Comparing someone with Asperger's to a gamer?

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So, my older brother doesn't believe me about me thinking I have Asperger's, because he keeps relating the symptoms to gamers (which I am). I mean, gamers who play a lot of video game also wouldn't really know social rules, and a bunch of the other symptoms I'm too lazy to type out.
But what do I say, I mean, he's right to an extent, but I just don't know what to say.
Thanks.

Many Aspergians are video-game lovers; so are many NT's. Both groups could become overly obsessed with video games. The difference, perhaps, is that Aspergians have difficulty transitioning from playing video games to doing something else.

I do not know very many gamers who are Aspies, and I know a lot of gamers. In fact, I love video games, but I actually struggle with them because of slow response time (for fighting games and FPS) and executive dysfunction (for stragegy games).

Basically, I disagree with this comparison.

I am a gamer, I LOVE online games.

To minorityreport: I am not the fastest gamer either, but I enjoy it very much. If you play pvp games it is easier if you get in a guild too. I played both pvp and non pvp games, and enjoyed both, but eventho I had fun in pvp games, I prefer non pvp because it is less stressing.

I am thinking most neurotypical gamers probably do not have the social interaction difficulties people with autism do....hell don't most people at least play console games every now and then these days? Also I didn't really know all 'gamers' acted the same way per say aside from the behavior of playing games and getting into them. I myself have enjoyed a fair number of console and computer games, started playing one that my brother started recently online and its pretty cool but yeah I don't see how playing video games would cause a decline in neurotypical social interaction abilities, aside from maybe they spend too much time on games which could bother some friends/family but that is not an actual difficulty with interaction when they pull themselves away from the game.

I would find it deeply offensive to be compared to a gamer but that's for personal reasons. I see the similarities between us and gamers, obsession been the most blatant. I suppose we all need our escape from reality from time to time but I find video games to be very dull. Get out a board game, a bottle of wine, sit round and play with friends, in person who are actually there physically. It is a much more fulfilling experience, as long as it's not Dungeons and Dragons mind. But we are all supposed to be into that right?

There may be some overlap in the social areas, for sure.. but AS is so much more than social issues or being an introvert. i.e. Sensory problems and so on. Educate yourself about AS and you'll see there's much more to it than gamer stereotypes. Granted, many gamers could very well be AS.

As for learning, I recommend reading The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Dr. Tony Attwood.

autistics are not automaticaly gaming fans but it is a common hobby amongst autistics as its more predictible than reality being in control of it,some love the online side to it because it is socialisation without the stress and many of us on the spectrum like to just play parts of games over and over again like game testers.

NT gamers are still NT,sisters husband is rock solid NT but he is a big geek and is well into his marvel superheroes/batman,football and FPS gaming.
NT geeks and/ or gamers dont meet the triad of impairment that is asociated with ASD.

Hi my name is J--Joel Fan and I'm a gamer I've been known to play GTA V for close to 5 hours in one session I spent twenty dollars worth of game chips at a local Dave and Busters just to get a high score and at one point Second Life started to become real life as I was logged in one case for close to 24 hours with little sleep and hardly any food/drink

Anyways yea I tend to play the same games over and over regardless if I had already beat it or not

When I played video games before, the big difference between me and the few NT shy/socially awkward friends I had was that although they were shy/awkward in real life, they could socialize perfectly well with each other and with others when playing online games like World of Warcraft or Halo. With me this was not the case, because my autistic social problems did not magically disappear just because I was behind a computer screen, I was still as clueless as always about how to socialize with others even when playing video games. In some ways I actually found it harder.

I always found it strange and hard to understand how my friends (who I thought were like me) could suddenly make their apparent social difficulties disappear and socialize normally just because they were behind a computer screen, while I myself to this day wouldn't be able to participate in even a big team of players and do raids and the like with others as they seem to do with no problem. Even communicating with my friends in online games was very awkward to me and something I eventually generally avoided.

First off, gamers when used in this sense does NT mean geeks. There are people who play Halo and then basketball and then go dance at a bar who call themselves "gamers".

I think many sociable ASDs become geeks because geeks will accept them easily as casual friends, and because there are automatically many choices to be obsessed about. In addition there is the connection that ASD geek feel to MMOs as an almost-real (compared to the mere entertainment that non-ASDs would view it) alternate reality of MMOs, and for autistics there is also a relation to Japan - Japanese people don't say anything and every anime character makes no sense in their behavior, but more additionally, it's often translated fairly directly so that the sentence sounds more grammatically incorrect or unnatural language like an autistic human might talk. NT geeks will also share the views on stupidity that ASDs usually have, for example the annoying clerks that always try to converse with you about stupid, non-useful subjects and the adults who bully someone based on the color of their shirt. Of course some autistics will instead say, "What is the right social thing to do here?" rather then realizing how stupid the convention is, but I have a hard time believing that any ASD human could actually enjoy the stupid rules. My guess or opinion is that they probably just can't tell the difference between what's necessary to interact with others, such as answering most questions with some kind of words right away, and what is just useless "social convention," such as "introducing everyone at the banquet who you won't talk to and will never see again," and therefore they try to learn all of them.

