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Is It Now Socially Accepted That Most People Are Gamers?

Yesterday I was at the supermarket (buying my weekly diet of Oreos and action figures aimed at children) wearing my Cuphead T-Shirt and minding my own business when I heard a voice say "that game is an absolute classic!" I turned around to see who this wise person was and it was an older gentleman with his grand kids, pointing at my shirt. I realised in that moment 2 things: video games are played by more people than we think...and I am getting old. We all have the stereotype of the 'gamer' in our heads, but perhaps the secret is out, perhaps everyone has realised what a wonderful and diverse art form video gaming is and if we love it...we have to let it go free!

When I was a young innocent gamer on the bus with my lime green Gameboy Color I always felt a little self conscious, I would even hide my Gameboy if I saw some cooler kids get on the bus. Fast forward 20 years and I was sat on a train last week playing my Nintendo Switch and a man in a suit (aka a grown up cooler kid) got on the train and sat opposite me. I went to hide my Switch but to my surprise he pulled out a Nintendo Switch of his own and started playing. I was in shock. People are just out here playing video games openly without any shame! When other adults ask my hobbies, I am always apprehensive to say gaming, even though that is like, my main hobby! Am I now the prejudice one? Have I carried my own video game related childhood trauma into my adult life and developed it into an unhealthy shame that no one else feels? I needed to know...are video games now just a part of normal people's lives!?

I did a little research and found that the number of gamers globally has increased by well over a billion people in the last 10 years. Also the age range of gamers is much wider and there are more female and NB gamers. This was partly due to the fact that mobile phones became a gateway drug into video games. The amount of times I have seen a professional looking person tapping away on their phone and assumed they are writing an important email, but then glanced down to see they are actually playing Candy Crush! Video games became something anyone could do, without needing a big colourful looking console that told everyone on the bus 'hey, I'm a gamer!' Even my partners 95 year old grandma plays Candy Crush on her phone! Remember the urban legend that Gunpei Yokoi got the idea for Game & Watch while watching a bored businessman playing with a calculator on the bullet train? If that was true than perhaps we should've accepted earlier that gaming was not just a thing nerdy children did, but it was made for adults too, and should be enjoyed by everyone!


I recently attended an event called 'Video Games Music in Concert' (read my review here) and what stood out to me was the variety of people there! I was expecting the entire audience to look like me, but instead there was a wide range of people of all ages and backgrounds! I absolutely loved the event because everyone was openly celebrating gaming! The love of gaming has built even more recently with the introduction of legitimately good TV adaptations of video games. After watching HBO's The Last of Us and Amazon's Fallout series, my dad started asking me about the games they are based on, and I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that he bought a PS5 just to see what happens in The Last of Us 2. 

I think my generation (millennials) have done one thing right, which is embrace what made us happy as a child and find ways to continue to find joy in them into our adult lives. That is why we are getting great video game adaptations, because the people who played games growing up have retained their passion and are now the people making the movies. Instead of some fat cat business man in the 80s with a huge cigar saying "We should make a Mario movie...it'll make so much money", we now have people like me...geeks who are passionate about gaming and treat the characters and stories with the love and attention they deserve. 

Video games are everywhere and it is more than accepted to love them! So next time I get on a bus I am going to play my Nintendo Switch with pride. Or when I am asked by another adult "what did you do this weekend?" I am going to puff out my chest and proudly say "sat in my underwear eating dry cereal out the box and playing video games!" And I encourage you all to do the same. Be a gamer! Wear it with pride and rub all your nerdy-ness in everyone's faces, because it'll encourage more people to openly be who they really are - nerdy ass gamers!

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