But the biggest obstacle standing in their way is social stigma. Both tabletop gaming (as represented to the masses by D&D and Magic: The Gathering) and comic books are still considered extremely nerdy. Videogaming, on the other hand, has found safety from ridicule by going to bed, in a sense, with the enemy - by joining mainstream consumerism and mainstream culture.
Perhaps the process has been a gradual one, but it does seem that all of a sudden videogames are everywhere. Everyone plays them. Everyone wants them. They're nothing to be embarrassed about anymore. In fact, if pulled off with the right sense of humor, being a gamer can even be cool. Popular as we may be now, we're paying the price for our new-found acceptance. We're giving up our subculture, and becoming like everyone else. Or, more likely, everyone else is becoming like us. Either way, we're losing our identity as gamers.
Walk down the halls of a high school, a college, a mall. More people than ever are wearing videogame merchandise - t-shirts, wristbands, shoe laces - whatever Hot Topic has churned out this week. And that's just the thing: We, as genuine gamers, don't feel camaraderie, we feel suspicious and cheated. Our community has been made a fad. Or at least, we're afraid so. We don't really know. Because now that everyone and anyone identifies as a gamer, we can grasp less and less what that term means when we apply it to ourselves.
Not everyone is playing along, of course. In fact, this mainstreamization has forced into being a new videogame subculture, one which is at the same time both shallow and totally understandable, namely the culture of "hardcore" gamers. The self-identification of hardcore gaming is a clear automatic reaction to the invasion of the mainstream, of potential posers, of an uncertainty of identity.
The entire point of hardcore culture is being the real thing. Whether you find your community in clans, guilds, forums, whatever, it's no easy feat to work your way in, to prove yourself. You have to play, and play, and play some more, but you also have to know. You have to be able to pass tests of your knowledge in the form of challenges and ridicule. Hardcore culture is elitism, plain and simple, because that's what it has to be remain certain of its purity, certain of itself. But as the specter of mainstreamization constantly lurks, mainstream culture becomes also about chauvinism, about constantly proclaiming your own worth and veracity, time and time again.
Starving Artists: Money, Microsoft and America
While mainstreamization may seem like the natural next step in the evolutionary process of the games economy, the fact of the matter is that this cultural dilemma of ours is in many ways uniquely American. While in France a few months back, I spent some time checking out the gaming scene. There, it seemed to me, videogames were much less an element of mainstream culture than here in the States. Yet, because there's no mass outlet there for game appreciation, the fanboy subculture thrives. You find one-of-a-kind shops all over.
What makes America different: big business.
It's only one of a number of issues, but it's true that in joining the world of mainstream culture, videogames have also joined the world of mainstream business - though it's arguable which came first. In certain situations, however, the cause-and-effect is clear. Take, for example, the case of Microsoft, pioneers of the all-American console, with plenty of money and weight to throw around in order to get things done. Of course, there are plenty of employees at Microsoft who are genuinely interested in producing a quality system and positively impacting the videogame industry. But the company's overall goal is to make money off a market that has gone largely unexploited: the mainstream. They'd like an Xbox 360 in every living room. They'd like your mothers to play. And your wives. Anyone. Everyone. Which pretty much sums up mainstreamization itself.
