the gamer community

[paleotaur]

Y\'know I really want to thank you Otter, for writinng your article. It\'s one of the most insightful things I\'ve found here and it\'s set me thinking. We\'ve got a fairly solid community both here and on sites like the mini-painter group, is there anything we can do to rid a fine set of hobbies of these, erm... persons of dubious distinction, (how\'s that?) and the stygma they bring?
Unfortunately I don\'t have any answers yet, just questions and a vuage idea of a goal.

 

[beowulfthehunter]

Game stores and bars

you know there only major difference between Game stores and bars is age. I mean Beeing a young man in my 20s i find i spend time at both places. There are the regualrs at a bar who seem to be unshaven, slovenly, much like a gaming store. There is the BS talk in a bar it is usualy the size of ones...well you know, thier vehicle, and other stuff, in a gaming store it is talk about one\'s win/loss recored, or thier 2nd generation malkavian with a solarity of 23 and so on... In a bar you have men that hit on anyhting with leges and two breasts, in a gmaing sotre you have the same. Just a thought

 

[JimG]

Texan Justice in Canada and stinky gamers

Re: wyrmling_x is half correct. In Canada if a person breaks into your house with a gun you can shoot him. If someone attacks you with a knife you can stab him etc. It is called \"reasonable force\". But if someone punches you and you stab him you can be charged. So if someone breaks into your house and threatens your children you have to play 20 questions to see how he is armed before you can reply. Personally I like the Texas idea. Someone breaks into your house they loose ALL rights.

Now back to the topic at hand (gamers and personal hygene) - as someone who ran their own store for two years, I can tell you that groomed, intelligent, well mannered people are in the majority. The problem is that they come in, purchase, chat pleasantly for a minute or two then leave. The stinky, rude gamers hang around for the whole day and NEVER BUY ANYTHING!!! I also noticed that the majority of the shoplifting was by the same group. My guess is that they are the reason that most of the \"normal\" gamers don\'t hang about.

Just more of my 2 cents.

By the way what ever happened to the old \"cents\" key on keyboards (that should show my age....).

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by steelcult
The security crew was the real problem - they showed up smelling of unwashedness (long term aint got no water funk) covered with heavy perfume or aftershave - and most of them were either goths or vampire players

I guess this is more of the getting into character like the sharpened teeth. I mean, they are vampires, right? They\'re supposed to be dead so they may as well smell that way.lol

 

[Otter]

Originally posted by paleotaur
... is there anything we can do to rid a fine set of hobbies of these, erm... persons of dubious distinction, (how\'s that?) and the stygma they bring?

I\'ve been thinking along the same lines... This really is a cool hobby that is butchered by the stigma attached. It\'s like playing music or writing poetry, and as a hobby is LOT more impressive than those deeply heartfelt webjournals that are the rage. But the stigma is such a killer:

- \"So what do you do for fun?\"
- \"I paint miniatures for a hobby.\"
- \"Oh? I\'m not familiar with that hobby.\"
- \"Well, have you ever seen the detail that goes into good Asian enamel work or a Faberge egg?\"
- \"Yes, they are lovely.\"
- \"I do that on small statues. I paint the figure, then I make a base for it. It\'s pretty involved.\"
- \"Wow, I\'d like to see one of those sometime! Do you sell them?\"
- \"Well, some friends use them in games like Dungeons and Dragons... where are you going? Hey? What did I say?\"

Ok, maybe that\'s a little over the top. :flip: But the hobby IS impressive. And I have no idea how to shed the stigma other than setting a non-abusive example in game stores. Maybe some form of \"Fight Club\"-esqu rule system?

- Otter
\"Never send a ferret to do a weasel\'s work\"

 

[frankietanch]

Our local games store in Singapore are just filled with games geeks alike. Sometimes they are so full of shit you thought you might as well just grab your stuff and go. The D&D gamers are usually ok (there\'s really nothing wrong to get excited when you r engrossed), the 40K and the WHFB, whoooaa, I guess it\'s an ego trip for them, yelling with phony accent (Singlish\'s a form of english most local speak, pretty bland with a lot of lahs and lors..like as in \" now you happy lah ??!!\" that kinda thing..)
and trying to show off their $6,394.99 army.

That\'s why I mostly just grab my stuff and go, and sometimes if you\'re lucky and when the store\'s not too crowded, u might get to talk to one or two individuals who\'s really cool actually.(chicks r a rarity, but if they happen to hang around it means they belong to someone or they just came back from studies abroad and her dog is probably richer than u..)

Oh, by the way, it\'s Death sentence for anyone who owns or carrying a gun here and if u happen to carry a knife (6\" or more) and u got caught...ho say! The police can lock u up for 48 hrs without valid reason ! (if I remember my laws correctly, that is)

Jackknives, swiss army knives, ok as long as u aren\'t using it to pry open yr neighbr\'s windows or something...

