistant to game types that don’t suit their typically rigid palette and the mainstream is guilty of generalization.

What is implicit in Bogost’s piece is that viewing these opposing sides of gaming’s potential audience is as limiting their conception videogames’ purpose and function. In 2008, the videogames’ audience is becoming as rich and diverse as the games Bogost mentions. The gamer isn’t dying. The gamer is finally being born.

Read the whole essay here at Edge Online and then get a look at gaming’s exciting potential at Bogost’s Persuasive Games.

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Posted Jul 21 2008, 02:00 PM

Comments

Demaar said:

I didn't read the entirety of the article, but from what I did read I can't help but disagree. It sounds like Ian wants to just stop categorising fun software as games.

I forget where I read it, but I agree with the opinion that cook books, dictionaries and etc. on the DS AREN'T games, but officially licensed software utilising the hardware.

Games are called games because they're fun and used as entertaining. Take away the fun and entertainment and it's software.

July 22, 2008 10:34 AM

Ian Bogost said:

Thanks for reading. FWIW, the title "The End of Gamers" wasn't mine. I agree that an equally valid way of interpreting the argument is just as you do. However, I still resist the term "gamer" -- for the same reason that I'd resist the demographic concept of a "bookreader" or a "filmgoer" as a way of describing someone's lifestyle rather than one aspect of their activity.

@Demaar

It's less than 2,000 words. I think if you read it all you'll have a different opinion.

July 22, 2008 12:13 PM

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.