Revolutionaryloser said:
ScruffyMcBalls said:
I almost completely agree with you, to a point. But I do want to add one thing to the debate. While yes, a vast number of people play video games, that doesn't actually qualify them as "gamers". At the risk of coming across as elitest (and trust me, that's the last thing I want to be) it's only a minority of people who play games who are actually gamers. Any asshole can pick up a controller and play a game, but that doesn't mean they're involved in the gaming community, that doesn't mean they have a vested interest in the industry and it doesn't mean they are a gamer. You put it best when you called gaming a "hobby", and while gaming is a hobby for me, my uncle who plays a couple rounds of deathmatch of an evening would call gaming a "pass-time" something he picks up once in a while. I'd be tempted to believe the majority of new "gamers" are the same. Now at this point it's all semantics, and either one of us could be wrong. I hope you're right in the long run, but who knows?
I know you said you don't want to be called an elitist, but there isn't another word for it. You can't create an adequate definition for gamer other than "somebody who plays videogames". People who want to reduce the scope of that term only want to disassociate themselves from other people. Nobody has authority to tell somebody else whether they are are gamer or not. Trying to find differences between yourself and other people is a negative practice and it achieves nothing other than insulating yourself from other people. Likewise, trying to find similarities between yourself and others can be just as harmful.
Your argument is wrong on that many levels I don't really feel like responding to it, but I'll give it a shot anyway, for shits and giggles.
The title "Gamer" is just a name here, a name which I'm applying to a group of people who actually care about the industry, and more importantly about the games (oh, and most importantly also play those games of course). Anyone outside that group is not a gamer, but can in fact still just play video games. You can give the group any name you want, but considering it's characteristics, gamer seems apt. Based on said characteristics, I do, as it happens, have the authority to proclaim any other person as not being a gamer, so does anyone else it's basic logic. And no, I don't actively want to disassociate myself from others, I just want to have it made clear where the boundaries lie between those who actually have a stake and a say in a matter and those who don't. That way shit gets done, and it gets done quicker since we don't *have* to take into account what people who aren't -and shouldn't be- involved have to say.
And finding differences between myself and others isn't a negative practice in of itself. However if I then use those differences (which, sorry to break it to you; they fucking exist) for a negative cause, which I'm not, then it can be part of a negative act. But that isn't what I'm doing here. And it does achieve more than isolate me from others -by the by, differences do not instantly equal isolation, unless you're part of a hive society- it can also allow third parties to more accurately and correctly make decisions based upon those groups and those group's characteristics (which is the whole point in this case, thought I'd tell you that since it sailed completely over your head apparently).
Oh, and that last line "Likewise, trying to find similarities between yourself and others can be just as harmful." I'm no fucking clansman, I doubt me finding something in common with someone else is gonna cause harm, the statement lacks validity in this context. And ultimately that's what your argument lacks as a whole, the context to float above the river of shit that you expected to sustain it. Good day sir.
(I feel sorry for anyone who has to read through all this, I mean damn...)