The Social Dynamic of gaming.

[skyknight]

I want to ask a question that has long bothered me. I have thought about posting this a hundred times and then always refrained because I was not sure if the question would be handled maturely. I am going to give it a try but I would ask that everyone who participates please keep this easy going and no slurs or I will ask admin to instantly delete it.

As some of you know, I have been alot of places and seen alot of things. I am 32 soon to be 33 and I have seen more than most people will in their entire life. Not bragging, just a fact. I finished high school, was in college for four years, travelled around the country with a rugby team for a couple more years and then spent six years in the armed services. I now run a winery in upsate NY. The reason I post my background is because I have met an awful lot of people and there is this one statistic that keeps popping up. Now the common denominator for many of us old guys was Dungeons and Dragons. I think that is what brought many of us here in a roundabout sort of way. When I played D&D back in the day, it was very uncool. I do not know how things are today,but back then you were lookin for trouble if you were a gamer. I was one of those rare critters who walked a line between geekdom and jockhood. I was rather good at sports so it kinda saved me in this catagorey. Many were not able to walk this line. I had alot of jock friends in High scool who I knew would have played if they would not get labelled, the pressure was far to much. Anyways this gaming group was primarily composed of middle class white kids down the line. when I was younger I attributed this to living in a small town predominately white in nature. I do not think that is quite true though. We did have one Indian guy who would pop in a little bit though not all the time. So then I would wonder, Is TSR somehow marketing to this group, all their pics were at first predominately of white guys fighting dragons and trolls, later they came out with some oriental stuff, but I do not believe it was overly embraced by the community.
Well anyways when I got to college gaming was a little easier to do. None of my rugby friends really played but I did now have some "cooler" guys in the groups. We would drink and play Heroquest all night , a little D&D but not near as much. Same thing, mainly composed of middle class white kids. Now the college I went to was pretty diverse and I hung out with alot of minorities. I had one friend who was a Turk and he would jump in every now and then. But for the most part their was no interest. Granted I did not go out of my way to drag these guys in, but then I did not drag any of the white guys in either.
6 years in the Army. Again stereotypes are blurred a bit here as well. You can be a casual gamer in the military and generally not get to much flack. This was the time of my life I had more dealings with other races than any other in my life. My best friends were white, black, Hispanic, asian. If you ever want a template of how the worls should be you need to spend some time in todays military. There are still some bigots in the service,, but for the most part, that crap is left behind. It was one of my favorite things about the Army. Now in this case we are all makin about the same cash, there is diversity everywhere and still it was pretty much the white guys throwin Magic and playin D&D. I did not play D&D in the army much but I knew alot of guys who did. It always comes back to the same people.
I guess my question is why? Is it that more rural area kids play games, I don't think that is true. I know some will say it is an economic thing, though when I was a kid I earned money to buy my gaming gear and didn't blow my cash on tapes and things. Also I came from a small town, and generally minorities in NE United States who live in a small town are amny times doctors or of high standing in the community. So these kids had more money than I did in lots of cases. I just do not understand why these games seem to appeal to predominately white middle class kids, some asians, and a few Indians now and then. What is it?
As i mentioned in my first line this is not meant to be duragatory in any manner, if you cannot post intelligently on this subject I ask you not to post at all please. I am just hoping that some of you guys have a few ideas on this, being from different places around the country and all. Who knows maybe I am wrong on this but I do not think so. I am curious to see what others think.

[Oprime]

Im not trying to sound racist or make stereotypes, but different races have different "tastes" in things.

Take sports for instance.
Nascar: fanbase predominatly whites and rednecks
NBA: fanbase Predominatly african americans and inner city minorities

It is an interesting question though.

Another point may be that minorities feel they have enough trouble "fitting in" or being accepted.
Maybe they ,conciously or not, choose to not associate with a group(gamers) that have another negative stigma to them.

[netherspirit]

How about some paragraph breaks? My eyes are starting to bleed....

[CupidsArt]

I would say it comes from the parents. Each child learns from his/her family, by that I mean what the family does.

Lets stereotype here.
the 30-40 generation is coming out of the 60's and 70's where the mindset changed to fun. Where as the 40's-50's based everything around Work and rules. Now I know that many groups were a part of the 60's and 70's, but for minorities things were a little more dificult.

A great deal of the the "Lesser Races" idea was still strong so many Hispanic, Black and Native American families became concentrated on work again. (why you see more white hippies) Small town young adults had to take responsability again if they wanted to survive so many went back home.

The inner city held a similar direction but found there to be more of a struggle. Jobs weren't as easy to come by and the money made wasn't nearly as significant as a less congested area.

So whites worked but were still able to hold onto fun (Embracing Games) where the indoor mindset became more and more strong. (75-85)

Hispanics and Native Americans in northern parts of the country still had stereotypes to get past and much like a Black family work became the mindset. Fun and Games still existed but in a different way (outside)

Black families also have their past to contend with. Much of the time being constantly brought up again and again, either by an ignorant bigot or a relative hurt by past events.

