Gaming has really gone mainstream.

[Mai72]

I was just on Twitch and it seems that every pretty young girl is a gamer. That it's suddenly cool to be a gamer now. Many of the guy streamers have colored hair and nose rings. Or, they have these thick beards and look like lumberjacks. It's also so popular which is kinda good I guess.

Compare the state of gaming today to the late 90's/early 2000's. I remember playing UT online. The community was tight. The people playing were into gaming because it was a true passion. Yes, it was dominated by basement dwellers who were stuck in their mommy's basement eating Doritos and drinking Pepsi. We were viewed as outsiders. I remember playing Tactical Ops until 4am.

Now? Everyone is cool. It's cool to be a PC/console gamer. It's just that it's very mainstream now.

Do you guys feel the same way?

 

[norseamd]

Yes and no.

 

[renz20003]

I was just on Twitch and it seems that every pretty young girl is a gamer. That it's suddenly cool to be a gamer now. Many of the guy streamers have colored hair and nose rings. Or, they have these thick beards and look like lumberjacks. It's also so popular which is kinda good I guess.

Compare the state of gaming today to the late 90's/early 2000's. I remember playing UT online. The community was tight. The people playing were into gaming because it was a true passion. Yes, it was dominated by basement dwellers who were stuck in their mommy's basement eating Doritos and drinking Pepsi. We were viewed as outsiders. I remember playing Tactical Ops until 4am.

Now? Everyone is cool. It's cool to be a PC/console gamer. It's just that it's very mainstream now.

Do you guys feel the same way?

I thought it was really cool 20 years ago that's why I got into PC games.

Today's nerds just look different that's all.

 

[Imp]

From what I've heard, Twitch provides substantial revenue opportunities... for particular individuals with certain genetic assets.

 

[renz20003]

From what I've heard, Twitch provides substantial revenue opportunities... for particular individuals with certain genetic assets.

Back in my day we didn't have twitch we had justin.tv. And we didn't watch no video games we watched streamed sporting events and movies.

Damn kids with their large breasts and their games..

 

[ImpulsE69]

In my day, we just had random phone numbers we called hoping to get the screech of a modem to play our textual adventures and download ancient computer p0rn before the owners parents came home and needed to use the phone. Occasionally we'd dream that it was run by a hot large breasted female, but....alas, that was never the case.....

 

[KMFJD]

Why do all those streamers have the same chairs? is that a prerequisite

 

[Imp]

In my day, we just had random phone numbers we called hoping to get the screech of a modem to play our textual adventures and download ancient computer p0rn before the owners parents came home and needed to use the phone. Occasionally we'd dream that it was run by a hot large breasted female, but....alas, that was never the case.....

Back in my day, we tried playing games on a 14.4 kbps modem. It all went well until I got booted for having a shitty ping or someone used the phone and I got disconnected. My piece of shit ISP also didn't work after 9pm.

 

[Naer]

I stream, maybe get like 1-2 viewers in a span of 30 minutes. They peak and leave, i don't interact with anyone cause i don't have the chat open so if someone leaves me a message i never see itww

 

[IronWing]

Occasionally we'd dream that it was run by a hot large breasted female, but....alas, that was never the case.....

Large breasted males seemed to be the norm.

 

[Mai72]

Why do all those streamers have the same chairs? is that a prerequisite

Many streamers are now sponsored. Especially the big ones, so they get paid for using the companies items on their streams.

 

[Mai72]

From what I've heard, Twitch provides substantial revenue opportunities... for particular individuals with certain genetic assets.

It's crazy.

Some of those big streamers are getting 6 figures. Even if you're not huge, you can make a decent living. Beats going to a job you dislike.

 

[Imp]

It's crazy.

Some of those big streamers are getting 6 figures. Even if you're not huge, you can make a decent living. Beats going to a job you dislike.

Well, if they don't do Twitch, they can try Instagram and probably make a ton of money. If that doesn't work, cam-whoring is almost guaranteed success.

 

[Yongsta]

Back in my day we didn't have twitch we had justin.tv. And we didn't watch no video games we watched streamed sporting events and movies.

Damn kids with their large breasts and their games..

The justin.tv guy Justin Kan saw how popular the video games portion was on his site so he made twitch... later sold it to Amazon and got a nice payday.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Geek culture is cool now. The same people that used to steal your lunch money have now stolen your culture.

As someone who was a geek in the 90s and went to high school in that time, I envy the modern geeks. No way would I have said i liked RPG's (only doom was socially acceptable) or fantasy books, I would have got my ass kicked.

 

[Yakk]

Geek culture is cool now. The same people that used to steal your lunch money have now stolen your culture.

As someone who was a geek in the 90s and went to high school in that time, I envy the modern geeks. No way would I have said i liked RPG's (only doom was socially acceptable) or fantasy books, I would have got my ass kicked.

Yup... Now imagine during the 80s...

 

[SAAA]

Yup, gaming has gotten popular. I've been living through the change and I still find myself surprised at people my age getting millions of viewers (not to talk about money) for... playing games. Even crap ones, or playing bad themselves at times.

I tell myself that I need a decent job then I look at these guys and think: whatt?!
Man if only I started streaming 5 years ago when I first touched Minecraft... maybe I could have a nice new rig and some hundreds thousand followers, if not more by now.

On the other hand there's the fact that tech in general also got more popular: when I was 10 none of my friends that I remember had a PC, let alone two as my father did, but a few years down the line pretty much everyone got one, then dsl internet and later cells. Console gaming was a thing before but nowhere near close the boom of games and "techification" I saw during the 2000's, mostly on PC.

 

[Kaido]

Nearly every adult male I work with has either an Xbox or Playstation for stuff like COD & Modern Warfare. Even five years ago, you would still have gotten some flack for being an adult male playing loser video games, but it's totally normal now. It's funny seeing gaming be an acceptable pasttime after all these years...