Study: Gamers Have Friends, Healthy Relationships

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I know this is going to come as a shock to some people, and I think we all know who these "shocked" people are, but gamers actually have friends and healthy relationships. :cool:

Two professors at Penn State distributed questionnaires to about 150 players of multi-player, first-person shooter games, like Call of Duty and Halo. They found their participants waiting in line for the midnight release of Call of Duty: Black Ops outside of video game stores in Pennsylvania this past November -- if anyone was going to fit the model of the stereotypical gamer, they figured, it would be these guys.
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I thought we were all murdering sociopaths that lived in our parents basement.
 
Healthy relationships, in which the guys say, "I'm gonna take this AK-74 and ass rape you with it"

Healthy indeed.
 
Damn, since when will the elitists stop with that? CoD and Halo are video games, and since people with a passion for video gaming (whatever games they might be) are referred to as gamers, this was a good move to start the research if you wanted to do one. This was a great idea to test the theory with easily available subjects.

For a lot of the people, this is a study that shows the general population via scientific research that gamers don't spend their lives stuck in mom and dad's basement gaming for hours on end and only surfacing for food and the bathroom. Sure, there are those people, but it's a stereotype.
 
I don't have any friends. I don't live in my parent's basement though, but there are good reasons... for that.
 
What's even more shocking is:

Some of us even have a WIFE and KIDS (who are also normal, law-abiding, intelligent, people).
 
dr.kevin said:
Healthy relationships, in which the guys say, "I'm gonna take this AK-74 and ass rape you with it"

Healthy indeed.
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I fail to see the problem. Some of us are quite capable of separating real life from in game trash talk.
 
awsiemieniec said:
What's even more shocking is:

Some of us even have a WIFE and KIDS (who are also normal, law-abiding, intelligent, people).
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Right here!

What's more, I'd wager that those with a spouse and kids has been gaming for a long time.

TBH, I've expanded my gaming since I met my wife. She encourages me to get more games (we look at pre-owned stuff mostly).
 
awsiemieniec said:
What's even more shocking is:

Some of us even have a WIFE and KIDS (who are also normal, law-abiding, intelligent, people).
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I have a wife that's a gamer and an attorney. I'm an IT guy. No children yet, but law-abiding people nevertheless.

Also have a mortgage to look after, if that counts.
 
Master [H];1039476548 said:
... What's more, I'd wager that those with a spouse and kids has been gaming for a long time. ...
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for sure. Heck, I've been playing computer games since playing Oregon Trail back in elementary school on some old Apple (? dunno what it was now - been a long time.)

Kids these days don't have to worry about changing the config.bat or autoexec.bat files in order to make the DOS games run (better). Kids have it easy these days. :D

I can't stand the stereotype the media puts out there about "gamers". It's wrong on so many levels.
 
Who cares about gamers....I'd like to know about none gamers as they will be the minority real quick....something like 97% of kids play games and as they get older will continue to do so......What are those 3% doing? I'd be concerned bout those fucks who are probably dissecting animals and preparing for their creepy ass future.
 
Master [H];1039476506 said:
Damn, since when will the elitists stop with that? CoD and Halo are video games, and since people with a passion for video gaming (whatever games they might be) are referred to as gamers, this was a good move to start the research if you wanted to do one. This was a great idea to test the theory with easily available subjects.

For a lot of the people, this is a study that shows the general population via scientific research that gamers don't spend their lives stuck in mom and dad's basement gaming for hours on end and only surfacing for food and the bathroom. Sure, there are those people, but it's a stereotype.
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I think the problem is that CoD and Halo are games that have been taken over by the 'bros' and frat guys that wouldn't normally game. I think it's possible to get different results if they queried the people that still play Ultima Online or EVE, or Diablo 3.

Hell, by your own logic I might as well label my oldest brother as a 'gamer' since he plays those Cabela hunting games and stuff. The problem is that it leads to skewed data that may or may not represent the average gamer. Or how about people that play Angry Birds on their phones?
 
Master [H];1039476548 said:
snip*

TBH, I've expanded my gaming since I met my wife. She encourages me to get more games (we look at pre-owned stuff mostly).
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I think she is telling you something :eek:
 
awsiemieniec said:
for sure. Heck, I've been playing computer games since playing Oregon Trail back in elementary school on some old Apple (? dunno what it was now - been a long time.)

Kids these days don't have to worry about changing the config.bat or autoexec.bat files in order to make the DOS games run (better). Kids have it easy these days. :D

I can't stand the stereotype the media puts out there about "gamers". It's wrong on so many levels.
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I remember creating my own .bat files for Quake mods. Those were the days...
 
