The European trade fair for Interactive Games was recently held in Germany. Comparable trade shows are also held in Los Angeles and Tokyo.

There is really a stereotype of game players that's quite comparable to the stereotype of bloggers. The misconception is that most participants are teenage boys, sleeping on a sofa in the basement of their parents' houses and living mainly on Cheetos and Mountain Dews.

Since few keyboards are really stained the artificial orange of Cheetos, that alone ought to prove the lie of the stereotype. Actually, players and bloggers each tend to be mostly regular and live lives comparable to non-gamers and bloggers. Instead of sleeping on a sofa within the basement of a house, they most likely sleep on comfy mattresses in a good bedroom of an apartment or house or townhouse,most often that they own. It is most likely at least a full size mattress (unless it is in a dormitory or barracks somewhere where it would be a twin mattress)! It may even be on a memory foam mattress.

Other areas of similarity between the gamer and blogger included in the stereotype, is that they are all techno geeks. Really they are just folks prepared to adopt and embrace new technologies instead of fighting it.

Players and bloggers would want high powered computer systems with plenty of processing so that the pace of the machine makes computing quicker. The players desire the processing power in order that as they get much better at a specific game and climb levels, the pace can improve as the challenge increases. The blogger desires the processing in order that the pages load quicker, the widgets offer more complexity and more users can read their words.

Each are prepared to embrace their "techno geek-ness" and are prepared to dispel and refute the stereotype. For today's techno geek isn't the boy who looks like Urkel with the pocket protector and slide rule or calculator on his belt. Today's techno geek is most likely sitting there on the bus or subway punching away on the Blackberry or iPhone with his thumbs. Today's techno geeks, players or bloggers, are mobile. Most all technologies have become so miniaturized that the power of mobile devices exceeds desktop computer systems of even ten years ago.

Techno geeks don't require to camp out in their basements on the sofa anymore but can sleep on good comfy memory foam mattresses. If the stereotype ever had any validity, it is long gone in the past.