Geeks also are likely to have many ASDs in the group (as opposed to ASDs becoming geeks), because intelligent people are more likely then lesser-intelligent people to become geeks, and they also won't be geeks if they follow the "reality TV fashion "normal person"" crap lifestyle. If Asperger's and autism have any genetic component, then there will be even more of those in the geeks, because ASDs who are geeks are likely to have a social circle to get married with, while ASDs who aren't are likely to not have friends because they won't be able to find anyone who wants to talk about the engine mechanics of trains 24/7, or the physics of marble runs. This means they'll have more babies then the other ASDs, and those babies will be raised by geek making the babies even more likely to become geeks then other ASDs who were born to soccer moms or hunters.

However, although almost all real, non-normie non-douchebag geeks would accept ASDs easily as casual friends, when they get to a close relationship there will sill be problems, especially if they don't understand the disorder. The ASD may not be able to explain what he is thinking of feeling, and he will probably blame the other
for most problems. He will not know what to say as often when the conversation turns to scientific concepts, politics, or general non-geeky topics such as maybe traffic or beer. If he is autistic he may be more quiet then others, and if he has Asperger's he may do things that even the geek consider weird, such as hand movements (the difference is that they won't care that it's weird). I am not sure what else to say about it because the premise of your post is based on outside, observable behavior rather then the internals of troubled thinking. But there are many differences between an NT geek and an ASD geek, and if your brother says you're doing all these things just because you're a gamer, then either you haven't explained your mind to him or he's just not good at listening.

Oh I just thought of one difference. The Aspie may go on about the same subject forever, and not notice or not care (depending on the individual human) whether or not anyone else cares. In other words, he may go into details that the other geeks won't go into, such as the shape of the controller, or make a very weird connection in talking, such as when my boyfriend says something like, "It's hot outside. Like a fever.". He may also want to be alone when the NT geeks would never want to separate during their cool hangout time unless they got mad.

Gaming addicts have that same issue too. But just when do you distinguish what is the ASD and what is the addiction.

Addiction is fairly specific; a gaming addict would have difficulty transition from video games to something else, but most gaming addicts would not find it difficult to transition from, say, reading to something else or from doing homework to something else. The difficulty with transitioning is usually limited to the areas of addiction.

Persons with an ASD, on the other hand, typically have difficulty with transitioning in general (though it is possible to have an ASD and not have this specific symptom). Whether the task at hand is a task of interest and obsession or not, a person with ASD who has difficulty transitioning either has difficulty with the executive functioning required to "switch gears" (i.e. their brains are stuck on "Doing X" mode and cannot easily shift into "Doing Y" mode) or have difficulty in not properly "finishing" the task (i.e. they will want to read the book to completion, finish all of the homework, clean something until they deem it completely and flawlessly clean, ect). This difficulty with transitions extends to multiple tasks.

Also, as others have said, gamers may have a few traits of an ASD, such as social difficulties and obsessiveness, but most gamers do not have the full myriad of sensory processing difficulties (being unable to tolerate certain sights, sounds, smells, touches, textures, ect. that most others would find tolerable or, conversely, not reacting to stimuli that most other individuals would react to, such as those which would normally cause pain), emotional processing difficulties (either appearing emotionally "blank" or having meltdowns; a gamer may react this way to their topics of interest, but a person with an ASD will have these difficulties in a wide array of contexts), or executive functioning difficulties (i.e. the aforementioned points about transitioning) that accompany an ASD.

I think it is different for each person, they don't necessarily have the exact same issues as you (NT or not). But people in general (NT, ASD, or whatever else) don't socialise the same way in online games, at least from my 15 years experience with online games, it is much easier in online games than in real life. Among other things, you don't have to worry about "reading" a person's body language or facial expressions, nor can they see your body language. When you're tired and/or want to leave, contrary to social events in real life, you don't have to go through any annoying and/or complicated ritual, a simple "bye" is sufficient. Sometimes people just log out without even saying bye lol (but its better not to do that if you are in the middle of a big fight with a group, its not good for your online reputation lol). When there is misunderstandings its no big deal, contrary to real life. To the worse, if things got really bad between you and some group or person, you can always go to a different server. This actually happened to me once, I got upset with some people, and just went to another server, problem solved lol. But then they contacted me across servers and didn't understand why I got upset and left lol. It happens, and its no big deal.

