Videogames have weathered attacks from many quarters, and have thrived in spite of them, but gamers seem reluctant to put in the effort to make such attacks a thing of the past.
Of all mediums, videogames are probably the most misunderstood. Some people dismiss games as mere toys, while other well meaning but misinformed people believe videogames to be actively harmful. In The Fallacy of the Fanboy, Matt Meyers makes the case that we are not doing enough to combat these attitudes, and are in fact prolonging them by not interacting with our detractors.
Gamers adopt a business-as-usual attitude when confronting critics, refusing to acknowledge the obvious PR problem. Said in another way, if we worked to educate people about games, could the Jack Thompsons of the world rise to such prominence within the mainstream? Instead of trying to reflect, organize, and systemize our theories on the boundaries and purpose of videogames, most would rather be left alone to their pregame lobbies and boss battles. Instead of trying to put a controller into the hands of every misinformed individual, gamers scorn them for their ignorance.
You only need look at the response to recent comments made by Roger Ebert – which Meyers talks about in his article – to see that gamers have a lot to say about the medium in terms of its cultural value, and are very quick to counter-attack its critics, but how much better off would we be if we put that energy into pre-emptive strikes instead?
