Why do pro gamers resemble boy bands?

I highly doubt a "better" image would make me that them any more seriously. I think there are a large number of pro gamers who have no image and magazines would never in their right mind show pictures of them. My question is what would be the right image for gamers? Should they be goth? Should they be nerdy? I think you make a good point about the boy band but I can't picture a pro gamer coming off in a positive light. They're just trying too hard. They should take down the DBZ posters from their bedrooms.

"it only works on gay 13- to 17-year-old-boys comfortable with their sexuality, and that's not really a big demo either."
That made me crack up, thanks.

I think what pro gaming needs is someone with personality and is a comfortable enough person with themselves to not only be themselves but outspoken. Boxing right now is going through a similar problem. No interesting boxers, not to say they are bad, but they are not fun to watch and the personality just isn't there. Gaming will get it's poster child eventually.

Side note, the emo look is really bad imo. Who would want to be a part of that group?

I really dislike the idea of these "pro gamers." It really is like boy bands on a differnt level as well, a lot of people can sing well, even better then those of the backstreet boys or N*sync yet they get unnecessary attention. There are a lot of gamers who are much more capeable then these "pro gamers," its really just more hollywood meida junk.

the reason: boy bands are duche bags and dress in shitty clothing. gamers play in whatever is confortable and loose.

conclusion:boy bands are duches and gamers are relaxed and like clothing that gives them optible movement and comfort

im a pro gamer and im missing my 360 UPDATE

where is it microsoft?????

gah

Wow, these guys are so friggin cool.

I'm stopping at the hair place for some gel after work!

Does this have anything to do with the South Korean crazy gamer leagues? This kind of crap really never took off here.

hmm. i have always wondered, "how can i give a pro gamer a swift kick in the yams if they haven't dropped yet?"

i think we should be seeing different stereotypes. there are as many chainsmoking, pothead gamers as there are kiddie gamers that sit in their mother's basement.

nice haircuts by the way. they try so hard at being different that they all end up the same. douchebags.

well, I think professional gaming has more problems than just image. But that's beside the point of this article. The problem is, they need to identify the pro gamers with their virtual counterparts. Seeing the actual players geeked out with lame Zelda t-shirts or sporting emo, pretty boy poses doesn't work. Most pro sports market the image of talent and incredible skills. They don't market their players' looks. Professional gaming needs to market how skillful these players are and I think the best way to do that is to associate them with the actual models in the game - show off those sniping skills or stealth moves, etc. Making sure that each player is visible with their name and some way of identifying each other. Granted this would work mainly for FPSs, but that's mainly what Pro gaming is about, right? Showing the kids themselves just takes away the fantasy of the game.

I got a feeling it's other going to some strang getto/rap/gizmo image. Where there going around with crazy stuff like Pack packs that do every thing and any thing, to bling-bling featuering things like NES and sega geneuses controllers.

That or it's going to pick up the image, that the internet/(cool)Geek/Tecnologic crowed has. Like what that websote Jinx is trying to sell.


Maby even a combo of the two? Only time will tell.

Why the "need" to create a false image to represent themselves? They should just be as the are, naturally. In that way, pro gamers could create a very unique "image".

At least they're not being portrayed as socially-inept shut-ins. To be honest, they look like typical young men. They're European, and their fashion sensibilities are much better than the average American male, but to be honest, they just look like normal kids.

Each gamer should dress like their favorite fantasy/sci-fi character. One kid could dress up like Superman, one like a Klingon, one like a Ferenghi, one like Piccard's character in Oblivion... That should please the target demographic.

Pussy must be falling out of their pockets looking like that.

I'm not getting what the problem is here... that image looks like a lineup of typical average American useless teenage boys.

"nice haircuts by the way. they try so hard at being different that they all end up the same. douchebags."

...Are your eyes OK? Those guys all have pretty different haircuts. Or maybe you're trying "so hard" to work the word 'douchebag' into a post that you'll call different hairstyles "the same" regardless. I wonder how many of us look at group photos of ourselves with our friends and can honestly say we all look REALLY different from each other. At least no one in the photos has a stupid "I.T. Guy" goatee like this:

http://www.imdb.com/gallery/hh/0641168/HH/0641168/iid_1263456.jpg.html?hint=nm0641168

At which point I would recommend a public stoning... But otherwise, while I'm not impressed with the boring clothes and lackluster style these kids have, I admit it's just teenagers dressing the way teenagers dress. May want to stay away from, well, um, OUTDOORS if you don't like the way it looks.

I'm thinking emo.

Aw, cheer up emo!

The only thing 'pro gaming' needs to do is die a quick death. What a farce.

"Why the "need" to create a false image to represent themselves? They should just be as the are, naturally. In that way, pro gamers could create a very unique "image"."

