Is everyone a gamer?

[cdemares]

I distinguish between "gamer" and "core gamer". Candy Crush makes you a gamer. Angry Birds, whatever.
Everybody who drives cars is a driver. A gearhead cares about cars.

 

[babinro]

Everyone who chooses to identify as a gamer is one.

Someone who plays windows Solitaire a few times a month is just as qualified to consider themselves a gamer as someone who plays various indie, AAA, mobile, and console games for 8 hours a day.

To me there's no entry requirement.
You view yourself as a gamer and you are one.

I think the term is generalized for someone who enjoys the pass time on any level. I view the term film buff in the same way. You don't have to watch a minimum requirement of movies or have seen certain established societal classics to be a film buff.

 

[cdemares]

Gamers and Core Gamers can be nice or jerks, just like anybody else. When horrible jerks who insult people claim it's a part of their so-called culture as gamers, as if videogames give them permission, they are flat-out lying. But then other people believe them, for some reason. The jerks don't own gaming, or even core gaming, it's bigger than that.

 

[someguy1231]

I don't know whether everyone is a "gamer", but I don't think someone who plays Candy Crush for 5 minutes should be lumped together with someone who plays 4 hours of WoW or BF4 or Halo everyday.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't know whether everyone is a "gamer", but I don't think someone who plays Candy Crush for 5 minutes should be lumped together with someone who plays 4 hours of WoW or BF4 or Halo everyday.

They're only "lumped in" together in the same sense that a NASCAR "driver" is "lumped in" with a "driver" who spends 30 minutes on a freeway commute each day.

It appears someone even beat me to it.

But then other people believe them, for some reason.

I believe them. I can even tell you the reason:

The prevalence of both the behaviour and the defense of the behaviour in "gamer" culture.

Sure, you can argue "not all gamers," but I don't think anyone is saying "all gamers."

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I think the colloquial definition among gamers would be something like this:

Gamer - Someone who plays games I respect, in the manner I respect, as often as I respect.

Although my personal definition would be more like this:

Gamer - Someone with enough of an affinity for games that they consider it part of their identity.

The only thing I'd be a bit of a stickler with is the plural for games. If you just have affinity for one game, then it seems really weird giving yourself an umbrella term instead of just saying "I play WoW"

 

[LostTrigger]

The question you should be asking isn't "Is everyone a gamer?" The question you should be asking is "Why the hell does it matter so much to me?"

its an identity that is important to me that alot of people would rather it cease to exist or stretch it so that it covers people who dont even identify as a gamer

 

[LostTrigger]

Okay, here's the deal: you can call everyone who's ever played a game once, a "gamer", if you're also consistent and call everyone who's ever swallowed a bacterium, a "killer".

Narrow definitions are more useful.

Definitely. A runner is someone who runs. A marathon runner is someone who runs marathons. A professional runner is someone who runs professionally.

That the term Gamer was useful once to identify traits was because it was a novelty in general. Pong would be defined as being pretty casual nowadays, some wouldn't describe those people who play it once in a while as a gamer. Now, "everybody" plays some games the one way or the other, and it has lost its novelty and usefulness.

From a descriptive perspective, it simply doesn't make any sense anymore. The industry itself even refered to those dedicated to gaming as "core audience". This audience itself has also grown, and as well is, I THINK, what people here simply describe as someone who is a gamer.

Also, there are these curious cases: Your dad who plays Football Manager or Anno like it's his second job. At least with a lot of passion. Now, these games aren't even that casual. Especially in the late 90s, there were a lot of simulations with extensive complexity. But these "dads" have mastered them, more or less. And also, they only play these games. Now, are these persons no gamers? Or are they gamers? Are they core gamers? Don't they count?

I have to deal with language professionally. And also, I have a passion for certain languages. In German, it most likely would be clear that (the equivalent of) Gamer would be insufficient to describe someone with a passion for gaming, besides that sometimes, the equivalent (Spieler, Zocker) is often connotated with the addiction itself. But that also gets less and less frequent, since it simply fails to deliver the information properly in a conversation, since video gaming is more and more on the rise into mainstream society.

