Video Games Stereotypes

Video games are progressively becoming a crucial medium today, despite the light connotation of its initial categorization. Today they are a business that produces billions of dollars and employs engineers and artists alike in an art form connecting interactive games, to virtual societies where millions of people dwell. However, like all human products, our same emotion, flaws and injustice show in the games, with the impression of hatred, racism and stereotypes that are our everyday background. What are the creators of these video games real intentions in the desire they produce in the human?

As video games become more and more popular, we will inevitably see an increase in amount of video games being produced. The growth in popularity of video games is facilitated by the creation of a website known as Twitch.com. This website allows gamers and content creators to stream themselves playing video games online and interact directly with a live audience via chat. This new platform makes gaming both more accessible and more acceptable. The social stigmas that accompany video games are diminishing; in fact there has been an increase in competitive electronic sports as well. Logically, the growing interest in video games encourages programmers to make more and more games. Melinda Burgess et al presents an interesting perspective about video games. She explores the prevalence of racial stereotypes and how their effects are detrimental to society as a whole. In Burgess’s essay, “Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games”, she provides fantastic commentary on how top selling video games show “overt racial stereotyping” (Lunsford et al 551) and negatively affect how we think. By providing statistics and data about the videogames that she is critiquing, she effectively shows that there is may be a correlation between video games and how we think and interact with the world around us.

This text is published by a media company called Mic. Their target audience is young people and they cover a wide variety of subjects such as News, Arts, and Technology (Mic /about). The author of this article is Sophie Kleeman, who, according to her profile on Mic.com, covers the “intersection of tech and culture” (Mic /profiles/152573/sophie-kleeman)

Meet Shrek. Shrek is an ordinary guy who has a job, a girlfriend, and a house. He often plays video games in his free time and tells his colleagues about his experiences in gaming. But his colleagues call him a loser and a dweeb for playing games. This is because when the word gamer is said, images of fat, unemployed, basement dwellers who have nothing better to do than play games come to mind.

In modern day, there aren’t any slaves and Blacks receive the same treatment as everyone else. But hidden in plain sight, the stereotypes regarding to Blacks still linger and one of them includes video games. Leonard (2006) mention stereotypes based on the race and Blacks were listed “as are the violent and muscular Black athlete” (p. 85). Due to their structure and history, game developers viewed them as a perfect race for enemies within the game. Deskins (2013) gave an example from Devine’s research that each participant was primed with stereotypic words such as “hostile”, “gangster”, and “Black” (p. 2). Although game developers have no ill intent towards Blacks, it was simply because it’s “default” of the discourse in society. According

Given that association, this new study took a gander at whether exemplifying sexualized female symbols online changed ladies ' conduct. The Stanford scientists asked 86 ladies matured 18-40 to play utilizing either a sexualized symbol or a non-sexualized symbol (dressed provocatively or conservatively). At that point, specialists outlined some of those symbols to resemble the player encapsulating them. Those ladies who played utilizing sexualized symbols who seemed as though them were all the more tolerating of the assault myth, as indicated by the study. Subsequent to playing the diversion, ladies reacted to numerous inquiries with answers along a five-point scale (emphatically differ to firmly concur), including, "In the lion 's share or assaults, the casualty is indiscriminate or has a terrible notoriety." Those who played attractive symbols who looked like themselves will probably reply "concur" or "unequivocally concur" than those ladies who had non-hot symbols who did not seem as though them. Members were likewise requested that free compose their musings after the study. Those with sexualized symbols will probably self-generalize in their expositions after play. In spite of the fact that this is a little study and unquestionably not a conclusive response to the subject of how computer games influence female players, the outcomes do raise concerns. Upwards of 46% of gamers are ladies, and, as indicated by this examination, in a large portion of the most mainstream

Dungeons and Dragons is a role playing game that requires time, patience, and a relatively good imagination. Society has grown up with this game for several decades and yet the majority has no knowledge of its works and rules other than the misconceptions of stereotypes and confused explanations. When asked about the game, certain social groups are targeted as the player when, in truth, the quantity is much larger than previously thought. Dungeons and Dragons is a game that is more than a game. It is a bonding experience with many personal properties, overcomes the stereotypes, and that everyone can try or witness at least once in their life.

Traditional views of gamers have been often related with the negative stereotypes as males who are lazy, nerd, geek, fat, socially awkward and time wasters. Even though these stereotypes have been improving with the growing population of eSports athletes and its recognition as a collegiate sport in many campuses, participants shared their thoughts on the stigmas of gaming that are still present in our society and how they respond to these stigmas. Jeffrey, 5th year, majoring in music, shared his story of the stigmas of gaming he heard from his father, They had Street Fighter finals on ESPN 2 this past summer. I was watching it with my dad who knows nothing about the game and competitive play then he’s watching and he is constantly interrupting saying like.. When the winner was announced, this guy is a person who plays video games all day and night so he is kind of odd and dumb and does not know it better.

