Video Games Are Stereotyped and Unfairly Scrutinized by the Media

In 2012, software and hardware sales in the video games industry raked up more than over $65 billion dollars in revenue in comparison to just $10 billion dollars seven years prior. These statistics indicate that the gaming industry is not only one of the largest and fastest growing businesses in the world, but showcase that it is also outperforming other similarly popular mediums of entertainment such as film, books, and music in terms of revenue and annual growth. In the short fifty years that video games have been around, they’ve quickly become an integral part of the lives of many and are only continuing to increasing in popularity. I’m sure that everyone can attest to knowing at least one or two people who engage in regular video game playing activity. However, despite being a common leisurely activity and hobby for many in today’s society, there is still a shocking level of stigma surrounding the medium. There are various stereotypes in place which attribute to the stigma - from the gaming community mainly consisting of young adolescent boys to gamers being socially inept individuals; these ideas and the way video games are unfairly scrutinized and misrepresented in the media (by those who are quite frankly, ignorant of the material) are no doubt the leading factors as to why gaming has become a sensitive talking point in recent years.
As mentioned above, the stereotypical ‘gamer’ are thought to be teenagers or young adults, slothful, lazy, without motivation and spend all of their time, well, gaming. They’re also typically unattractive, probably fat, and are pale from spending so much time indoors playing video games. However, these claims are quickly refuted by researchers who found that over sixty-eight percent of gamers ...

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...d-goal that the player must meet to complete the game - of course, some games deviate from this and provide type of experiences - from the typical action games to sports simulators, racers, strategy/board game, competitive multiplayer and educational games. Yes, video games can also provide learning experiences to their audience even outside the conventional educational genre. One of my favorite genres of literature was introduced to me through one of my favorite video games. “God of War” is an immensely popular video game series loosely based on Greek Mythology, and while I was somewhat familiar with the genre before the game, it was only afterwards that my fascination with Greek literature blossomed. Other video games such as the “Assassin’s Creed” series allow players to play through important historical events from the Renaissance era and the American Revolution.