HOORAY for fat slobs and Cheeto stained clothes!

Get a hair cut
Get a tan

You're no cool, You're lame

People actually care about pro-gaming? I know I don't. Given the choice between video games and sports, I'll choose video games every time. Given the choice between watching video games and watching sports, I'll choose sports every time.

The problem with pro-gaming are the kids pictured above. Another problem with pro-gaming is guys using nicknames like Fatal1ty. C'mon, that is seriously tooly.

Pro-gamers have a bad stereotype and for good reason. All the reasons mentioned above my post sum it up nicely.

http://i30.multiplay.co.uk/imgs/winners/supcom/1stplace.jpg

^^
That's what pro-gamers.. nay all gamers look like, time to face reality.

If pro-gaming does, at some point, become important to regular people, it will need a better image than what's already been portrayed. By the way, I say "regular" people because TV companies aren't going to start seriously investing in something like this until it has a significant viewer base.

I think the problem with the current images of pro-gamers has to do with connecting. At the moment, pro-gamers are made to look like Fallout Boy clones. While you might like their music, most people can't project themselves into that image. A TV show or competition airing isn't going to score viewers if no one can relate to these people. This isn't a sport, and you can't really market it as such.

If pro-gamers are to get an image, they should look at something reasonably similar, like the world Series of Poker. Those people have no illusions that they are athletes in some way, they just know how to play a game. What's more, the people on WSoP have actual personalities. The MTV True Life "I'm a Pro Gamer" hit the nail on the head with what loses appeal. Pro-gamers all come off as high school dropouts who were each that one guy, at work or in high school, whose only ambition in life was to "get laid by a hot chick" someday.

I would respect them if they were over 21 and didn't look emo. Instead, they look like a bunch of losers. :(

There is a substantial difference here that people don't know how to market. We aren't fans of games, we ARE gamers. It's the equivalent of marketing pro athletes to amateur athletes, or pop bands to actual singers. We don't care about the image, because we come for the games, not the people who play them. We see right through the hype because in a way we're all "insiders".

As such, I wonder if there is even a market for "pro gamers". Gaming is about me and my experiences, not about enjoying games viscerally through celebs. If there is some kind of market, it needs to be someone we can respect and relate to, it needs to be "one of us".

HAWT!

They should get SSBM players to put pictures of everywhere. They don't try to be "cool" and are mellow and each one unique. Isai or Wes would beat those emo kids any day.

So which one's the token "tough yet sensitive, bad boy"?

@ IslandLife

The short one

FINGERBANG!

"The problem with pro-gaming are the kids pictured above. Another problem with pro-gaming is guys using nicknames like Fatal1ty. C'mon, that is seriously tooly."

Haha, I have to agree. The image is not helped by the problem that gamers tend to have ridiculous names that you have difficulty saying in general conversation. Just try it: try talking to someone about gaming in real life and mention a "pro gamer" called "Fatal1ty" -- "that's with a one instead of an 'I'!" -- I think you'll think you sound silly.

And the coverage is another problem. Until this article I'd never heard of "Fatal1ty". The only "pro gamer" who's name I would recognise is Heaton, and even then...

Perhaps it's because "pro gamers" as a whole are generally arrogant kids who make it really hard for you to actually like them (or I find it so, anyway). We do have prominent gaming figures, take for instance the guys at Penny Arcade, but not "pro gamers"...

Mike

For as much bellyaching I hear on this thread about pro-gamers emo/goth/image...those guys look just like normal folks. Get over yourselves people.

When I am in a gaming mood I pick up the controller and play games. I do not turn on the TV to watch a bunch of 15yo nerds play games. I just don't think gaming has reached a point where it can be a spectator sport. How many game watching related shows have lasted more than 1 season on TV? People just aren't into it.. I've never purchased anything endorsed by a "pro" gamer or even payed attention to what they are saying.. I guess if companies like throwing their money away on sponsorships then so be it.

Pro gaming and professional sports don't belong in the same sentence. You don't hear World Poker Tour players going around saying we are like pro sports. I think "pro" gamers and poker players have more in common.

What do you expect, you are considered an old geezer who stands no chance once you hit age 25 in the world of gaming. The best gamers start losing once they hit around 20. Complaining about no adults in this will just make you all look jealous that you can't compete. I'm 22 and I already feel the difference of when I hit rank 13 in RA2 one month. I'm proficient at DotA but that requires a little less speed, and a bit more maturity with teamwork than most. But let's face it, the average 18 year old hardcore gamer will beat the shit out of a 25 year old, and these kids are what 18 year olds really look like. How many college freshman football players aren't touted around as teen heartthrobs? It's the same thing here.

