Are gamers readers? [Topic is Three Years Old]

@rebgav: For me its because Im very dependent on visual stimulation to keep me attentive to something. I used to read books all the time. Hell, I remember one night I stayed up the entire night and read the entirety of White Fang in nearly one go. Anymore though I dunno just doesn't catch my attention. Ironically enough if I get a subject that I have enough to say about I do enjoy writing.

Sometimes.

@sursh said:

Hard to choose just one. In fiction I love me some Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, Garth Nix, and Phillip Pullman. On the nonfiction side, Stephen Hawking, Dave Barry, Charles Seife.

This.

I read, but I can't really say I'd read a book about a gamer. I didn't like Ready Player One.

I'd read a story about a gamer. In fact, there was some children's story I read (as a child) that had two kids get sucked into a game world. They reached level 6 and got killed by a panther on a bridge. But you should mentioned any of the books based on video games or vice versa to your publisher, like Halo or The Witcher. Outside of that, you could rhetorically ask who they think read fantasy and sci-to (not that those are the only things that interest gamers.

I love games. I love reading. To expand. I read about 3 books in 2 weeks. It comes from my college time when I had about 3 papers due at a time. It usually annoys the hell out of my friends. The Game of Thrones books have slowed down my progress. But to give a good example, the past two weeks I read a book on the rise of the Roman Empire, the Barbary Wars, and the third ice and fire book (about 3/4). As well I played and beat 4 games (I got tired of The End of Us about halfway through). And I saw 3 movies (Man of Steel wasn't bad and This is the End is funny). And I worked 40 hour weeks. And I played golf every Saturday. And I went to 3 parties. That isn't always typical. Oh and I had two dates (same girl). One was one of the parties that included going to a movie. Sometimes you have to manage with what you can fit into a day.

yes! bukowski was the first (& only) author to make me laugh at a rape scene. his flippant humour rubbed off on me so well.

I mostly just research things and read online articles nowadays. I've been trying to write a book for like the past two years, so my motivation to read other works has kinda been put on hold.

That is the best book summary I have ever read.

The Witcher was actually a book before it was ever a game, but I take your point. Unfortunately, dropping franchise names does no good because, well, they are franchises that sell in the millions. People are already invested in the fiction of those worlds. The problem seems to be "new IPs," just like in games. Publishers like sequels very much.

Pretty sure gamers reads as much as any other group, and possible more than some.

Isn't this just another myth like the one about the lack of exercise?

I read a lot as a kid and teen. Not as much as I like now but I always try to squeeze in a couple pages a day if I'm really busy, plus there's all the other types of media, work and social commitments to handle.

Oh, hell yeah! Not only do I love to read, I have to read due to my job. I haven't managed to find a good translation for my position in English, but I am the one who manages all the adult fiction and non-fiction books at my bookstore. I don't get to read as much as I'd like though, since games and general computer usage eats a lot of time without me noticing it...
I gave myself a goal to read eight books during my three week holiday (which ends tomorrow) and I managed most of them. That is about 2000 pages. So yeah, I am a reader.

It sounds to me like your publisher was being polite. The gamers (we'll go with that term shall we) I know tend to read genre junk, if at all. Most bibliophiles I know generally disregard games as spurious and its pretty easy to see why ( ie The walking dead being praised from all corners for its absurd morality fable plot contrivances and manufactured by the half tonne characters). It doesn't help that the standard of criticism of games is shockingly anaemic with regards to storytelling.

Some are, some aren't. Right? Like the rest of society?

I read a lot, especially during summer

I've been reading books longer than I have been playing video games (or in any case more consistently). Video games stories are a joke so I don't go to them for my Story needs - I go to novels for that. Put a gun to my head and say pick books or video games and its an easy choice. I would miss video games but hey I read more novels than I play games. That said I don't read novels about video games very much or ever really. My Kindle is my most precious piece of technology.

Wait, we're not readers? That's news to me. I read something like... 50-70 books a year? I wonder what kind of market research they did to test that?

