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In my opinion everyone posting here is a nerd, thats how I see it !!
Being "fit" or ex military does not exclude you either I am afraid
But then again, "nerd" does not have the stigma it once has either in my opinion.
A lot of what was once classed as nerdy stuff and was once upon a time, only found in basements, such as video games, computers, sci-fi and fantasy, are now mainstream big money earners.

 Swan-of-War wrote:
Have you not seen the many, many, many console and PC games released under the Warhammer / Warhammer 40K license? GW has been trying to reach a wider market for quite some time.

I don't believe they are. I believe this is just extra income for GW for giving out licences to other people. Also GW is not in the video game market. They are in the miniature or publishing market. GW is not making the video games themselves. You can't rely on other people to do your work for you. GW needs to make a GOOD, FUN game people will understand and want to play. Right now only Nerds and Geeks want to play it.

I guess GW is incapable of making a good fun game for the common gamer who wants to play. Then again, that would take advertising, and research into seeing what "the common" gamer wants. Bethesda seems to have done it and hit a Grand Slam 2 times now. I guess GW doesn't want to make $10 000 000 000. Is that how much Bethesda or Zenimax actually made? DAMN. See what a little bit of research will do for you.

 Rayvon wrote:
In my opinion everyone posting here is a nerd, thats how I see it !!

Everyone posting here represent a fraction of the wargaming community...

5000 customers? Is that seriously your estimate? They did £123.5 million (about $212M in USD) in revenue for the last financial year. If they had 5000 customers that means each customer spent $42,500 on games workshop products in one year. Even at 100,000 customers that would be an average of over $2,000 per customer in one year. I believe the number of customers is closer to the 250,000 mark just based on revenue and what I see the average players around here spending.

Insaniak seems to have it right. Most of the insecurity around wargaming appears to be perpetrated by wargamers themselves.

Whenever I've talked about it to non-gamers, I don't think I've ever had a hostile or mocking reaction. Most people seem to at least want to talk about it a bit, which is just normal when having a polite conversation and someone's hobby comes up. And quite a few want to know more about it, stuff like asking how you have the patience to paint the models, etc.

1) What stance do you wish to take? Yes

2) How are you defining "Nerd" (is it any different from "Geek").

Not really one and the same

It's an interesting question, if you looked at me I don't think you would call me a nerd. I'm 6ft extremely fit and fight (boxing) for a living. I guess it comes down to your point of view, Vin Diesel has his favourite Vampire character tattooed on his leg and is a major RP player.

Just because I play war games doesn't make me your typical nerd/geek

My 2c

And the geek shall inherit the Earth!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And the geek shall inherit the Earth!

I sure hope you sang that out loud in your best Geddy Lee voice.

I have to say... while 'being an adult' means you really don't have to worry if people think you are a nerd or not, the most 'mainstream' connection people seem to make when they find out I paint miniatures is to Steve Carell in the 40-year old virgin.

While Playing D&D has all sorts of culture exposure, Miniature painting is often seen as something different and for some reason, everyone seems to associate that with that movie.

I have yet to find someone who didn't think it was cool, but being an adult really eliminates the whole 'Lord of the Flies' mentality kids are put in, and the drive to raise your status in a closed system above your peers by any means necessary.

 insaniak wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Are wargamers stereotyped as Nerds? Yes.

By whom?

From my experience, most people don't know enough about wargaming or those who engage in it to stereotype gamers as anything. The 'gamers are nerds' tag, along with the 'wargaming is a bit weird' tag tend to be applied far more by gamers than by anyone else.

Largely - because of its fringe nature. Pop culture helps as well - while most people don't have direct exposure to wargames, movies like the 40 Year Old Virgin tie it to nerds. Geeks & Sundry (one of the less fringe, fringe sites) hooks wargames and RPGs to nerds...or rather geeks - which for many people are interchangeable. The various video series which are linked to it (Will Wheaton's Tabletop for example) carry that same thing out to a broader audience.

The stores that sell wargames also help a good bit. They are not tobacconists with lots of wood and leather, or hipster joints with white and chrome - they tend to be generalist stores which have a focus on a variety of nerdy past times (RPGs, comics, boutique board games, model stores...).

 insaniak wrote:
And outside of high school, who is going around stereotyping people based on their hobbies in the first place?

