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Gayth Munther
Professor Agosta
UWRT 1102 018
25 November 2014
Gamer Identity
As each artistic medium is introduced to the masses, the majority of people refuse to
acknowledge it as an art form; however, a small minority of people embrace the medium and use
it to express complex ideas about the human condition. As with everything when people do not
understand an idea, they connect it to other ideas and concepts that they already understand to
easily identify the subject. This phenomenon happened to the video game industry on a large
scale. And as people, who were a part of that medium, faced the controversies, the way they
were identified and understood was affected to a significant degree. Consequently an identity
was formed around those people with many stereotypes and portrayals; the gamer identity.
Of course when talking about a complex idea such as identity, one must establish the
intended meaning of the term identity. As defined by James Gee, being recognized as a certain
kind of person, in a given context, is what I mean here by identity. In this sense of the term,
all people have multiple identities connected not to their internal states but to their
performances in society. In this case, the gamer identity can be defined in two ways. The first
way of looking at people that play video games is to be recognized by rational individuals as a
certain kind of people and in this example; a person that plays video games. The power that
reinforces this identity is dialogue or discourse among other people. Only if people talk about,
interact or treat someone as being a gamer, that they are one. This identity is straight forward and
is defined as, by James Gee, as a discursive identity (or D-identity). The other way of looking at

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identity is to define it by the shared experiences of individuals or groups. The shared experiences
of people who play video games are playing video games that others have played before,
attending video game conventions, meeting with people to play video games, or playing video
games with others online. This set of shared distinctive practices or experiences is what
reinforces the identity and determines who is a part of the group that relates to that identity. This
identity is known as an affinity identity (or A-identity). Thus an affinity group can be any group
of people defined by a set of shared practices such as tax payers, coal miners, college students or
in this case gamers.
To understand the affinity of group that is gamers, one can look for general patterns that
merge from looking at statistics of a certain demographic. Although many entities have created
surveys and looked through data to generate conclusions about the affinity group of gamers,
most of them had an interest in portraying the group in some way that benefits the entity
economically. After searching on the worlds largest network of libraries, WorldCat, for a
source free of a conflict of interest, the query returned an article showing data that a group of
researcher gathered from around 7,000 players of a popular massively multiplayer online
(MMO) game named EverQuest2 (Williams D.). The players had persistent online characters
that they can develop throughout time. The majority of players played on a regular basis and they
were in large number so that the collected data could not be skewed. The players were a good
group to base the affinity group upon. According to the data from the survey, most players were
adults in their thirties then the next age group was young adults (age 23-29). 80.80% of the group
were male and 19.20% were female, whereas the national estimates were 49.1% male and 50.9%
female. Up to 88% of players were white and 12% were a mix of Asian, Black, Hispanic and
Native American people. Over 15% of the players had a Bachelors degree and 13% had an even

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higher degree. About 32% of players had some college level education. With that level of
education, the mean income of the average player is $84,715 per year. The average player of the
group is healthier than the regular population. Moreover, most players are less religious than the
general population. Their television watch time is about 10 hours less than the general population
which is to be expected since most of that time adds to the average play time of 25 hours per
week.
According to the survey results, the gamer group is different than the general population
which led to stereotypes being developed around the gamer group due to generalizations that
happen with everything we do not understand. Some of the most common stereotypes are being a
male, unemployed, and immature. Due to these stereotypes, most people see gamers as socially
isolated teenage males living in their parents basement. When in fact, almost all gamers are
anything but that. Subsequently, the discursive identity of gamers was changed because people
talk about and interact with gamers in a different way. Furthermore, the affinity identity of
gamers is affected as well because now they have another shared experience; being treated
differently for being recognized as a gamer. On the other hand, our society is changing.
Americans, both young and old, play video games at an ever-growing rate. Todays adults,
unlike those who dropped game play in the 1980s due to public shame, play more than previous
generations. 40% of adults are now regular players, compared to 83% of teenagers (Williams,
D.).
To observe the changes in society, a survey was created. The survey was posted to a
popular news media website called reddit, where people post links to article and discuss current
events. The survey was open to anyone willing to participate. There was a total of 185
participants (Gamer Statistics). According to survey results, about 40% of gamers are in their

