Game subcultures – “a group of people that are that are focused on a certain aspect of a culture”

It is my turn to blog about this weeks topic and I have chosen “Games sub-cultures”

A game sub-culture is just like the lecturer Frans Mäyrä mentions “a group of people that are that are focused on a certain aspect of a culture” so in a game context it could be that you are only/most a fan of a particular genre, game or gamestyle. For example LAN-players that play First-person-shooters like Counter-strike or Unreal Tournament is definitly part of a sub-culture.  It is also common that members of a sub-culture devolps their own shared language and slang and that it has an effect on yur identity as a person. That the games you play, and how you are playing them, are essential for your identity as a person. So, if you are a part of a game sub-sulture you are probably a pretty hardcore gamer.    

Listening to the podcast made me realise that subcultures is very interesting.  I have always seen myself as a game fan, a fan of the culture as a whole, but now I´m realising that I´m probably more of a sub-culture person since it´s very difficult to really be into the whole culture. You will have to play all different genres of games, and been enjoying everyone and that I have not done. That is like being a moviefan. It´s not very common that you enjoy all sorts/genres of movies and I think it is the same for games. I´m really a fan of Story-driven single player games, mostly action, so I am not very social in my gaming, so I guess that puts me in some sort of “story-driven shooting subculture”

But it´s not like I only play one sort of games, I try to test as many as possible, otherwise it would be very boring,  so I, and many others, probably belong to many sub-cultures of games. I especially reacted when the lecturer talked about subculture-persons mentioned that “you are also probably interested in memorabilia like the boxes and the posters or other artefacts that are dealing with a particular style of games” cause that is me in a nutshell. I´m a  fan of games like Metal Gear Solid and Silent hill and have a lot of T-shirts,  posters, stickers and other similar memorabilia and it has really had an impact on me as a person. Me and my friends are  fans, and often quotes the main characters lines, discussing the games story and have had quite an impact on our personalities and what we consider good stories and/or good games. I´m pretty sure that I would have been a pretty different person without those games but that is of course very hard to say. But I´m probably not hardcore enough to truly belong to a sub-culture I think, cause it is not like I breathe Metal Gear Solid or Silent Hill for that Matter, but it has really had an impact. But I´m not sure if that makes me a part of my imaginary “story-driven shooting subculture”

/Fredrik Edström