I've seen it claimed from times to times that there is a gamer subculture, that is, that video gaming constitutes a new subculture (though that doesn't make everyone who plays a part of it). Do you agree with that? Is video gaming a subculture?

One problem I found with this belief is that video gaming is an interest, and gamers don't share a common political viewpoint or a philosophy. For instance, the punk subculture had (or has) a streak of anti-authoritarianism over it.

Gaming feels about as much a subculture as watching movies is. Anyone from a Taliban* to a libertarian can like computer games. This doesn't mean they have anything beyond that in common.

What do the sociologists here think?

*In fact, the Taliban are big fans of Counter Strike as long as they get to play as the terrorists.

I guess it's called a subculture because for the moment the majority of gamers are young males. Yes, women and elderly people are getting in on the action but right now it is still predominantly men under the age of 35ish.

Hugin wrote:I've seen it claimed from times to times that there is a gamer subculture, that is, that video gaming constitutes a new subculture (though that doesn't make everyone who plays a part of it). Do you agree with that? Is video gaming a subculture?

Depends on your definition of "subculture", really. Subcultures aren't necessarily defined by common political, ethical or religious points of views, although those certainly play a role among many of those subcultures. Generally what you also need to count as a subculture are outward displays of your belonging to that group, which includes music, language, mannerisms or style of clothing. You could argue that there are people who wear gaming-related apparel such as this:

Or even people who listen to video game soundtracks and many of those do indeed identify very strongly as gamers. If you fancy a field study, head over to "The Escapist" forum to get a feel for that sense of identity.
Also, often gamers used to come from the same (or a similar) demographic, i.e. young, lower-to-upper middle-class males and those do happen to often share values and political view-points. As you yourself said, however, nowadays pretty much everyone and their mums play some sort of game, ranging from Farmville and Angry Birds to games that are practically a second day-job, such as EVE.

The point of my rambling is, that maybe you could argue that a gaming subculture is slowly emerging and becoming visible especially since video games have become the single most profitable entertainment industry (excepting maybe porn... ). Personally I'd say that at best gaming used to be part of a "nerdy" style of life, if not necessarily a subculture. You know, the stereotypical nerds armed with braces and D20 dice for playing Dungeons & Dragons. Nowadays it's socially acceptable to be "a gamer", just like it is fine to be a movie buff. I see neither of those as a subculture, but more like a hobby. Some of those hobbies have grown to become a subculture (skating, surfing, various musical styles, etc.), but I'd say they aren't there... yet. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but as I implied in my examples of "gamers" one paragraph up, the word is so loosely defined as to be virtually meaningless.

It might be more of a subculture in the part of the hobby engaged in LAN gaming, DreamHack being a prime example. Also, it is an important part of geekdom, which in itself is something of a subculture.

Fairly serious gamers tend to easily identify with one another. Gamers also have strong views towards stuff like digital property rights, although this isn't central to their identity.