While attending a recent Microsoft Kinect event in Australia, Atomic MPC editor David Hollingworth was offended when Microsoft regional manager David McLean cracked wise at the expense of gamers to a crowd packed with fashion and lifestyle magazine journalists.
Here's an account of the offending comments, according to Atomic MPC:
"Gaming's not just for sweaty thirty year olds in Metallica t-shirts," quipped Microsoft's regional entertainment tzar at yesterday's lifestyle event, David McLean. The audience of fashion editors and lifestyle doyens yukked it up appreciatively, but we couldn't believe our ears. That's it? That's what you're reducing a huge percentage of your audience to now - a one-liner gag to make the cheap-seats feel it's okay to waddle about in front of their television sets?
And it didn't end there - the presentation featured constant allusions to basement dwelling nerds and impenetrable control schemes. Which is fine if Microsoft's courting vacuous fashionistas now, but does the company have to do it at our expense?
I'm not sure if it is funnier that someone at Microsoft allegedly said this stuff or that someone took offense to what was a series of one-liners about core gamers to a bunch of "beautiful people" who know as much about video games as Paris Hilton knows about the geography of Australia. Microsoft knows that core gamers don't think that much of Kinect to begin with - other than that it is kind of neat if you are too lazy to navigate those Xbox Live menus using a controller.
On the other hand, Microsoft might want to take note of who will be there to pick up the pieces should this little casual experiment of theirs fail: those same sweaty 30-somethings rocking those Metallica t-shirts. For the record, I like Metallica t-shirts, I don't mind being sweaty, and my last sports injury was while playing Wii Fit.
Comments
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
I'm a 32 YO gamer. I wear button down collared shirts to work and I sweat often when I swim/run/bike. Not sure that fits the stereotype. But really, I think someone here is being overly sensitive.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Mmm sweaty gamers or ghoulish anorexic models... mmmmmmm
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Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
"my last sports injury was while playing Wii Fit."
Thats kinda sad.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Yeah, us gamers should try to break those stereotypes. I hate the fact that some gamers are actually proud of how inactive they are or how bad they are with the opposite sex.....
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Nothing about that really says inactive.
There's lots of ways to exercise that aren't really considered "Sports"
I'll admit I'm inactive, but I'm not particularly proud of that.
I'm not bad with the opposite sex though. I've been told I'm rather charming due to my combination of boisterous joy of life and somewhat quick wit.
(Though I've argued the 'wit' is less 'wit' and more "my mouth says something sarcastic before my brain tells it to shut up")
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Nice to see that GP's breaking away from its gavel-to-gavel coverage of Schwarzenegger v. EMA. to bring us the biggest controversy in the history of gaming... Oh please.
Stop getting so offended at trivial things people. And change your shirts, Metallica is the Budweiser of metal anyways. Great easily accessible entry point, but once you've tasted better you toss the old stuff out.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Metallica's great. Its true they haven't put out any good stuff in a while, but I love listening to Ride The Lightning. It honestly is one of my most liked thrash metal albums.
Nothing can beat Iron Maiden though, best metal band imo. I wear my Maiden shirts whenever I want.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
This doesn't matter. The 360 fans will still swarm the console. McLean could have said, "Look, the people who buy our product are the biggest bunch of morons on the planet. They will buy a bag of feces as long as a Halo emblem is on it. I really hate their faces, their smell makes me sick to my stomach, and the group on a whole should never be allowed to breed. Still, they will flock to us like good little sheep. To prove my point, I am gonna raise the price of our online service an extra $20 a year as an 'ugly tax' and I can gurauntee we will still get these morons to line up and fork over cash so their 'friends list' would still be intact. Like those idiots could ever have friends. No sir, forget those guys. This new product is for people that have a functioning brain."
People would complain in every forum out there while still forking over their 'ugly tax' money because Halo: Reach is coming out.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
Yeah great way to talk about the people who keep you in business. People generally thought of as "geeks" and "nerds" were the first to actively use computers and play video games, as they grew up with them they brought these things into the mainstream.
So what, are "normal" people like jocks and the only way to appeal to them is to shove your loyal consumer base into a locker? That mindset is insulting to gamers AND to the casual audience M$ is courting.
Re: Did You Hear the One About the Sweaty Gamer?
"Did you hear the one about the sweaty gamer?"
Your gonna have to be more specific. ;)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstein
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstein