Gamers. We all know what they are like, and chances are you are even friends with a few. Common attributes include subscriptions to gaming magazines such as Game Informer, spending $50 at least once a month on a new video game, ownership of more than one video gaming system, having the “Game FAQs” website bookmarked and, of course, hours of daily video gaming. Sound familiar? Of course, we all know that these pimply, socially awkward, drooling people with glasses are a fungus on the feet of humanity, concerned with nothing more than the release date of the next Half-Life game. Right?

Wrong.

A popular target for social exclusion, gamers have been given a very bad reputation over the years. Many parents and public figures share the opinion of Joanne Cantor, professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is “ convinced that violent video games do contribute to adolescents becoming more violent, having more hostile feelings and more desensitization." Sometimes, in the eyes of the general public, gamers’ morals have become synonymous with those of the games they love.

As ridiculous as it sounds, some even believe that gamers approve of violent acts, such as murder, and these same people believe that video games preach a disregard for human life. Bill France, director of clinical programs at Luther Child Center in Everett, Wash., is convinced that “Violent video games are training children to kill.” But aren’t these also the kinds of things that we “normal” people learn from the news and print media through coverage of war and terrorism? And yet the fact remains that gamers are still seen by some as leading contributors to the degradation of moral, productive society.

Fortunately for young adult and college-aged gamers “video games are becoming a really cool, acceptable hobby,” says Craig Getting ’08. It’s not uncommon at Kenyon to walk by groups of people discussing the latest Madden NFL game or walk past dorm rooms and hear Legend of Zelda music wafting from within. With each successive generation since Atari, video games have gotten more complicated graphically as well as in plot; it’s easy to see how so many people could be sucked into Final Fantasy gameplay for hours upon end when the stories are so intricate.

According to Nate Ewert-Krocker ’07, “I think that because games have evolved from simple beginnings like Tetris and Galaga, there's this stigma that they're incapable of telling a compelling story or moving people emotionally.” In fact, there are countless games on the market that have novel-quality stories: they just happen to include 3D images that talk, move, and fight. In that sense, video games are sort of the novel of the future in many ways.

However, it’s usually not from their peers that gamers receive the most criticism, but from the older generations who remember when Pong first appeared on the market as an amusing distraction. But gamers aren’t just people who have a cool hobby and spend all their time in front of their computers and TVs—they can be as able scholars and philanthropists as anyone else. It’s about time to spread the word that, whether united as one team or left as a group of independents, gamers are a powerful force, capable of doing some amazing things.

One of the best examples of the good that can result from the combined efforts of a large group of people actually comes from two gamers based in Seattle, Wash. They set out to change the world’s negative perception of the video game obsessed and hailing from one of the most popular gaming web comics in existence, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins—otherwise known as Tycho and Gabe in their web comic Penny Arcade—set up a charity to benefit children’s hospitals.

Child’s Play was founded in 2003 and has recently finished its second run this past holiday season. The gig is simple: participants went to the Child’s Play website, selected the hospital they wanted to give to, checked out their Amazon.com wish list, purchased as few or as many items as they wanted, and had them shipped directly to the hospital’s doorstep. Or, if they didn’t want to buy anything, they could just donate money through the Child’s Play website.

With contributions from their readership of over three and a half million gamers from around the world, Child’s Play raised “over $310,000 in video games, video game machines, toys and cash for the five participating children's hospitals” according to PR Newswire.

In addition to the established online purchasing system developed last year, Penny Arcade hosted a formal benefit dinner in Seattle where gamers and their guests “generated over $14,000 in donations,” and the evening “was a fabulous time for all who attended.” It seems there’s another side to the typical gamer that’s been well hidden from the public eye all this time.

One of the perks about developing a charity geared towards gamers is that the prizes generate more interest since they are tailored to enthusiasts of specific games rather than offering something more general. In the words of Tycho and Gabe, Child’s Play “[has] proven [gamers] to be a powerful force when stirred into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real good.”

This was an amazing opportunity for gamers as well as non-gamers to directly make a difference in a sick child’s life. After all, wouldn’t it mean the world to you if someone gave you a copy of Mario Kart to play while you lay in bed recovering from tonsil surgery? I think it would.

Gamers have grown tired of being seen as the useless dregs of society with no friends outside the realm of pixels and Playstation 2, an image perpetuated by many decision makers and adults. “I would say people need to stop thinking of gamers as social outcasts, glued to their computers at all hours of the night," says Ewert-Krocker. “This is college— half of us are up all night glued to computers anyway.”

And we might as well have fun with it, right? Gamers are productive, motivated and dedicated people who simply happen to love their hobby. If everyone could be instilled with the same sense of passion that some gamers possess for what they enjoy, I’m convinced that many of the social, economic and health-related problems in the world would be that much closer to a resolution. After all, it only takes a small group of people with great passion to change the world.