What the heck is "THE" Gaming Community?

ShyGuyXXL

ShyGuyXXL

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Ever heard a statement like "The gaming community is..."

It doesn't really matter what they say next, whether positive, negative, or whatever.
What always throws me off are the first three words. Because they really beg the question:
What the hell are you talking about?

What is THE gaming community? What do you mean when you say THE gaming community?
Do you mean all people who play videogames? That's not a community. That's just a loosely defined group of people that share a type of hobby.
It's like saying "the Movie Community" or "the Book Community" or the "Gardening Comunity" or the "Cooking Community" or "the- ...you get the idea.
Do you mean just SOME people who play videogames, not all?
Does them playing videogames actually matter in your discussion or could they just as well be any other person on the street?
Would they be different if they didn't play videogames?

There is no one singular community that includes all gamers. There are many different SEPERATE communities within the entirety of all people who play games. There may be a Nintendo community, an Xbox community, but even those have communities within them, like a Mario Community, a Wario Community (guess who :STongue:), a Zelda Community, etc.
A lot of those communities may overlap. I could be part of the Wario community but also the Zelda Community...
But then again...
Am I part of the Zelda community just because I like Zelda games and often talk about them?
Or do I need to be part of a forum, for example, to be considered a part of it?
When is someone part of a community and when not?
What if someone does talk a lot about a Zelda, but only with 3 or 4 other people? Is he part of the Zelda Community then? Or does he have his own Zelda Community with the 3 or 4 other people? Who gets to decide which of the many Zelda communities is THE Zelda Community?

All of this is so loosely defined that I can't help but yell STOP in my mind, every time I hear "community".

What would you say? Does it bother you just as much as it does me? When would you call something a community? Would you say the term has just become a buzzword for people who don't like gaming/gamers or who just don't understand it?
Why does this term get used for gaming but not other types of media?
Share your thoughts below~~~
 
It's a scapegoat used by people who shouldn't be working as gaming journalists to begin with.
 
I think people who use that term want there to be a gaming community even though there really isn't one. You could argue that there is some semblance of a core gaming culture...but there are people who grew up only playing stuff like multiplayer games which might be a totally different background from most people and yet you can't just exclude them. I feel like it's part of this current era's overfixation on people being part of things. Everyone wants to have all these identities for some reason and have them define them.
 
Magma said:
Everyone wants to have all these identities for some reason and have them define them.
Click to expand...
If someone wants an identity for themselves, that's fine, but they shouldn't reduce other people to just an identity or just part of a group.

What you are doesn't describe WHO you are.
 
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This is just my personal opinion, but I am of the belief that there is no such thing as THE gaming community. When you search for the word ¨community¨ (as used in the context discussed here, that is) almost every dictionary will give the definition that a community is a group of people who share a common interest. And while that is true, I think that a community is only those people who actively talk or in some other way interact with other people who share their interests. For example: I love to play games like pool and billiards, but I'm not member of a billiards club, an therefore not part of that community. But I consider myself part of the Wario community, because I'm a WF member like all of you.
 
ShyGuyXXL said:
If someone wants an identity for themselves, that's fine, but they shouldn't reduce other people to just an identity or just part of a group.

What you are doesn't describe WHO you are.
Click to expand...
I'm just saying, I think now more than ever, people are overly fixated with expressing themselves and whatever their identity is.
 
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