People who don't play video games usually stereotype gamers as either 14-year-old boys, obese and nerdy 40-year-old men who still live in their parents' basements, or - thanks to The Big Bang Theory - nerdy and lovably odd physicists.
It's an old stereotype (recent data says the average gamer is actually 39, married and professional), but it persists.
Gamers have always been portrayed as social inept, awkward around the opposite sex, and generally just the epitome of uncool. It's hard to shake the long-standing stigma that playing video games just wasn't considered a "social" or even really a socially accepted activity.
But in the late 1990s - thanks to the Internet - a new breed of video game emerged on the market to challenge that notion, and eventually changed gaming forever.
Until then, video games were mostly solitary adventures where you would sit in front of a screen by yourself and pretend you were a soldier, elf, Italian plumber or whatever. You could only have multiple players in a game if your friend was sitting next to you, and didn't mind using the broken joystick or playing the less-popular character.
With the coming of the Internet, some games - mostly first-person shooters (FPS) - added limited multi-player arenas, so instead of shooting computer-controlled enemies, you got to compete against more unpredictable humans.
But gaming took on a whole new social element when Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMO or MMORPGs) hit the scene with titles like Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call.
These three titles ushered in a new age where a large number of players could interact with each other within a virtual game world.
Instead of dungeon crawling all alone, now you could join up with friends (or strangers) from all over the world and conquer dragons, fortresses and empires together.
Sure, you were still sitting alone in front of a computer screen pretending to be a chainmail-wearing elf, but now you were doing it along with a bunch of other people sitting alone in front of their screens, too. Huzzah!
Those games led to the development of World of Warcraft (WoW), an enormously popular game that boasts millions of subscribers - including a fair number of female gamers. And yes, I did say subscribers, as it typically costs $15 a month to be able to pretend you're an elf along with the masses.
With hefty subscription fees, online gamers tended to only play (or be able to afford to play) one MMO at a time, and the monthly fees discouraged casual or non-gamers from trying things out.
But recently, there has been a large push toward online games switching from subscription to free-to-play models, opening up virtual worlds to anyone with a computer, some free time and a stomach for ridicule.
In the free-to-play model, anyone can download and play the game at no cost, but certain in-game items - like premium content, special potions, or cosmetic items - can be obtained with real-life currency through the game's virtual store.
Most still offer a subscription option with access to everything if you don't want to deal with the so-called microtransactions.
Big-franchise titles like Lord of The Rings Online, DC Universe Online, Age of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Star Trek Online have all now switched to free-to-play.
So if you've ever wanted to wander Middle Earth, be a starship captain, battle dragons or evil super villains - you can join millions of us online with no strings or subscriptions attached.
The cost, however, may be your stereotypical perception of gamers.