So, if you want to be precise, everybody who plays games is a gamer. If you need to differenciate, you need to be precise by describing properly, like defining with adjectives/adverbs or coining new terms altogether. If you simply want to defend the term that is associated with an identity, then also you have to realize that there are now different identities as well, all also ill-described as the same with the term "Gamer", even though it is indeed appropriate but insufficient, imo.

I personally think that everybody who plays games is a gamer. Those, who play games with a passion are core gamers. Those, who play complex games, but these complex games only are niche gamers. Those, who play casually, are casual gamers. But all are gamers.

Language can be identified as a lot of things. But it always, always is an appointment, an agreement on what means what. So, I'm certainly not saying and not even believing that my personal method is the best. But language will be defined by the majority that uses it. Dictionaries, authorized by the gouvernment, come in if you *need* clearity. And if the majority (that should also be represented by the gouvernment) agrees to use the dictionary, it's fulfilling its purpouse. So, rape still means rape. But if "everybody" would disagree that gamer has the given definition, it would need to change.

but what does that do for the people who dont identify as a gamer who you want to make a gamer?

 

[Naldan]

but what does that do for the people who dont identify as a gamer who you want to make a gamer?

What?

 

[Des-Esseintes]

Trying to discuss the term is generally useless as every old wanker seems to have a different view of what makes a 'gamer'.

I can see the arguments for being a core gamer, aficionado and all that. It just breaks down far too quickly as people always want to draw their own lines. Not only that, but liking certain games doesn't make you part of this nebulous 'gamer culture'. Does not circlejerking on the net make you less of a 'gamer', even if you love Persona 4? I mean, millions and millions of people own PS2s - does playing on that 'core' system make you a legit gamer even if you only play Madden? CoD? What if you only love Candy Crush and Persona? Does it make you less of a gamer if you circlejerk on gamefaqs but are only interested in Mario? Does circlejerking on gamefaqs mean you're a gamer if you only play dudebro shooters and dismiss everything else as nerdgames? Does playing hundreds of hours on mobile games make you less of a gamer than someone who's only really interested in VNs? What if you ignore the AAA games entirely but love walking simulators? Are you part of the gaming culture if you ignore wide swathes of games, have no idea what happened at E3, but spend hundreds of hours editing the Dark Souls wikia? What if you spend hours on gaming forums, obsess over Gamergate, but only ever pwn nubs in Halo?

It's a vague term that pretty much only tells you what games the person defining it enjoys.

No one argues about belonging to a film-viewing culture, or draws lines at which films make you a true film-viewer.

Gaming is at the point now where this discussion is worthless. We're at the point now where the only useful question is asking: 'Hey bud, what games are you into?' Like you would with any other medium.

If they say 'I just play Plants VS. Zombies on the train', you have free reign to be a judgey doucheberg and dismiss them for not being a proper gamer.

But here's the thing, trying to work out whether someone is a proper """""gamer""""" is only going to make you look like the dude who turns his nose up if you aren't a Fellini fan.

 

[Des-Esseintes]

Trying to discuss the term is generally useless as every old wanker seems to have a different view of what makes a 'gamer'.

I can see the arguments for being a core gamer, aficionado and all that. It just breaks down far too quickly as people always want to draw their own lines. Not only that, but liking certain games doesn't make you part of this nebulous 'gamer culture'. Does not circlejerking on the net make you less of a 'gamer', even if you love Persona 4? I mean, millions and millions of people own PS2s - does playing on that 'core' system make you a legit gamer even if you only play Madden? CoD? What if you only love Candy Crush and Persona? Does it make you less of a gamer if you circlejerk on gamefaqs but are only interested in Mario? Does circlejerking on gamefaqs mean you're a gamer if you only play dudebro shooters and dismiss everything else as nerdgames? Does playing hundreds of hours on mobile games make you less of a gamer than someone who's only really interested in VNs? What if you ignore the AAA games entirely but love walking simulators? Are you part of the gaming culture if you ignore wide swathes of games, have no idea what happened at E3, but spend hundreds of hours editing the Dark Souls wikia? What if you spend hours on gaming forums, obsess over Gamergate, but only ever pwn nubs in Halo?

