Review: Tech Refactored Ep. 26 - D20s, n00bs, Grinding, and The Social Identity of "Gamers"

Tue, 07/13/2021

This post is a summary of Episode 26 of The Nebraska Governance & Technology Center’s (NGTC) Podcast Series, Tech Refactored. In this episode, hosts NGTC Executive Director Elsbeth Magilton and NGTC Director Gus Hurwitz were joined by Lisa Kort-Butler, Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

            Over the course of the last decade, and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the scope of video games and those who play them has expanded enormously. Today video games are available on a number of platforms, from smartphones to consoles, and are marketed to a wide segment of the population. Nevertheless, stereotypes about “gamers” as young men, alone in their basements, playing role-playing games persist. And as Kort-Butler explains in her interview with Magilton and Hurwitz, a number of players of video games have begun to self-identify as “gamers,” suggesting that this is indeed a specific cultural subgroup with its own identity and characteristics. Kort-Butler has explored that “gamer” identity, identifying correlations and exploding myths along the way.

            Kort-Butler has found that there has been a shift in the way that “gamers” think about that label, both generally and as applied to themselves; “people are really taking that on as part of how they think about themselves and how they engage with their social universe.” In part, the phenomenon of competitive gaming, where people watch the world’s best gamers play in the same way fans traditionally have watched athletes compete, has contributed to that change.

            As the profile of individuals who play video games, broadly construed, has changed, so have the parameters of the “gamer” identity. Gus describes how, when he started out playing video games in an era before computers even had sound cards, the tech side of gaming was integral to the gaming identity. In order to play with friends, gamers had to have knowledge of computer networking and other basic tech skills in order to participate. By the time Elsbeth got involved with gaming a few years later, the games she played were more story-driven and tech/networking skills weren’t a necessary part of being a “gamer.”

            Kort-Butler notes that there are several positive aspects to the phenomenon of people self-describing as gamers. “That identity means something, right? It means that even if I’m not being directly supported, I have a sense that other people are like me. I have a sense that there’s a group of people to whom I can potentially turn for support. So you may be engaged in gaming, but also these other sorts of conversations may be happening as part of those networks that you’re developing.”

            The distinction between people who play video games, and those who self-identify as “gamers,” doesn’t always break down along the lines one might assume. In terms of the specific games that each group plays, Kort-Butler found that there was a surprising amount of overlap. Unsurprisingly, “gamers” did report playing video games more than players who did not identify as gamers. In terms of self-reported health and well-being outcomes, the differences between “gamers,” video game players, and non-players were actually pretty minimal. Kort-Butler’s research also pushed back on the pernicious idea of “gamers”as antisocial loners, and wished more attention would be placed on the positive psychological role that feeling like a member of a community can play in the lives of “gamers.” “Gaming can be prosocial (and can help) people learn and be able to cope with social stresses because they have a community they can be engaged with.”

            The group did acknowledge that there are challenges within a subset of the “gamer” subculture in terms of being openly misogynistic; this appeared most recently in the media in the form of “gamergate,” a controversy that arose when a number of gamers began a campaign of online harassment against a number of prominent women in the video game industry. Secondly, because “gamer” subculture has traditionally been perceived to be the realm of white males, women and LGBTQ persons may feel that it is a cultural space where they can never fully belong, leading them to self-select against applying the label to themselves.

            Asked to provide any final thoughts, Kort-Butler noted the importance of researchers, when conducting research into video game players and the “gamer” subculture, taking care not to recklessly apply their own labels to people who might not identify with those characterizations. “Rather, let people self-select into that (label) and drive those conversations, rather than researchers or policymakers imposing this label on individuals that may or may not fit with how they think about themselves.”

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