I'm talking to you, yes, all the women and men out there in reader land. Are you currently leveling up your MMORPG character to get to the level cap? Working on playing all of the side quests in a console RPG? Forsaken a Friday or Saturday night date cause you have to go on a raid? Fret not, because you're still cool according to this article. Rock on gamers!

From the article:

It's hardly news anymore that the average video game player is over 30, that millions of women across the globe are gaming or that it's big business akin to the movie industry.

It's possible that gaming has become so commonplace that few have bothered to realize that it might just be … cool.

That's probably why it wasn't widely reported in the mainstream press that the video and PC gaming industry earned record-setting profits last year — to the tune of about $13.5 billion, an 18 percent increase over 2005, according to the NPD Group.

"It's a pretty significant increase," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst for NPD. "I think we're going to continue to see robust growth in the industry continuing in 2007."

Of course, new game consoles from Sony and Nintendo helped, as did sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the many games released for the system over the year. Hand-held machines and games for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable were instrumental, and a somewhat surprising showing from Sony's last generation PlayStation 2 made it a banner year.

But perhaps the biggest factor in the industry's success during 2006 wasn't the glossy hardware or the cutting-edge games but instead a subtle shift in the once-geeky public perception of the gamer persona. Consumers just don't feel so strange about buying or playing video games anymore.

Read the full article over at abcnews.go.com