I'd love to see a genre breakdown. I bet most of the D&D players would not fit the normal category. COD I can see because it appeals to everyone.
 
Krazypoloc said:
This study doesn't sound very scientific...
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Here's a link to the study, just googled the paper name and it came up...

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/b/d/bdh14/Hickerson & Mowen (2012).pdf

Personally, looking at how they worked the questions and weighted the conclusions on those questions, I think it's a bit of a bullshit study with too much extrapolation between the questions and the conclusions, but then I think a lot of psychology is bullshit, so perhaps I'm a bit biased :D
 
I play my fair share of video games...

36 year old with a group of friends I have known for 20 years. We regularly play non-video games together (aka board/card games).

We also help each other move, babysit, and drink homebrew kegs when there is over abundance.
 
Also I'll say there's further extrapolation between the actual study's conclusions and the article's comments and title.

I love the way the conclusion to the article draws points from conjecture "gamers may psychologically shape their gaming experiences around relationships resulting in greater friend-based social support as well as other potentially healthy social outcomes". Then from that they draw the conclusion "This indicates that not all video game play is socially isolating". I dislike when papers decide to draw definite conclusions from conjecture.
 
TheToE! said:
Damn, since when do we call CoD and Halo players "Gamers"?
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While it's true that many casual players enjoy those games, I find it funny that so many people will claim those who don't play certain games or enjoy certain games "aren't really gamer's" or aren't hardcore just because their opinions and game's of choice differ.

Seems very common amongst the Counterstrike fan base to do that. I've rocked Counterstrike before it was a retail product, played hundreds and hundres of hours of Descent I & II, Descent Freespace, Unreal Tournament, Quake I, II, & III, Team Fortress, Call of Duty 1, 2, CoD4MW, MW2, BLOPS, and many other games. Some shit many of you younger gamer's never heard of.

And I have to admit, I enjoyed the Halo series. I played the crap out of Halo 4. I fail to see how that makes a person "not hardcore" or less of a gamer.

Stiletto said:
Right around the time we started calling Dubstep "music".
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I do not call that crap music.
 
Did Sandusky conduct the study? It says it was done at Penn St. :p

Also, do on-line friends and on-line relationships count? :D
 
awsiemieniec said:
for sure. Heck, I've been playing computer games since playing Oregon Trail back in elementary school on some old Apple (? dunno what it was now - been a long time.)

Kids these days don't have to worry about changing the config.bat or autoexec.bat files in order to make the DOS games run (better). Kids have it easy these days. :D

I can't stand the stereotype the media puts out there about "gamers". It's wrong on so many levels.
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It was config.sys but yeah, I am right with ya on this one, been playing games since before a lot of the kids playing them now were even born! I am also married and have a kid too. Just picked up some good stuffs from the steam sale this past little bit so I have been working my way through that new material.
 
TheToE! said:
Damn, since when do we call CoD and Halo players "Gamers"?
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Anyone who puts over 200 hours into a game is a gamer imo.

I think you'd find from the numbers there's more gamers in the FPS genre than any other.

Food for thought. Also, the ego thing is not good.
 
DeathPrincess said:
If you have healthy relationships and crap you have shitty priorities and aren't 1337 pr0.
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That is why when I get 3 kills and get excited my kids laugh at me.... With their 25 kills. Man, I suck at CoD. I rarely play those games, only BF3 on PC.
 
Ur_Mom said:
That is why when I get 3 kills and get excited my kids laugh at me.... With their 25 kills. Man, I suck at CoD. I rarely play those games, only BF3 on PC.
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Did you try calling your children homosexual in various ways and saying that you shall track them down and kill them? It might give you an edge!
 
I have a feeling this study was cut short when the professors realized there wasn't enough headline fodder to continue spending someone else's money in an attempt to get published/famous.
 
Wait...gamers have friends and healthy relationships? Since when?
 
Samer study also shows that Halo and CoD players know and utilise an extensive vocabulary of racial and sexual epithets, as well as ways to challenge other players to fights in real life.

Calling bro shoot players "gamers" is like calling Jack Thompson an "attorney".
 
I'd like to see them research the people who have played WoW since it launched.

Could easily do a Hoarders-like TV show about 'em.
 
stevedave said:
Who cares about gamers....I'd like to know about none gamers as they will be the minority real quick....something like 97% of kids play games and as they get older will continue to do so......What are those 3% doing? I'd be concerned bout those fucks who are probably dissecting animals and preparing for their creepy ass future.
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I LOL'ed, well said.
 
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