A short time ago I was involved in a conversation about the “mentality” of gamers. The basic perception that these people had about gamers is that they are “freaks” . To be more precise they kind of thought gamers were a bunch of depressed anti-social people who could not follow the norms of society. This is so far from the truth. I mean the perception they had makes us outcasts, which is really the opposite of what we are as a whole. You might be wondering why this is important. With any luck I will cover that in the next few paragraphs.
Let us start with the meaning of the word game, more precisely its origins. According to Dictionary .com we have this little bit of history
“game
O.E. gamen “joy, fun, amusement,” common Gmc. (cf. O.Fris. game, O.N. gaman, O.H.G. gaman “joy, glee”), regarded as identical with Goth. gaman “participation, communion,” from P.Gmc. *ga- collective prefix + *mann “person,” giving a sense of “people together.” Meaning “contest played according to rules”
is first attested c.1300. Sense of “wild animals caught for sport” is late 13c.; hence fair game (1825), also gamey “having the flavor of game” (1863). Adjective sense of “brave, spirited” is 1725, from the noun, especially in game-cock “bird for fighting.” Game plan is 1941, from U.S. football; game show first attested 1961″
So the very nature of the word game tells us we are social beings. In some cases our group might be smaller, or we might even be a part of more than one group. In fact it is hard for us to be a gamer with out being social. It doesn’t matter what game you play they are you’re community, or if you are like me your communities. I also found it it interesting that that before the meaning of game became a “contest according to the rules” it meant “people together”.