Back in my day, pro gamers were clean cut asian kids named Thresh.

Gaming will get it's poster child eventually.

--

Dear God did you just compare the sport of Boxing to.. playing Mario Brothers...

You lost me..

Nobody wants to sit around watching other people play games unless it's to show them a trick to get through a difficult part of the game.

I heard about this and tried to watch some tournament once for Rainbow Six: Vegas. As hard as the announcers/commentators tried (and I gotta give them props for trying really hard), I lost complete interest after five minutes.

I then went and started playing one of my own games and had way more fun than watching those guys play.

But then I don't watch people sit around playing card games on TV either. It's just not visually exciting.

It will be hard to manufacture interest in something that on its face is hard to have an interest in watching regardless of what the pro-gamers look like.

We don't need a poster child or any other stereotypical image to generalize gamers; we had (and probably still have) the infamous unsocial Fat zit faced potato couch virgin look.

Someone like Reggie, Jaffe, or Major Nelson should get into pro-gaming. Someone with a memorable name and a distinct personality that isn't a total prick

right now all pro-gaming has are veritable Kaplin's, Hirai's, and Cliffy B's...

"You are considered an old geezer who stands no chance once you hit age 25 in the world of gaming."

I dont know about you... but I still kickass, and I am 26. I could have been a pro-gamer and quit school and my job and just play videogames all day... but around 17 I found out I could make more money finishing school and finding a good job.

The whole pro-gamer thing is stupid. I think to be a real Pro-gamer you need to be good at DDR, First Person Shooters, Fighting Games, Puzzle Games and Driving Games. That way you can really see who is Pro and who truly has skill.

randomshagz's right, a lot of pro gamers are only good at one franchise or even just one game.

Pro gamers are zombie marketing tools.

I could beat any progamer in REAL games like Virtua Fighter and DOA4

Like any other product, they need to be packaged for resale.

-JW

There are no such things as "pro gamers". There's FPS/RPG/RTS/MMO/DDR/TCG/etc enthusiasts but I doubt there's any one person who could whip you at every major game. They might whip you at 2 or 3, but there's always going to be someone who's spent enough time with that one game to whip your ass at it.

sigh, i'd rather not have known this and still believed that pro gamers were fat abd acne ridden or dangerously thin and malnourished so i could at least say to myself that no on can realistically market them.

@ 30

NO WAY MAN! THEY ARE SOOO THE NEW FAITH +1

see the guy on the left, hes not even looking at the camera.


....everything relates back to southpark

"I doubt there's any one person who could whip you at every major game."

Hello, my name is randomshagz. Please to meet you.

Pro gaming will never "take off." The fact of the matter is that anybody who spends a significant amount of time playing a video game is going to get good at it. These morons spouting in interviews about their daily "training regimen" and exercising their thumbs is exactly that: shit, like Fata1ity's demands that pro gaming be recognized as an athletic sport. The day we start seeing real people running around a massive holographic projection is the day we'll see widespread pro gaming, and by then it won't even be recognizable as a video game.

"Pro gaming will never "take off."" Sure, keep believing that.. lol.

"The fact of the matter is that anybody who spends a significant amount of time playing a video game is going to get good at it." Are you really simple? this applies to EVERYTHING you do.. if you practise kicking a ball, you will get good at it, of course, if you practise throwing balls, you will get good at it...

And for those who's saying there is not enough ppl into it to support a spectator sport.. GET SOME FACTS. In Korea, videogaming is considered to be the 2nd biggest sport of the nation.. and we are also seing this growing trend in the western world, see Championship gaming series.

And to comment on the topic of the blog.. haven't you been outside for the past 5 years? people normally looks like this, it's nothing odd at all.. if it's like boy bands or not I'll left unsaid but that's not really the point, these people look like any average teenager. Finally, the swedish e-sport site rakaka.se made an excellent comment on those who's probably really behind this blog, I'll translate it for you.

"What the gaming geeks at joystiq says is that "progamers" has an image problem. Though you shouldn't take this criticism to seriously since the person behind this blog rarely been outside his house for the past 6 months, are probably sitting around jerking off to their Wii and think world of warcraft is a cool game (first time they try a multiplayer game for real)."

I can't believe the fact that there's a bunch of Americans passing judgement on how a typical 18 year old Swede looks. Geez, if any of you had ever seen a group of Swedish kids between perhaps 17-20 you'd realize that every single one of them looks like this. I'm Swedish, and I don't even have to try to find me a bunch of "boy-band lookalikes". Get your facts straight before posting, this is simply horrible. Oh, and just because the generic American gamer looks like he's not even trying doesn't mean that everybody in the whole fucking world needs to approach the things they wear the same way.