People in business, people in marketing, people in legal fields, politicians, doctors, insurance companies...

When I used to meet with clients, I had to make certain adjustments based off from what I knew about them. That might be a bass hanging on a wall of their office, a picture of their classic car or a souvenir from a vacation. Marketing types have to stereotype all the time, they use it for ad buys, language and imagery. Lawyers and other legal pros use stereotypes to stack jury boxes, work over the witnesses and generally get an idea of a person. Politicians...well, they change their face more often than I change my socks - campaign footage shows them doing ridiculous things all the time in order to fit in with the locals. Doctors make snap judgements all the time regarding patients and what background they know about them (including hobbies). I pay a higher insurance rate because of my hobbies as well (scuba and mountain climbing).





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Toofast wrote:
5000 customers? Is that seriously your estimate? They did £123.5 million (about $212M in USD) in revenue for the last financial year. If they had 5000 customers that means each customer spent $42,500 on games workshop products in one year. Even at 100,000 customers that would be an average of over $2,000 per customer in one year. I believe the number of customers is closer to the 250,000 mark just based on revenue and what I see the average players around here spending.

Correct - forgot to say...US market. Not enough information available really to get into Europe and the rest of the world (which is largely Australia...).

5K is still way too low, even if you mean US only.

I suppose, as Sean O'Brien is saying in a post above, anything that is not 'mainstream' or can be considered 'fringe' is more likely to be viewed with suspicion by people that don't understand what it's about. And from this, prejudice begins.

I will say though that at a certain age you stop caring what people think about you

Interestingly, in the mid to late 80's I think there was a lot more stigma about computer games - now that they have become more mainstream, there probably isn't a household with kids in the developed world that doesn't have a gaming machine in some form or another, that seems to have largely disappeared (although.. I'm not a kid any more, maybe it is still there to an extent!)

I graduated from high school in the mid to late 80s. Everyone had an Atari and the Cool Kids had nintendo NES and the rich cool kids had a sega genesis.

 CptJake wrote:
5K is still way too low, even if you mean US only.

That was someone elses number...

Off by a factor of...many. Haven't calculated it recently - but it was in the 100,000 active customer range a few years back. Now they are likely down in the 90,000 active customer range.


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 Pacific wrote:
I suppose, as Sean O'Brien is saying in a post above, anything that is not 'mainstream' or can be considered 'fringe' is more likely to be viewed with suspicion by people that don't understand what it's about. And from this, prejudice begins.

I will say though that at a certain age you stop caring what people think about you

For the most part. Though I don't know if I would consider it prejudice anymore than people have a specific view of me when I go out for a track day, take my boat out, go golfing or whatever else.

We all have things in our mind that are connected to different activities, and when something that is more obscure comes along - our brains work to compartmentalize that with things we know. Wargaming, being more obscure than something like golfing - is more likely to be linked to things like the places they are purchased in or the few points of contact they may have had with them (40 Year Old Virgin movie). Golf will also have a lot of preconceived ideas connected to it - though because it is more wide spread, those ideas will be more varied based on the persons contact with the activity (whether it is something their Grandpa does, something they do or something their brother does...).

Granted, that is all well and good - nothing wrong with that, any more than the preconceived idea that I can't dance...or jump... At this point in my life, I have no problem with people doing that...any more so than I would be less willing to take financial advice from someone with a neck tattoo or get dental work from someone with pierced eyebrows. Those are part of the stereotypes I have developed over the years.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
And outside of high school, who is going around stereotyping people based on their hobbies in the first place?

People in business, people in marketing, people in legal fields, politicians, doctors, insurance companies...

When I used to meet with clients, I had to make certain adjustments based off from what I knew about them. That might be a bass hanging on a wall of their office, a picture of their classic car or a souvenir from a vacation. Marketing types have to stereotype all the time, they use it for ad buys, language and imagery. Lawyers and other legal pros use stereotypes to stack jury boxes, work over the witnesses and generally get an idea of a person. Politicians...well, they change their face more often than I change my socks - campaign footage shows them doing ridiculous things all the time in order to fit in with the locals. Doctors make snap judgements all the time regarding patients and what background they know about them (including hobbies). I pay a higher insurance rate because of my hobbies as well (scuba and mountain climbing).

