Times change. Gaming has also has this stereotype attached to it. Overweight males in their parents basements that drank Mountain Dew and ate Doritos. But now it seems to be a different world. You will get weird looks if you do not know what Fortnite is. Esports is becoming a real global event. And gamers, both male and female, are are not seen with some old stereotype. Streamers are becoming more and more watched and people of all kind are picking up a controller.
Gaming has also become a lot more social over the years. Multiplayer is the norm and you can play with your friends 24/7 online. Or you can bring a switch to work and play with co-workers on a lunch break. In fact a lot of gaming is social only, where you need a team if you are going to do well.
And it is not only gamers. Look at comic books. Marvel movies almost always make a lot of money regardless of who the hero is and everyone can get down with batman and spider-man. Comic con has blown up and top actors are trying to get their names attached to a hero. It really has changed
I think we were all geeks and now it is becoming more acceptable to let it out.
So lets geek it out.
Gaming is a much more mainstream hobby than it used to be, but it has its roots in gaming in general (i.e. not just video games). It's never been as antisocial as people have thought. MMORPG's have roots in games like Dungeons and Dragons which when not also online is part of face to face gaming. So by making it an MMORPG instead of a pen and paper rpg, it didn't really become more social over the years but just became over voice chat or text chat instead of face to face etc. It's not just that genre either. Basic gameplay ideas and mechanics do sometimes link back to non-video gaming. Video gaming can be a very social thing but when saying gaming has become more social it's not really obvious because some games have links to physical games like rpg's and board games so they are probably about the same socially as they were face to face (I don't see much difference in how I talk to the same friends on discord vs playing board games with them so I'd say it is about the same) and haven't really become more social and yes, mroe games in their basic makeup lean towards socialising and multiplayer nowadays but there have been multiplayer games since relatively early in video gaming and there was always the "take it in turns playing until you die or finish a whole level by yourself" thing too where kids played single player video games and just took it in turns. I remember doing that with the PS1 with friends when I was a kid. I guess the way gaming is going, the games themselves facilitate socialising more than in the earlier times, and tools like discord are great for this, and the existence of streaming and gaming content leads to communities over people's gaming etc which is social, but overall apart from the streaming / gaming videos side of things (which makes a big difference as it is a completely different way of socialising with games) I wouldn't say the actual act of gaming is any more or less social than it was based on my memories of playing as a kid and playing as an adult. The basic way games are constructed is more social nowadays in general - not all ofc but there is a trend that way - and the existence of gaming content opens up more doors for social interactions around games that didn't previously exist, but the actual act of gaming seems about the same to me.
As for how people view it, gaming is much more mainstream now, but there still are people that have problems with it. I live in Australia and I think we're worse than America in terms of being scared of video games but while it is a mainstream there's still people who have no understanding of it and think dumb things about it in regards to violence, it being dumb (even though video games improve a lot of skills) and stuff like that. Gaming is understood a lot more and has become a lot more mainstream to where yes, the average person won't be like, look at that video game playing geek, but it's not understood enough by some unfortunately (and they are often the vocal ones thinking there is something wrong with it).
yes.
Gaming is what makes you cool nowadays, especially if you are good at video games
Even though I am not a gamer but I have noticed. I remember the gaming scene from ten years ago because of my friends who were into it. They would buy hardware worth thousands of dollars and I would scoff at the 'epic waste' of money they were making.
They didn't gave crap about what anybody else thought and slaved away at building empires or crushing opponents. Then came the gamin events, where people could actually earn back the money they put in their hardware and then some. But looking at today's gaming scene I don't even recognize it anymore............ basically the idea of gaming has transcended the stereotype and there is money to be made - REAL BIG MONEY.
Major personalities have come out of their gamer closet in the last few years and have admitted to their love of gaming. Whether that's a publicity stunt or not, that is something I am not sure. The best part is that guys back from the school days, they still don't give a crap as long as they have their hardware close by and access to internet :-)
No matter how big a man is to me, he keeps his nostalgia for the past
I love this game always playing with friends
Games are far more complex nowadays than this spy-vs-spy C64 stuff lol
I think it has this kind of games, is that people in this way share and socialize with others, makes them feel part of a group, feel that shares goals and achievements as they are fiction, sometimes filled empty spaces.
I actually have done a fair amount of thinking about it. I think i may write a response of sorts to this, heh.
The dream of 1990s geeks have come true, I wonder if they're happy about it.
I think you have said the main reason:
Before gaming was for unsocial people, who can only talk about games in their occasional meetings... Now gaming is where most of the social interactions of young kids is.