I have never played Halo (is it the type of game where you fight all the time, like a war game?), but some games can definitely be more stressing than others, if there is non stop action, like in war games (i.e. you play a soldier), and you have to be in a group right away and fit in (it would surely take me a while to get used to that kind of game, and I probably wouldn't be able to play many hours in a row, plus its not really my kind of game). My favorite has always been Everquest, I have played on both pve and pvp servers (eventho I had fun on a pvp server, I prefer pve, it is less stressing), I have also played other similar games for a while. I also spent many hours playing by myself, and at different times with 2 nice people I had met there (in game). I also spent a lot of time decorating my in-game house lol and doing tradeskills (repetitive tasks for hours and hours, and I enjoyed that just as much as actual game play, I even made a little bit of real money selling items, like weapons I made, in Everquest on a server where it was legally allowed).

One of the things that were different between me and most (if not all) players I have met tho, is that I enjoyed just being in the game, looking at everything, and spending hours just riding my horse, decorating my house, and doing tradeskills, while they were always very busy fighting something and leveling up lol.

I still remember my first day in Everquest, I kept getting lost, but I enjoyed it soooo much, it was like living in a Tolkien story lol (i.e. races in Everquest are largely based on Tolkien's books).

I don't understand what happened with your NT friends tho, especially if you were friends with them in real life, why couldn't they just play with you?

They wanted to, it was my own choice to not do it anymore because I found it too difficult and confusing. I vaguely remember that I got to the full level in WoW almost solely by doing quests on my own (think I played with one friend for some period) and some very limited group activity with others, it was kinda fun and something to do but then it became boring and nothing else to do and I simply quit the game (unlike the social gamers who apparently continue on and find the part after full level to be the really fun part). Halo is a first-person shooter, yes, I actually did very good in it playing multiplayer alone online without any communication, but I didn't care about any team activity, and the few attempts at playing with my friends over voice chat was altogether too confusing. I would be completely clueless about how to initiate lasting contact with anyone online I don't know irl.

Just the simple social rules you've portrayed about online gaming is news to me and in hindsight a great clarification, I never felt comfortable communicating at all, the whole experience just felt like being in an empty social vacuum. How you could be found and contacted in another server is beyond me. Somehow I think the whole aspect of relating to people who are not physically in my presence is just too difficult, maybe it's lack of social imagination. When with people physically I have at least some possibility of visually interacting with them, but when it's just text or voice my already limited ability of social reciprocity seems to just get even worse. True, I can't say I've ever emotionally "read" anyone at all, but I find it even harder to relate and communicate when it's just a voice or text.

Oh ok, if it was your own choice then I guess I can't blame them, I thought maybe they didn't take the time to play with you and help with the things you had more trouble with.



Yeah I guess its a different experience for each person, it depends on what you like too. Personally I played a lot by myself (and had a lot of fun shooting arrows with my ranger lol). I joined groups once in a while, but I really like tradeskills, decorating my houses, and also just riding my horse, so I was never bored, I can spend hours and hours doing that, and also running around foraging with my wood elf (finding items that can be used for tradeskills). I also have characters who are healers, and sometimes I like going around in areas where there is groups fighting and I just heal them and buff them while passing by lol.



It probably wouldn't be the kind of game for me, I would get too stressed, plus I probably wouldn't be able to do all the things I said I like. About meeting people, I was just lucky, people would just come to me and ask if I needed help, and 2 of them gave me a lot of gear and money, it really wasn't anything complicated like real life relationships, they were just nice people who saw I was completely lost and wanted to help me. I remember my first time in Neriak too (dark elves city) I was again completely lost, couldn't find the way at all to get to the game guild and see my game guild leader (i.e. a character in the game, not a real person), and again I was just lucky, a nice player saw me running around and helped me. I don't like the voice chat tho, I prefer typing and reading text, it is easier for me, and its the way I've been communicating 99% of the time in games, except 2 or 3 times because I wanted to join a raid, and the group leader wanted us to hear him when he was telling us what to do.

About keeping contact: I am actually very bad at this. I never initiated contact, I was just lucky, 2 of them were a couple who helped me, they were really nice to me, and they also sent me a few emails (I haven't talked to them in a long time tho, but we did stay in touch for a few years, not like a weekly or monthly thing tho, just an email once in a while to say hi, like 3 emails in 5 years), another was another person who helped me, and I ended up playing with this person for about 3 years, he was a lot like me, he didn't like joining groups much, and we were just killing monsters together, sometimes we didn't even talk for hours, except to say "incoming!! !" (when pulling monsters to kill) lol. There was also another couple, who were also really nice to me, and they were both artists and pretty cool, again we stayed in touch for a while (through myspace), but I haven't checked on them in a few years, like I said I'm really bad at keeping in touch with people, even when I like them.