Those are very specific examples of how relative strangers perceive each other, and no one is claiming that stereotyping doesn't happen.

I believe what Insaniak and myself are talking about is interpersonal relationships with peers in a work setting, not political stump speeches and insurance rates.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
And outside of high school, who is going around stereotyping people based on their hobbies in the first place?

People in business, people in marketing, people in legal fields, politicians, doctors, insurance companies...

When I used to meet with clients, I had to make certain adjustments based off from what I knew about them. That might be a bass hanging on a wall of their office, a picture of their classic car or a souvenir from a vacation. Marketing types have to stereotype all the time, they use it for ad buys, language and imagery. Lawyers and other legal pros use stereotypes to stack jury boxes, work over the witnesses and generally get an idea of a person. Politicians...well, they change their face more often than I change my socks - campaign footage shows them doing ridiculous things all the time in order to fit in with the locals. Doctors make snap judgements all the time regarding patients and what background they know about them (including hobbies). I pay a higher insurance rate because of my hobbies as well (scuba and mountain climbing).

Those are very specific examples of how relative strangers perceive each other, and no one is claiming that stereotyping doesn't happen.

I believe what Insaniak and myself are talking about is interpersonal relationships with peers in a work setting, not political stump speeches and insurance rates.

You have mentioned coworkers (in response to another about his job) - but by and large stereotypes are applied to strangers, not people we deal with day in and day out. We have enough information to make an informed decision on those people.

Insaniak has been very general in his terminology (anyone...who is stereotyping...). Those general terms, and the nature of the question refer to broad generalizations as opposed to how a specific individual might react to another specific individual.

Here is the thing, dont care at all and enjoy your hobby. Several times I have told my co-workers what I do? Their response "That sounds so cool" even when I said I did D&D.
It may be that im younger(22) and my generation has less of a stigma.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
How does a hobby "weaken" your position at work? I don't know what you do for a living, but I'm a construction worker and I've run multimillion dollar jobs and had more than two dozen men working for me and never once felt the need to hide anything "nerdy" that I enjoy.

I'm working very high up in a huge company. I just can't afford any slanter going on about me. I don't want to wake any sleeping dogs. I am open about my "strong" hobbies with a positive connotation, such as running and taking part in marathons all over the world. It's highly acceptable and generally seen as admirable in our society and thus profitable for anyone who's going strong in such a hobby. Having b fit body is a very nice side-product and further adds to your professionalism - it's unacceptable to not be fit. Lead by example.

My buddy once told me that he cannot let anyone know he plays pathfinder, or else they prosecuters might hound him.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
How does a hobby "weaken" your position at work? I don't know what you do for a living, but I'm a construction worker and I've run multimillion dollar jobs and had more than two dozen men working for me and never once felt the need to hide anything "nerdy" that I enjoy.

I'm working very high up in a huge company. I just can't afford any slanter going on about me. I don't want to wake any sleeping dogs. I am open about my "strong" hobbies with a positive connotation, such as running and taking part in marathons all over the world. It's highly acceptable and generally seen as admirable in our society and thus profitable for anyone who's going strong in such a hobby. Having b fit body is a very nice side-product and further adds to your professionalism - it's unacceptable to not be fit. Lead by example.

Except there is nothing negative about having a creative hobby, nor is it a case of failing to lead by example. There also isn't a negative connotation about war gaming.

Sorry mate, I don't believe people knowing about a hobby like ours would hinder you in your professional life.


Really, I feel sorry for you since you feel the need to hide such a benign thing about yourself. Sounds like a miserable way to live.

It isn't a miserable way to live - it is simply making informed decisions based off from observations.

Corporate culture can be very cut throat - a lot of my past customers were the same way...both regarding gaming and other parts of their life. When they would visit my home office (as opposed to my regular office) - they would often become more open about less "masculine" hobbies. Even female gamers who work in large corporations are under pressure (both from within and without) to avoid certain hobbies...or at least not make them commonly known.

