Gaming isn't a hobby that carries with it much prestige and respect.  Or any at all, for that matter.  In fact, the popular image of the archetypical gamer is one of an overweight, socially maladjusted shut-in who lives with his parents and may or may not be a sex offender.  We at Gameist feel this to be unfair, and thus we came up with this list of reasons to feel good about your gaming habit, which you can read while waiting for your mom to bring down your grilled cheese sandwich.  Enjoy!

#6. You're Making Jobs!

"No, please keep making first-person-shooters set in World War II.  I insist."

It may have occured to some of you, while on snack runs to the local 7-11, that the prices of such staples as Mr. Pibb and Red Vines have jumped steeply in the past few months.  This is due to a complicated financial thing called a recession (which the world economy is in right now,) which all started because of another complicated financial thing called the subprime loan crisis (which manages to be incredibly boring and pants-shittingly terrifying at the same time.)  This is all a very complicated way of saying that most of the oxygen-consuming world is going through some hard times right now, except for the fine men and women who make your videogames.  And it's all thanks to you knuckleheads.

"Thanks, knuckleheads!"

Don't believe us?  Too bad.  Sales of video game hardware and other factors all point to the same thing: business is good, and will continue to be good.  So just keep on doing what you do (and paying for the privilege to do so,) and thousands upon thousands of thankful game makers will continue to turn out games like Elite Beat Agents (a game remarkable for being the closest mankind has ever come to producing pure joy in videogame form.)

#5. Games Kick Sports' Ass!

Gamers, or at least really serious gamers, there's always been a certain sense of resentment directed athletic, sporty types, brought on by traumatic memories of childhood beatings, girlfriends stolen, sand being kicked into their face, etc.  This is exacerbated by the fact that even in adulthood, most gamers don't tend to have the most Olympian of physiques, playing videogames not being the most aerobically intensive hobby.

Laars Mundegarde, World's Strongest Nerd.

But you know what?  Fuck that.  You know what sports and exercise are?  Boring, that's what.  Sports like football, baseball, and hockey are all essentially the same today as they were forty years ago.  In the same timeframe, games have gone from fist-sized pixels bouncing aimlessly around a screen to flawlessly bump-mapped polygons blowing the shit out of each other.  A professional sports player might get paid millions of dollars a year, but he has to do it by playing the same game over and over and over.  We think it's pretty obvious who gets the better end of the deal in this scenario.

"Oh, boy.  We get to play basketball.  Again.  Hooray."

#4. Gamers Are Prepared For The Future!

Way back in the day, people used to look to science fiction magazines and novels to shape their views of what the future ought to look like (which mostly consisted of flying cars and robot butlers.  You know, retarded crap.)  But nowadays nobody reads anything that's been commited to paper, and thus it has fallen upon videogames to tell the masses what life's gonna be like in the far-off days of Year Whatever.

We're slightly better prepared for some aspects of the future than others, if you get our drift.

So what have we got to look forward to, according to our pixellated prophets?  Well, it's sort of a mix of good and bad; on the one hand, there will undoubtedly be tits aplenty; well-animated, luscious tits about which we can only dream.  On the other hand, those tits will likely occupy some tyrannical dystopia where humans are hunted for sport by a race of cruel lizard-people, and the only way to access said tits will be by rising through the ranks of a brutal kill-or-be-killed bloodsport.  We at Gameist are still working on interpreting the signs, but you heard it here first: tits and violence.  Be prepared.

May God help us all.

#3. Games Piss Old People Off!

"We would take you with us to our graves if we could!"

The clueless, impotent rage of the elderly has long been used as a reliable metric for measuring how awesome an activity is: comic books, hair metal, and gangster rap have all been subject to the rheumatic scrutiny of our proud nation's toothless watchdogs, and for the past few years it's been videogames' turn to be the country's morally relativistic whipping boy.  You don't need us to find examples of this - just Google "Grand Theft Auto politician" and chances are that you'll find some officious-looking, suit-clad octogenerian spraying an audience with furious spittle as they expound on the evils of shooting guys on a screen.

We aren't kidding!

Why is this a thing to be proud of?  Simple: everything you do when you game - be it punching people in the nuts in Wii Sports' boxing or shooting people in the nuts in Hard Boiled - is an act of rebellion!  Every hit point you lose, every spell you cast, and every rare drop you farm is all in the name of sticking it to the man, and that's pretty damn admirable.  You're just like Che Guevara (well, almost.  Che never completed all of the Team Fortress 2 achievements before his assassination though, in all likelihood, he probably could have.)

#2. Multiculturalism!

To be fair, all of these people have probably killed each other many times over since the taking of this picture.  But still.

Games teach tolerance.  Don't look at us that way, it's true!  Okay, so games don't approach the concept of racial harmony at quite the same angle as, say, Sesame Street, but they teach it nevertheless.  Not just between made-up fantasy races, either (though we at Gameist acknowledge that dwarf-elf violence is a palpable threat to our society which, if left unchecked, could consume us all.)

Um, ignore this.

Consider this: you're throwing down in an Unreal Tournament deathmatch with some folks over the Internet.  You're engaged in a heated standoff with a guy calling himself DeathKilla69, and you've whittled him down to his last hitpoint.  Suddenly, some dude calling himself NightDarknessGloom666 swoops in an blows the both of you away with his fucking rocket launcher.  You are understandably perturbed, and lash out through your headset, calling him a "motherfucking dickpulling cockmongering Christfuck."  Then it hits you:

You've just judged this person based on his performance, not the color of his skin.  You don't know if NightDarknessGloom666 is white, black, yellow, or brown - all you know is that he's the cockmongering Christfuck who stole your goddamn kill.  That's a mindset that transcends all cultural indoctrination.  And that's real.

#1. Games Teach Valuable Lessons!

They don't teach them that way, silly.

Most people have to go out and have actual experiences before they learn any of life's important lessons.  But not gamers.  Gamers needn't endure the infuriation of being passed up for a promotion by a backstabbing boss to learn not to trust anyone - first-person-shooters have already taught them that!  Oh, and you'd better believe there's more:

- From real-time-strategy games comes the lesson of Not Procrastinating: a Zergling rush could happen at any moment, so get the lead out.

- From adventure/puzzle titles we learn the importance of Perseverence: if trying every item in your inventory doesn't solve your current problem, you probably haven't been pixel-hunting thoroughly enough.

"Okay, so the balloon animals didn't free the princess.  Next up: this sack of teeth."

- From RPGs, we are taught Forward Thinking: after all, if you're unhappy with your character build then it's your own stupid fault for not looking up the optimization online.

- And from MMOs we are given the valuable lesson of Patience: trust us, once you ding max level, your life will gain meaning.  We promise.

See?  That's four things you didn't need to live in the real world to learn!  Now, go to Gamestop to trade those games in so that you can learn all about dealing with disappointment.

When not cheerleading for the underdog, Malcolm writes for The Last Gaffe.

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