 

[Dragonsreach]

My long term gaming friend, my wife & I all have started to boycott one of the GW stores, simply because of the constant BO and stale food odours that permeate the shop.

My wife doesn\'t play or paint, but she occasionally went into the shop to get me a surprise. Now she doesn\'t at all!
My friend stopped going in \'cos of the smell and as an ex-serviceman he\'s got a strong stomach. Me, I stopped for the same reason. As I work for a living, (despite rumours, I do!), I understand that sometimes you get hot & sweaty. But that doesn\'t excuse the lack of personal hygene that is evident. To me there is nothing worse than foul breath, funcky armpits and the stale, often rancid, smell of unwashed clothes.

Fortunatley we have a good local GW store with a good manager who doesn\'t tolerate the BO condition from either customers or staff! In fact we have a standing joke that one year we\'ll go to Games Day with Carpenters tool belts loaded with Anti-Perspirants and Air Fresheners and get our own back on the stinky\'s.....
I just feel sorry for the GW staff at Games Day and similar venues who seem to have to either stronger stomachs or their nasal passages disconnected. They can\'t always get away from the rules lawyers & beardy w*****s who glue themselves to celebrities! (I\'m reminded of the scene in \'Silence of the Lambs\', where Jodie Foster pastes Menthol rub around her nose to counteract the smell of the corpse).

As for the social misfits who try to attach themselves to women in the stores, I just wish there was a spray can to get rid of them.

 

[Tuubje]

Originally posted by No Such Agency

...just last month a jeweler got life because he shot 2 armed robbers in his own store (he did kill them but....), while they were fleeing. See, if you are in mortal danger, you can respond with force, not when they are on your property stealing.

Of course, the operative words in this situation were \"while they were fleeing\", right? That\'s not screwed up at all. I suspect a lot of these laws are in place to prevent people just shooting at anybody who comes onto their property. I doubt there are many judges or juries who\'d convict somebody of killing an intruder in self-defense in their own home. But shooting people who are running away? That\'s just wrath or revenge and it\'s wrong.

I know I would shoot if someone has just beaten me while taking al the jewels in my store. It was also the third time his store got robbed in 6 months. Guess he just couldn\'t take it anymore.... I would shoot... :~(

 

[Sand Rat]

originally posted by vincegamer - I guess this is more of the getting into character like the sharpened teeth. I mean, they are vampires, right? They\'re supposed to be dead so they may as well smell that way. -

You know I never thought of it that way. Kinda explains things - dont it?lol

 

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by steelcult
originally posted by vincegamer - I guess this is more of the getting into character like the sharpened teeth. I mean, they are vampires, right? They\'re supposed to be dead so they may as well smell that way. -

You know I never thought of it that way. Kinda explains things - dont it?lol

I once heard of a die hard goth and Vampire player who said that reality is just down-time between games! Kinda backs up your point.

Also whilst we\'re on the point of gamers and their weird ways.... When I was at university a friend at the time got home to find a message on his answer machine from a friend of his back home. It was a rather urgent message that basically said \'something terrible has happened, call me as soon as you can!\'. Was it a matter of death, destruction or tragedy? Was it f**k! All it was was the local RPG group that this guy was a part of had split up due to internal bickering! Some folks just get things all out of proportion.

 

[Sand Rat]

Yeah, but I dont think that the problem of getting wrapped up in what you are doing is a gamer only kind of thing - there are folks who do the same with working out or with specific actors or actresses - course we only here about the ones that kill them selves or start stalking folks. Gamers just do it more quietly than most - except that spate of D&D related deaths in the early 80\'s.

 

[paleotaur]

I agree with you Steelcult, but you have to admit that we are the ones who end up taking the rap. The gaming community (and the trek community) are the groups who are mainly focused on as \"geeking out\" and thus the stigma (thanks for correcting my spelling Otter) falls onto the whole group, and as long as this minority dictates how we are percieved by the rest of the world, we can never expect to be taken at least semi-seriously by most folks. My question still stands, echoed by Otter. What can we do about this? ???

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by steelcult
we only here about the ones that kill them selves or start stalking folks. Gamers just do it more quietly than most - except that spate of D&D related deaths in the early 80\'s.

I actually did a little research into that a while back. Turns out there has been no D&D related death, merely that a kid who committed suicide had played a game. The research turned up that suicide among teens who played role-playing games was considerably LOWER than in the general population. Basically the kid\'s mother wrote a book blaming her son\'s suicide on D&D rather than on the abusive family life he apparently had.
Just want to get that straight.

Oh, and there was that totally fictitious Tunnels & Trolls movie with Tom Hanks as a guy who loses his mind in his character.