Native Americans and Hispanics have had a similar pains in their past but with the NA's being nearly wiped out and Latin America being so close these issues were forgotten.

So the mindset for the Black community was be BETTER, better than everyone else. It's that drive that fuels the athletic stereotypes and gives us great black sports players.

That isn't to say that Whites, Asians, Native Americans or Latinos can't play sports I'm just saying in general.

That leaves us with a more laid back white community and with corporate america gearing everything towards this same community we end up with white kids that get ahold of every new thing. Indoor activities sell more and are easier to market to kids that don't fit into certain areas.

Athletic equipment will last a long time and plays the same again and again. You don't see jocks going out and buying a box of Wizkids Basketballs in hopes to get the new Jordan Flashball,

Also there comes into play those folks who were called GEEK, NERD or DORK. Why, because they stayed at home, because they found more enjoyment in school and education than sports?

There will always be exceptions but I believe that we are blessed with gaming because my parents generation and the generation before just wanted to have fun....IMO.

[geddy lifeson]

Originally Posted by netherspirit

How about some paragraph breaks? My eyes are starting to bleed....

I agree...I stopped reading, not because of the topic but for the sheer fact it is hard to follow, especially on a Mon morning with 4 hours of sleep.

[markwars]

Very interesting topic, skyknight.

And an even more interesting response, CupidsArt.

I'm going to mentally chew on this one for a few hours before I respond. I want to fully collect my thoughts because this is a very weighty conversation.

[Oogie_Da_Bruce]

Growing up in Long Beach-CA, I was surrounded by diversity and acceptance (well more so than the deep south). I am 31 and did the jock/nerd thing (Basketball and Dean's List) and had friends of every make and model.

The common denominators for my game groups were intellegence and imagination, over race and income. Every kid at school/college had some bit of disposable income and it was more a question of what they were into and what they wanted to spend it on.

I came from a very low income household and made my way through college via grants, loans, scholarships, and good old fashion work. Often times I would put a little OT to make sure I had enough cash to get a case of MTG Cards and still have enough left over to get tickets to the next big concert.

With all that said, my first gaming group was comprised of 2 white guys, 2 mexican guys, and 2 half white/half mexican guys (brothers).

The SoCal HS League has a few white guys, a few black guys, and a few mexican guys, no asians though.....

So my short answer to your post would be,

"I think that these games appeals to nerds of all race, creed, color. Well, this is at least my experiance growing up and playing in Southern California."

[LilNewbie]

I didn't have much of a gaming group in High School. Just some kids around the neighborhood. Fortunately, I was "in" with both the Jocks and Geeks groups and never had any stigma or issues with social abuse because of my gaming activites (it also helped that I was not a small individual and had a decent dry whit that helped diffuse situations...sometimes.)
In college, I made some friends who held a weekly gaming session and I joined them. We had different economic and racial groups represented in that group. I still keep in contact with all of them even though we all went to different parts of the country. We played almost every game out there during this time from D&D, 40K, WFB, Warzone to long Friday night Classic Battletech sessions (so many great memories there!)
Some common denominators in that group were we all attended college. We all had full-time jobs in the tech industry (code-slingers, server admins and network admins...yeah we were all geeks.) At first, we all had some disposable income since we all were unmarried. Some of them got married and would start to cut back on spending but we all shared or helped in costs for purchases (buy bulk and split costs, etc.) We had one guy who was heavily into martial arts (he wasn't obnoxious about it though.) The rest were getting there black belts in computer gaming.

Newb.

Originally Posted by skyknight

I want to ask a question that has long bothered me. I have thought about posting this a hundred times and then always refrained because I was not sure if the question would be handled maturely.

*walks away*

[Fallen Templar]

from years of playing xbox live i've learned not to sing online you get called very bad names

[K/H_Addict]

hmm....this really got me thinking. I have a play group of 5 people (including myself). All 5 of us are white, and living at poverty level. I have 3 more players that are in the process of trying to get Heroscape, 2 of which are white, living at poverty level. The other is a good friend of mine whom i met through the MCJROTC program at my school; he is predominately black, but sometimes people wonder about his race. Some of his friends call him a "Blaxican" (you have to actually know him to understand why; i cant even begin to explain this). I have tried to get more black people to play, but the just dont find it interesting.

My opinion: I think, like Oprime said, each sport/activity has its own fanbase. Typically, black people are more athletic than whites, so they tend to lean more towards sports. My friend Josh and i are kinda like that. We are both pretty athletic, but i grew up with asthma, so i do not like sports nearly as much as him.


basically, i think it is all in one's taste.

[bushi96]

I wonder if its just a numbers thing- Gamers are a minortiy and well, minorities are also minorities. So you would have to have a minority within a minority population to get a gamer. As I was growing up I could count on one hand the amount of blacks I was exposed to. A few more Indians and Orientals. Out of all the white people I knew only a handful were gamers. So if the odds were 100-1 to make a gamer and I knew 1000 white kids, we got 10 gamers. I only knew 50 minorities, so we only got 1/2 of a minority gamer (but he played a mean dwarven axeman!).