Editor's Choice

They're Everywhere!

Games are accessible, which means more people play games, which means playing games is less weird, and so it's not so surprising when my friend Emi, a third-year college student, points out DQVIII as her favorite while I'm running errands in Akihabara's Electric Town. Yes, people who play too many games are still considered weird - with the notorious examples of "hikikomori," shut-ins that tend to spend their days insulated in their bedrooms in their parents' house, playing games all day being a prime example - but presence of games alone, in acceptable contexts, is not necessarily enough to be what we call a "gamer."

Present-day America does not have the identity of "moviegoer" in the same sense that we consider our gamers. A DVD player alone is not enough to constitute part of our identity; we are science-fiction moviegoers, action moviegoers or Johnny Depp moviegoers. The analogue to a gamer is, perhaps, a "film buff," but of course, the film buff is characterized not simply by knowledge of movies but excessive knowledge of movies.

This is why it's a little weird when I wear my 1UP tee, and a little weirder to see Super Potato, Akihabara's legendary retro game store, populated by wolf packs of college-age Americans. Japanese people - the ones who know Electric Town well enough to know about Super Potato, at any rate - stop by to get in a quick game of Super Mario Bros. 3. Americans come on a pilgrimage. We gasp and drool in awe over something that everyone else takes for granted. We incorporate the gaming into our identity. Everyone else thinks that's kind of weird.

A fellow American international student landed a sweet job teaching English in Tokyo for about US$30 an hour. One of his students - a housewife in her early 40s - carried Mickey Mouse emblems on her electronic dictionary, handkerchief, watch, cellular phone, cosmetic pouch, even her imitation Louis Vuitton handbag, and introduced herself as "Miki." "I really like Mickey Mouse," she said on the first day. As Americans, perhaps we're not surprised enough to ask, "Oh, you know Mickey Mouse?" because, well, everybody grew up with Mickey Mouse, didn't they? We won't, generally speaking, handle Mickey Mouse with the same amount of retro cool that we regard the 1UP. In fact, we might think it's kind of weird when grown people saturate their belongings with him. But searching for the barest hint of familiarity, like Mickey or the 1UP, can be enough push someone over that cultural gap and hesitantly stammer in a language that's not their own, "You know Mario?" Which in turn could lead you to "Do you play videogames?" "Oh, you like kickboxing, too?" or, more often than not, "You like drinking?"

Mario - and the 1UP - will not make you look more Japanese any more than adorning her accessories with Mickey Mouse will make a Japanese woman look more American. They will not speak volumes about your personality the way that they can in the U.S. They're not a cultural skeleton key, guaranteeing you acceptance into another people's way of viewing the world. But making the effort helps bridge gaps that have been open for far too long. That, I think, is good enough.

Pat Miller has been doing this for way too long. Stop by his blog, Token Minorities, for more on race and videogames.