ABSTRACT
Writing Videogames in 2003 (Newman 2004), I commented on the pervasiveness of what I termed the ‘myth of the solitary videogame player’ and the claims that videogames not only appealed to but were actually responsible for creating socially withdrawn individuals (see also Jessen 1995). As we saw in Chapter 1, some five years on, the notion of the gamer as an isolated loner remains a staple of the popular discourse and is even activated among gamers, albeit in a rather more ironic way, with talk of ‘Otaku’ and ‘fanboys’. It is not my intention to retread the ground covered in my earlier book, but it is useful to briefly recap some of the key points so as to provide a base upon which to expand our analysis here.