I love reading. Mostly fantasy stuff, nothing serious (apart from the odd foray into Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, most of which went over my head). Big fan of Terry Brooks' Shannara series, and the Jack Reacher books. Just started reading A Song of Ice and Fire, been reading it at work on my iPhone, so it's going to take a while!

Big reader here as well, fantasy, sci-fi and horror being my favorite genres. I am nearly finished with my second read-through of the Song of Ice and Fire series. Please, Mr. Martin, give me Winds of Winter...I needs it.

I used to but then stopped because reading books is far too time consuming for what little free time I have. I tend to read a lot when I'm on vacation though. But that's an increasingly rarer thing to have happen.

I love reading, but between gaming and a fulltime job i have to admit I don't do it as much as I would like.

I am, yes.

Yes. I love to watch movies and play games, but I especially enjoy sitting back and relaxing with a good book. There's nothing quite like it.

I've been gaming, reading and writing my novel for decades. Maybe someday I'll finish the novel.

I write with most of my free time left over after gaming. That or either sit in my little cocoon of blankets and read for a couple of hours. I also play guitar but haven't been able to touch that for a couple days because still waiting for a new tuner to arrive after the last one took a bit of a spill.

I used to read books all the time, but it's dropped off a ton lately. Mostly because I haven't found, or really looked, for anything new, and I've re-read most of the stuff I own like 3 times at the least.

Actually, thinking about it, I think I have the Hunger Games and A Song of Ice and Fire series somewhere, and I know I never got around to reading them...

...but the free time I have now-a-days is reserved for basically only games. I miss being in school and having tons of free time. I am the type of person who will take an hour and read through a codex/journal/whatever, though (like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and I just started The Witcher 3 so I'm guessing that will have some stuff).

Edit: Oh hey, did not realize how old this thread was...did someone delete a post above me? Or did I just randomly stumble into this somehow on the front page of the forums? Eh, still a good discussion.

I don't even think I know how to read.

@scampbell said:

Is there any actual data about either of those? I'm kind of curious if anyone's studied it.

I love all fictional fantasy and/or sci-fi universes and the characters that feature in them, regardless of whether they originated in video games, books/comics, TV or film.

Being a gamer is one part of my escapist tendencies.

Your publisher sounds dumb. Unless they have done some sort of representative extensive research on the matter, it seems highly unlikely that gamers exclusively do not read.

if anyone wants to read more but can't muster the commitment I strongly recommend short story collections. Sometimes when I'm not in the mood for something grand I'll just pop a short story and move on with my life.

Lifehack alert (sarcasm... Kind of). Check your local library's website; just found out some libraries have digital catalogs. All you need is a library card and whatever service they use, and it's totally free. Just started reading a game of thrones after finding this out.

There are still a section of games that directly relies on gamers also being readers. Text adventures. In fact I saw this thread (although 3 years old now) and thought I would mention that I have in fact counted on gamers also being readers. I am set to release a game in a little less than a month. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/426290/ for those who are interested.) In which relies on gamers being readers. I of course did my research on this and it looks like a text adventure or interactive fiction on steam can sell anywhere from 1,000 units to 33,000 units. Both Tin Man Games and Choice Of Games has a large range of ownership with their games. Seen here: http://steamspy.com/dev/Tin+Man+Games and http://steamspy.com/dev/Choice+of+Games

So are gamers also readers? Of course there will be a cross over. Is it a huge number? No. Not terrible through. It's big enough for at least 2 companies to keep creating text-adventures. Of course this also leaves out gamers who are readers but for some reason don't like text adventures or interactive fiction.

I stopped reading altogether for a couple years but then decided to try out "super hard" books like your Gravity's Rainbow and Inifinite Jest and it's been a lot of fun. Turns out I just got bored of purely plot based books. If anyone's feeling like they don't enjoy books as much I recommend giving this kind of books a try. It might be a bit hard at the start but for me it straight up made me enjoy reading again.

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive. I used to read "for fun" a lot (less now that I restarted my studies), so the idea that just for being a gamer I am not thought out as much of a reader is ludicrous.

On the other hand, they are not correlated either. Gamers don't read more than other people.