Once upon a time, playing video games was about as socially acceptable as owning a 12-sided dice (i.e. you didn’t get invited to many parties). It was something that nerds did in-between zit-popping and Star Trek marathons — or at least, that was the popular perception in the playground at the time. To talk incessantly about videogames was to invite wedgie annihilation from all directions. Needless to say, it was a dangerous time to be a gamer.

Thankfully, things have come along in leaps and bounds since then. Gaming has become one of the premier forms of entertainment, with game sales consistently outperforming movies and DVDs. These days, it’s kind of uncool not to be a gamer.

Occasionally however, the industry descends back into the tissue-strewn basement from its inglorious past. You know the sort of stuff we’re talking about. It could be a YouTube clip of a gamer in the throes of a berserker-like rage, or a ‘sexy-time’ video game consisting solely of poorly rendered nudity. No matter how hard we try to quell it, the spectre of the ‘nerdy gamer’ still lingers in the national consciousness. Sometimes, it’s the press’ fault, but usually, we only have ourselves to blame.