Gone are the days where gamers are portrayed as basement-dwelling geeks who are in terrible need of social skills. It seems that today, gaming has gone mainstream, and has gained "pop-culture status" already (instead of the ancient esoteric association with "geek-dom"). Let's face it: gaming has become the "in thing" and the rapid influx of gaming titles, as well as the growing numbers of gamers, can attest to that fact.

These days, it seems that everybody play games: may it be MMO, RTS, FPS or whatnot. Also, gaming companies such as Nintendo seem to make a conscious effort to "reach out" to the non-gaming masses with wacky rackets such as cooking games, "brain games" and the like, stretching the definition of gaming further.

Also, mass media has contributed a key role to gaming's massive success. Of course, there's always advertising, but you may have also noticed the increasing portrayal of games in TV lately. There's the WoW feature in "South Park" and the Call of Duty 2 episode in "The Office". And no, we're not talking about 3-second subliminal messages here, but gaming as a part of regular people's lives.

Although that claim may not be true for everybody, we can't doubt that the gaming population is indeed growing, and getting more varied by the minute. There are kids, there are yuppies, there are forty-somethings, parents, you name it. Gaming is becoming a past time, and an activity that's not merely scoffed at as a "For Kids Only" thing. Although exaggerations were apparent in the shows, you just can't dismiss that the portrayal of gaming in "South Park" and "The Office" is far from reality.

In fact, Paul Lieberstein, who plays HR Director Toby in "The Office", says that when they write particular episodes for their show, they take snippets from their lives and incorporate it in the story:

After a show's been on the air a couple of seasons, we have to dig especially deep into our real lives, having exhausted our imaginations. We write about other TV shows we watch, websites we visit, trips we've taken, relationships we've had, and, yes, the videogames we play. As gaming becomes ubiquitous, I imagine the references to it will become commonplace.