Riding the Sea Change: the Death and Rebirth of Subculture
What's a gamer to do? Mainstreamization is sweeping away the subcultures both of videogame shopping and videogames themselves, but this flood isn't one we can fight. Hiding in our basements, pretending our community isn't disseminating won't change anything. Then what?
Let it go. The fanboy shops. The fanboy culture. Gaming as we know it. Let it disappear. Mainstreamization is at our doorsteps, and it won't stop there. Don't close your eyes; watch the process closely. Watch things change. Watch as more and more people play, as being a gamer means less and less - just as calling yourself a movie-goer nowadays would be banal, almost absurd. Watch as big business feeds mass culture, as games are developed again and again from the same stagnant pool the public demands. But don't worry. Let the mainstream have their mediocrity. Something better is coming.
In the wake of our loss, we will shake off all the baggage, all the fluff that currently weighs us down. That will be left behind with the mainstream. We will form an entirely new subculture, one forged in the sea of mainstreamization, a more thoughtful subculture because it will have had to define itself from other, less deliberate forms of gaming. By first facing a crisis of selfhood, we will form a truly meaningful self. We will be, in short, the indie scene - the force that breaks away from mainstream commercialism and creates significant, and still recognized, pieces of art. As for the economic side of things, some among us are already breaking new ground, breaking from the big business of game publishing. Soon, we may find our beloved fanboy shops, once obliterated, reawakened online all around us.
Bonnie Ruberg is a video game journalist specializing in gender and sexuality in games and gaming communities. She also runs a blog, Heroine Sheik, dedicated to such issues. Most recently, her work has appeared at Wired.com, The A. V. Club, and Gamasutra.