Granted, since I don't really feel the need to share details of my life with people I work with...it has never really been an issue to me. What I do away from work, is one thing. What I did at work was something completely different. Being able to separate the two is actually a perfectly healthy way to live.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:


Sorry mate, I don't believe people knowing about a hobby like ours would hinder you in your professional life.


Really, I feel sorry for you since you feel the need to hide such a benign thing about yourself. Sounds like a miserable way to live.

There is no need to feel sorry for me. It's a choice I made and I chose to live by it. War gaming is a rather small part of my life and I gladly choose not being able to openly talk about it when the wage I receive ensures a life free of any financial worries for me, my wife and our daughter (and future children) along with being able to spend a lot of quality time with our little family. I am not allowed to go into further detail in regards to my occupation, but let's just say that some branches require absolute and flawless professionalism when dealing with international partners all over the planet and most people in said branch being highly conservative and stiff with little to no tolerance for stepping out of the line.

A) If it is for a qualification, I assume some fairly important design, you need to be able to gather your thoughts better than by asking a board to gather for you. Otherwise, you picked a topic you don't have the ability to deliver on. Regardless, a forum is not a valid information source for a formal assignment unless it's for a sociology, communication, or perhaps psychology class.

B) It is simply a matter of framing, and then pointing out counter examples.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Insaniak has been very general in his terminology (anyone...who is stereotyping...). ...

That's because insaniak assumed the context would be obvious from the preceding discussion.

Toofast wrote:
5000 customers? Is that seriously your estimate? They did £123.5 million (about $212M in USD) in revenue for the last financial year. If they had 5000 customers that means each customer spent $42,500 on games workshop products in one year. Even at 100,000 customers that would be an average of over $2,000 per customer in one year. I believe the number of customers is closer to the 250,000 mark just based on revenue and what I see the average players around here spending.

I just said that is why would GW make products that only limit to 2000 customers? Even some minis are limited to $1000 customers? What ever happened to GW excuse that they have to pay for molds? So if GW only makes limited edition for 1000-2000 customers, so was going off that. Again, GW doest things that never makes sense to me. If you have a quarter of a million cutovers why are you ignoring the rest of the 248 000 customers then?

Toofast wrote:
I am 6' 185 pounds, muscular, athletic, military veteran (special forces), I like to shoot guns and build race cars in my spare time. I have also been into MTG and tabletop war gaming for most of my life. In the past week I've had 2 girls who were absolutely shocked to learn that I play stuff like 40k. They basically said "wow, you don't look like you would be into that stuff. It's hot that you have a nerdy side". Not every war gamer, or even the majority fit the stereotypical "nerd" profile of overweight neckbeard basement dwellers with no social skills. I forget where, but I recently read a study that showed 40-50% of war gamers are active or retired military. It's not a nerd hobby any more than collecting firearms is a white, conservative male hobby. There are also some extremely attractive women that play 40k, along with a surprising number of celebrities who would never be seen as a "nerd" by people who didn't know their hobbies.

Hey bro, Im the midwest version of you. I dated a girl who, for whatever reason, got turned on too to the nerd thing. It got to where I told I was going to the game store to Dork out and it was our little laugh. I get what you mean though. our hobby doesn't make any of us 'nerds'.

Just an FYI guys, the original posted hasn't come back for 2 days. This was probably a troll post.

Well, some of the people mentioned here might be called nerd, but not all:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/613776.page#7183795

 Skinnereal wrote:
Well, some of the people mentioned here might be called nerd, but not all:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/613776.page#7183795

They may not be Nerds, but they are GEEKS then. Anyone who plays with plastic toy soldier is at least Geek minimum. If you say you are not, then you are in denial. While a lot of us may look like geeks, some nerds and some my even look like jocks, but EVERYONE has a inner geek in them and it comes out when it comes to our hobby.

I'm happy enough to be both.

Geek doesn't mean the circus 'freak' who bites heads off snakes anymore.
Anyone who has a set of specific knowledge is now classes as a geek.

Nerd, yes, that's me. Nerdiness is usually an insult, but I don't care.
Nerdy is as nerdy does.