"Delving into the complexities of cultural definition are completely un-worthwhile (and hardly entertaining) for you the reader. It's an endless rabbit hole of confusion. Instead let's adopt the mantra that culture should be understood as a very open term, with the generally accepted definition being: “the way of life of a people”. (Column: 'Lingua Franca' – The Place Of Games In Culture) These people could be connected by geography (country), interest (fan) or anything else that binds them together." --OK so does this quote from the article, Column: 'Lingua Franca' – The Place Of Games In Culture, really give you the definition of culture. For me it does to an extent. Last year I took a multicultural education class. We had to define culture in our own words. For me culture is who we are, it is how we define ourselves as a person. The dictionary defines culture as the "behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and though esp. as expressed in a particular community or period." (The American Heritage Dictionary, pg. 213)
With in the gaming community there are certain things that define it as a culture. The community has it is own language and style of wording. It feels that those who develop the games are artists. These folks go to school for such are and they have their own institutions and products and systems on how they develop their art. Such as a photographer uses a black room and certain programs on a computer to develop and edit pictures.
The next question once the culture is developed is who is considered to be in the community of gamers? One article talks about the difference between a gamer and a hipster. They define a hipster as someone who plays games because they are fab, for example when everyone wanted a Nintendo Wii so they could bowl, and they than had parties that revolved around the Wii. Or when Guitar Hero came out and parties revolved around it. In the article, The Hipsters of Gaming it states, "A hipster is judged by what’s now; gamers, by what they were playing in 1993.” Easily the most popular critics of video games is Penny Arcade, and as she points out, they accomplish this through a sense of inclusiveness. But past these social difference, they are technically performing the same cultural activity. Both identities are self-created and enforced by the community’s own tastes." So a hipster is someone who plays the game at the time and when something new comes out it moves on to the new WOW!
So lets put out there the true people of the videogaming community. They are defined as this according to the article The Hipsters of Gaming, "“Gamers accumulate knowledge; hipsters move through it, consuming and relinquishing it daily. Gamers accumulate years’ worth of garbage and trivia, and never let it go. They are still making Portal jokes. " These are the ones who dwell and go back and play the game over and over again. They are the ones who are out there developing and making these games better. They have the heart and ambition to stay with gaming and certainly does not ever stray away, from their favorite but tries out everything, and is always wanting to know more. As Ian Bogost states in his article "The End of Gamers, he feels "The point is not whether games qualify as art or not. Nor whether games are useful tools or not. Rather, the point is that there are lots of other things people can and do accomplish with videogames. Some are well-established, like entertainment, and some are emerging, like meditation. No matter, all of those uses taken together make the medium stronger and give it greater longevity." Now just because games are used for other things such as helping someone through postpartum syndrome or exercising does that really mean that it is knocking out the term gamer? I don't feel that it does. I think that the gamers should be proud that something they are so passionate about can help someone over come a struggle in their life, and you never know that person may someday become one of their own!
Before I enrolled in this class I had never thought about the differences among people who play video games. However, after reading your post I can understand the differences among gamers and hipsters. The best way to explain the differences is in your final paragraph with the particular quote, "Gamers accumulate knowledge; hipsters move through it, consuming and relinquishing it daily". I think this is probably very true. As for me I don't know much about video games even though I have been that person playing the popular games at parties. However, as I am learning there is a whole world out there full of so much more than "bowling" and "playing the gutiar". I think your thoughts are very true and I think it's very fair to say video games has it's own culture that will only continue growing as time continues.
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