It's a vague term that pretty much only tells you what games the person defining it enjoys.

No one argues about belonging to a film-viewing culture, or draws lines at which films make you a true film-viewer.

Gaming is at the point now where this discussion is worthless. We're at the point now where the only useful question is asking: 'Hey bud, what games are you into?' Like you would with any other medium.

If they say 'I just play Plants VS. Zombies on the train', you have free reign to be a judgey doucheberg and dismiss them for not being a proper gamer.

But here's the thing, trying to work out whether someone is a proper """""gamer""""" is only going to make you look like the dude who turns his nose up if you aren't a Fellini fan.

I dont disagree with your overall argument of "There is no litmus test for determining what is a gamer", I do disagree on your perception of "It is essentially douchberg tribalism".

You see I think that Gamer serves as a valid term, and thus a valid identifier. And while people do draw their own definitions (because like you said and I agreed the term is vague), there still seem to be overarching themes to it. If we meet each other and I go "So what are your hobbies?" and you go "Oh I am a gamer" that statement still relays information to me. It gives me ideas of what questions to ask. And if "Everyone is a gamer" then it wouldn't. Because you might as well have gone "Oh I am alive".

The Gamer tag has with it some expectations and identifiers enabling humans to relate to each other (negative and positive. That is always the risk of wearing a label). Even if it also enables the "Thin red line tribalism".

I get you geezer.

The problem is that this issue arises with pretty much any hobby.

Answering your question with 'I like going to the movies.' could mean a million different things. If you assume someone loving movies means they're familiar with the French new wave and dogma movements then that's mostly on you. Which is why the 'Oh cool, what games you into?' is the useful question. Because being into games, music, movies, etc... is a widely massively broadly broad thing. And in all cases, trying to needle out of people whether they're a proper true film fan by judging whether they like the RIGHT movies, have the minimum level of understanding of Richard Linklater and Chaplin, is only going to make you look like a doucheberg. The internet's definition for what makes a movie fan seems to be loving Marvel, Tarrantino and Nolan while hating rom-coms. And I'm sure there are whole communities circlejerking over how they're not real movie fans and I'm sure that most people just like watching the odd movie and don't care about your classifications.

If someone says they're into Candy Crush and Halo, then just move on. Just like I'm not going to dismiss someone for loving 80's action films and not loving my choice of Lynch films - we'll just move onto common ground. And if either of us is silently judging the other for not having the correct, right, truthful knowledge of film, then we'd probably look like arses.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

You could also just like...quantify the term. Like we have with other things. So you're an avid reader, a regular runner, a heavy smoker. Obsessive porn watcher. Whatever it is, if you just said any of the above -ers without an adjective preceding it, it could be a huge range of the activity (running once a day, or once a month, smoking only on weekends/chain smoking, and so on.)

 

[CannibalCorpses]

So how would you define me?

I play computer games, board games, table top games, card games, pen and paper rpgs...etc.

Hardcore gamer works for my computer gaming...casual gamer works for my card gaming...table top games are always hardcore gaming...

Also, it has nothing to do with money or anything like that. I don't spend much on any type of gaming...i haven't paid for a computer game for about 2 years...i haven't bought any new models for table top gaming for about 20 years.

 

[McMarbles]

The question you should be asking isn't "Is everyone a gamer?" The question you should be asking is "Why the hell does it matter so much to me?"

its an identity that is important to me that alot of people would rather it cease to exist or stretch it so that it covers people who dont even identify as a gamer

That sounds like a personal problem to me. You don't own the concept of gaming. You don't get to make the distinction.