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twenties, 35% are under the age of 18, and 25% are over the age of 30. Up to 80% of gamers are
male and 20% are female. Most participates reported that they play video games for about 1-2
hours a day. Finally about 90% of gamers have played video games for 5 years or more.
When comparing this survey to the previously mentioned published survey, the results
shown are very close. In terms of gender distribution, the differences are negligible. However the
age statistic was significantly different in both surveys. Some possible explanation might be that
video games are now available to a different audience with the introduction of mobile gaming. In
general the results of both surveys refute common stereotypes that have been established by
society. However the stereotypes attached to gaming are still affecting the way people talk about
video games in general as well as interacting with gamers.
To complicate things even more, gamers as an affinity group is not a united group of
people. Royal Van Horn said it best in his newspaper column talking about video games (Van
Horn, R.). There are two different groups of gamers; heavy players and light players as he
called them. The main difference that Van Horn pointed out is the number of hours spent playing
video games per week. Interestingly enough, the reported number of hours played per week in
the two surveys previously mentioned had significant variations. The first survey stated that the
mean hours played per week was about 25, whereas the second survey indicated about 14 hours
played. The main difference between the two surveys was the genre of the surveyed video game.
The first survey gathered data from an online massively multiplayer game where players have a
dedicated community and an active role that they are expected to fulfill so it is expected to have
a higher time investment. The second survey did not have a specific game or genre requirement
to take the survey (it was open to everyone) and the results show a significant difference due to

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that reason. So it is safe to say that there are two groups of gamers and their dedication and time
investment in the medium is a clear factor that determines which group they get placed in.
For someone who does not follow video games in general they see no difference between
a heavy player and a light player, they just see a person that plays video games; a gamer.
The way they get exposed to medium of video games plays a major role in the stereotypes that
they associate with gamers. Traditional media such as television and newspapers is the main way
that non-gamers are introduced to the world of video games. For the most part, traditional media
have portrayed video games in a negative sense, not out of spite but because bad news sells best
and good news is no news. When an event goes as expected, no one bats an eye, but when
something goes horribly wrong, media outlets spend a lot of time on such events. This
phenomenon causes even the smallest of events to be amplified and reach a bigger audience than
it should. As pointed out by Dickerman, Charles, Jeff Christensen, and Stella Beatrz KerlMcClain in their journal, a small portion video game advertisements from 1998 to 2007 have
portrayed women in a way that appeals to the mostly male audience to drive more sales of a
game (Dickerman, C.). Traditional media has used these advertisements to build up on the
already established stereotypes of gamers and reinforce the stereotypes legitimacy on numerous
occasions. This, of course, is beneficial to the television station or the newspaper because lots of
people will read articles about these poorly made advertisements and will associate the shown
stereotypes with gamers. On the other hand, the gamer identity is damaged from such exposure
because it does not represent the millions of games that are done correctly and do not portray any
group of people in a negative way.
From its humble beginnings, the video game industry faced lots of disputes and still
continues to face controversy but gamers still stand by their hobby. The gamer identity has had a

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long history of changes and will continue to change as gamers share different distinctive
experiences thus reinforcing an ever changing affinity identity. On the other hand, as playing
video games become the norm, the discursive identity of being a gamer will change as well. The
stereotypes of gamers will continue to exist but change and fade away as gaming in general gets
accepted in society.

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Works Cited
Dickerman, Charles, Jeff Christensen, and Stella Beatrz Kerl-McClain. "Big Breasts And Bad
Guys: Depictions Of Gender And Race In Video Games." Journal Of Creativity In
Mental Health 3.1 (2008): 20-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
Gamer Statistics. Survey. 26 Oct. 2014. < http://gaythmunther.weebly.com/blog/surveyresults>.
Gee, James Paul. "Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education." JSTOR. N.p., n.d.
Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
Van Horn, Royal. Violence and Video Games. The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Oct.,
1999), pp. 173-174
Williams, Dmitri, Nick Yee, and Scott E. Caplan. "Who Plays, How Much, and Why?
Debunking the Stereotypical Gamer Profile." Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communitcation. N.p., 2 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.