 

[Sand Rat]

Thanks for the correction. I actually thought the number was less than that. As for what we can do - dont put up with that kind of behaviour - but dont marginalize the individuals - sometimes harder to do than we think. Sure, we are not going to change the behavior of the 40+ year old Comic Book Guys out there - but the up and coming crew are the ones we can effect.

 

[languin]

[No message]

 

[languin]

Whoops!
Well i love this vein of disscussion...i mean it gives me some view about how people view \"gamers\". And i hear a lot of intolerance towards that community and a bit of disrespect.
I am no gamer by any means of the definition..i just paint figures. But i see a lot of descriptions of what ideal gamers most of you folks are and i am hard pressed to think any of you are the open minded intelligent people that you say you are and in the next paragraph see you put down the so called\"average gamer\".
Do we forget that these people are individuals? I certinaly love the crack from sturm on kids smelling like piss and cookies...nice way to malign kids man.

I know that i dont always put my best foot foward in every situation that im in and im going to assume that neither do the rest of you.
I understand that their are some people out there who have a hard time with social interactions, but face it that happens almost everywhere..not just in game communities.
Its all in getting to know a person despite whatever flaws they might possess..you will find common ground .

As for women gamers.. i dont mean to offend, but i find that most do not attract me( apologies to those i know and those i dont ) and that aside from a few they also have terrible social problems.

Females in any male oriented settings will get a lot of attention good and bad so for those female gamers out there you have my sympathies and my thanks due to the extreme entertainment value i get from watching such interactions.

In the end i hope you all try and give your fellow gamer a little more understanding and one more thing if that gamer has problem affecting you tell him or her because one thing that gamers (smelly or not) have in common is that they are tight lipped punks who only air their complaints in forums like the one we have here.

 

[wyrmling_x]

I think a lot of it comes down to the individual\'s maturity in life. There\'s nothing wrong with kids engrossing themselves in a game, TV show or hobby, because really, they have nothing much else to worry about (although, there are boundaries and limits that shouldn\'t be crossed - a kid needs a balance). Kid-geekdom, therefore, is \"ok\" - kids are having fun, and have done so for a bazillion years.

However, when this obsessive behaviour is extended to the adult population, and you see 20+ year olds obsessing over a flippin game, you really have to wonder about their maturity. And this goes for anything, not just games. Anime-junkies, video game geeks, warhammer/miniature freaks - these are people, rather, ADULTS, who have yet to smell the sweet scent of reality. Fortunately, these people are so extreme that it\'s rare to run into them. Admittedly, being a guy, I don\'t have quite the same problem.

It\'s when people end up like those jerks that Otter encountered that things get out of hand. They do not necessarily reflect a particular community\'s true nature - it just means that (a) they need to grow up or (b) they need help.

That\'s just my two cents - if it doesn\'t make sense, it\'s because I\'m writing it at 2:45 AM. Later!

 

[Big Mean Elf]

My question still stands, echoed by Otter. What can we do about this? ???

> 1) Suport your self,by holding down a job...
2) Act like you would when a game figure dies,as you would when you lose a hand of cards where no money beting is involved.
3) Make a woman want your attention.
4) Have conversations about real life once in a while.
5) When some ass hole says you worship the devil becuase you play a game,tell them that Bob Barker from The Price Is Right TV game show is really the devil(becuase he looks the sam now as he did 30 years ago),and that you don`t watch that tired old show....

:innocent:

 

[Sturmhalo]

I guess it is easy to malign and stereotype certain groups, but to be honest stereotypes do exist and there are many people who fit the bill perfectly. By the way, I\'m not in the slightest way the most perfect human being on this planet! I\'ve got numerous flaws in my personality just like the next guy, and I\'m sure that someone out there could find a stereotype to suit me as well! I suppose we all like to point and laugh at someone just to feel that little bit more superior in ourselves (until someone giggles when they walk past you or shouts \'OI TWAT!\' from across the street for no reason. Then all our insecurities flood back and we shuffle off whilst the giggling girl or the thug across the street has their little ego boost).

Whilst I\'m laughing at someone, they\'re laughing at someone else, and someone else is laughing at me. Kinda helps everyone know their place doesn\'t it!?
lol

 

[Sturmhalo]

Oh by the way, on the point of folks who get caught up in character. That ain\'t good. Take it too far and you can really mess yourself up. All it needs is someone suseptable to delusion and you\'ve got a timebomb just waiting to go off! Once that line between fantasy and reality becomes a bit too blurred, that\'s when people can get hurt. I\'m not just saying that this is a problem with gamers either. Remember that guy in the black metal band (Count Grishnak or something!?) who stabbed a supposed adversary to death because he thought he was a more powerful devil worshipper than himself, and hence a threat?! Or what about the spate of church burnings that occured in Norway (I think it was Norway) when certain people took the whole black metal devil worship thing a bit too far?!