You can't recreate emotions that video games bring out of you. No matter the perspective, video games are always first-person. I have always believe video games can trigger amazing emotional appearances. When you are playing a videogame you are sucked into the world and the character becomes you. Everything that happens from fighting dragons, to falling in love you experience as that person. In hindsight, you won't think about it in that way but that's how it happened. When you start the game you shed your original identity and take on another. When I am playing a video game I am not thinking of what Daveion is feeling or if I am going to die if I take one more hit. I feel everything the character feels from horror from being chased or joy

When playing a game against someone elsewhere in the world, have you ever wondered who exactly you are playing with? Most people might say yes, but people don’t always know the facts behind gaming. Approximately 45% of gamers are female, yet many of them choose not to reveal their gender due to negative stereotypes and harassment from male gamers. However, I am not part of those who choose to hide what they are passionate about due to fear and disrespect. I’m the type of person who continues to play for hours after my parents say lights out and still keep up with team practices and academics. My gaming tendencies have shaped who I am today and given me the confidence I never had before. I intend on using the skills and confidence I’ve earned from gaming to be a successful STEM student.

Gender disparity in video games is a topic that both scholars and major gaming icons have discussed before. However, the topic recently resurfaced with the upsurging population of female gamers. The integration of females was a spectacle that caused a massive culture shock. Many members of the gaming community were unsure how to handle the change and took to discriminating females. While discrimination may seem unimportant, many scholars and icons believe it is a prominent factor of gender disparity: an environment which typically favors males, a hostile or “toxic” atmosphere, and repeated stereotypes all manifest certain behaviors of both genders that can cause a disparity to grow. Although some sources claim gender disparity is evident in gaming as a whole, others insist the novelty of female discrimination in video games is less prominent due to a more leveled percentage of male-to-females in gaming. However, both agreed that the competitive gaming community is a different story. Time and time again the competitive gaming community was mentioned for its exclusion of women due to biased and misogynistic members who sexualize and degrade females. These members believe women are inferiors that encroach on their territory with unskilled and seductive natures. Therefore, for the females in the gaming community, their actions will shape the future of women in the competitive gaming community. The change in female treatment is detrimental to gender disparity. Not only because

In a study by the Entertainment Software Association in 2014, 48% of all people who play video games in America are women, and another study by the Internet Advertising Bureau in February of 2015 stated that that number had jumped to 52%. That’s more than half of the population. So why is it that less than a quarter of all games feature a female protagonist? And in the event that the protagonist is female, most of the time they are inappropriately dressed to catch the gazes of males rather than be functional in the environment of the game. A good example of this is armor in medieval games. The males in the game normally have full armor that covers all the vital points, while female armor is more of a bikini made out of iron. And if they aren’t the protagonist, most of the time they are simply there for eye candy, serving no purpose other than

As long as anyone can recall there has been a significant underrepresentation of women in video games. Roles of women in video game has been unrecognized, unaccepted and unappreciated. In the most games like Call of Duty, Halo women are use as target of violence or object that men characters wins after winning a battle. In these kind of video games, women are victim or overly sexualized of the women body. So, the question anyone might ask is, is this sexism or are women used as object in these kind of roles? Answer is yes.

This is more a stereotype than a true representation. (Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games by J. Patrick Williams, et al, page 147) Although these characteristics may influence what type of games a person may play, a typical gamer can actually be anybody, due to the vastness of gaming options which appeal to all ages and personalities. Central to the classification of a typical gamer is the gender debate. Although casual game play is split almost evenly between male and female, the vast majority of professional players are men. As T.L. Taylor, an MIT sociologist who studies the culture of computer gaming points out, the stereotypes about gender and gaming tend to mask a more complex reality. "If you look at the variety of devices and genres out there, women are very regularly playing all kinds of games," Taylor says. "But high-end competitive play is deeply segregated. There are a lot of fraught gender issues there, not unlike traditional sports." (phys.org/news/2013-09-big-game-hunter-sociologist-subcultures.html). There have been a couple of competitive teams that involve only women, but one does not typically see a woman playing amongst other men on an eSports team.

Video Games. Video Gaming has been a popular form of entertainment in modern pop culture since the early 1980’s. From the early beginnings of software producers such as Nintendo, they have been creating games that have become favorable classics in only a few decades. With the most popular classic video games including Super Mario Bros. (1985), Donkey Kong (1981), Pac-Man (1980), and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), we can quickly note some patterns. One of the patterns that we can note is all of the main playable protagonists within these games are male. The second pattern that we can note is the majority of the games listed above have a storyline written about rescuing a princess — one of the only notable female characters within the game. Along with this, the female characters are only story-advancing non-playable characters (NPC’s). When the online gaming community was first introduced and popularized in the early 2000’s, females in the gaming community quickly faced another obstacle; sexism.