Market Force

1. Remind people that we aren’t here on earth to be automatons devoid of all entertainment and enjoyment. We are, as Kurt Vonnegut put it, ‘here to fart around’. Gaming more than anything else allows us to fart around to our heart’s content. I suggest a national – or even international – campaign reminding people of the need to fart around: magazine inserts, full-page adverts, billboards, leaflet campaigns – the lot.

2. Stop using the two extremes when picturing who actually plays games. First there’s the Nintendo approach, with happy families from across the nation (or the Redknapps) united in their pristine, white homes to tackle Mario Kart/Super Dance-o 2010/Mega Brick Layer XXVI. Second you have the Sony gambit, where everything is a ‘lifestyle choice’ and simply owning a PSPgo will actually have a discernable effect on your fortunes, rather than simply make you a more opportune mugging target. Finally the Microsoft effort which, as always, is an amalgamation of the other two. Don’t picture these people: they’re not real. They’re not representative.

On the other hand, though, don’t use those images. You know the ones I’m talking about: fat, spotty nerds drinking Mountain Dew, eating Cheetos and generally being something of a disgrace to humanity as we know it (though not on the same scale as those lifestyle pricks mentioned before).

Just call it how it is. Fat people, thin people, pretty people, ugly people, men, women, boys and girls – basically, for future reference, show pictures of every single person in the world when marketing video games. Then you can’t go wrong.

3.    Stop using the word ‘gamers’ to describe gamers. It sounds like a brand of toilet cleaner that’s been re-launched as a refreshing beverage. Oh wait – that’s Gaymer’s.

4. Re-educate the public to change their reaction to their gaming contemporaries. But don’t actually change how they perceive us, just re-educate them to shut the hell up. This will stop them from voicing their inane, tabloid-educated opinions on us before they tell us that – once again – games are responsible for all ills in the world. I’m happy to let them keep on thinking whatever it is they want, just so long as they keep that trap shut. It’s a foolproof plan.

5. Every game should from now on be branded with Bertrand Russell’s wonderful words: “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

These simple steps will help us get beyond this quagmire we’re currently in with gaming. It will help us transcend petty naysayers, overcome the doubters and usher in a new Golden Era of sitting around on our backsides, choosing which colour Shepard’s armour should be, without being negatively judged by the masses.

I don’t demand payment for the use of any of these ideas, by the way. That is unless someone actually ends up using them, in which case I’ll take 20 per cent of all profits for the next 34 years, thanks.
Ian Dransfield