Poll: What is a gamer?

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

to me calling someone a gamer is like calling someone a reader.
a person who plays games in other words it is a blanket term. both the person who only plays farmvile once in a while and the hardcore kind that spend many hours playing are gamers. they are just gamers to a different extent.
to see it other wise just seems inclusive.

 

[Excedrin]

An open question to those who define a gamer as one who plays "a lot": are the terms "avid gamer" or "hardcore gamer" redundant to you? If not, what do they mean to you?

 

[mitchell271]

So for me personally:
-If you play games on a pc and don't even know what computer specs you're running, you're not a gamer.
-If you play games on a console and hardly know about the hardware accessories, you're not a gamer.
-If you play only the extremely casual 'app' games, like angry birds or plants vs zombies, or other such games you're not a gamer.
-If you only play maybe one hour or less a day on average, even if you have a lot more free time than that, you're not a gamer.
-If you've never participated in competitive play, you're not a gamer.
-If you know nothing/hardly anything about what's going on in the industry as a whole. What's happening with the more well-known companies, what games are coming out soon, etc.

That's pretty much the same for me, except for the competitive play part. I've never played in a competition because I play games for fun. That being said, I'm definitely a gamer. I meet every single other one of those criteria and I take how gaming is viewed in the media or by the general populace very seriously. When it really comes down to it though, if games are part of your identity, you're a gamer.

OP: Why did they get a warning for "Please justify your choice?"

 

[hermes]

A person that plays games and gets involved into the hobby enough to learn and discuss about it when they are not actively playing. For lack of a better word, its a "games enthusiast".

 

[corneth]

I play games, but I don't label myself a "gamer" because I there's so much baggage that comes with it. Saying I'm a gamer implies everything from misogyny to Doctor Who to drinking mountain dew, and that's something that I can't get down with. I love music, I visit at least five different music blogs a day, follow Billboard charts and own players for every major music medium except 8-tack. Does this make me a musicer? Of course not, I just like music a lot. just like liking movies doesn't make me a movier and watching tv doesn't make me a Televisioner. It's just something I like, and games are no different.

 

[DioWallachia]

I agree with /almost/ everything in this post. The almost being that Birth of a Nation actually /was/ a masterpiece, being one of the most influential films of all time. Sure, it was full of racism and caused the resurgance of the KKK, but it also pioneered pretty much everything about modern film making that wasn't pioneered by either Citizen Kane or Star Wars. Plus, the director felt bad about single handedly reviving the KKK, so he made Intolerance, kind of the anti-Birth of a Nation, to atone.

Not sure if advancing the medium of cinema at the expense of bringing the KKK was worth it. In fact, under your reasoning, i have to thank Twilight for sucking so hard, to the point that more people started to pay attention to books and vampire novels that are ACTUALLY GOOD...........at the expense of brainwashing the teenagers into being submise dipshits that cant lift a finger without their man.

I wonder, if Birth Of a Nation didnt exist, would cinema have taken longer to be considered an art form? i know at least that Roger Ebert says that it was Citizen Kane, The Most Trimphant example of Cinema as an art form, the one who did it.

And while we are on the subject, do you think that the game industry has his own "Birth Of a Nation" where it advanced the mdium at the same time it DID manage to push the mdium foward? kinda curious.

 

[DementedSheep]

Someone who plays games as one of their major hobbies, that's it. You don?t need to have played a certain game, you don?t need to have been playing for 20 odd years, and you most certainly don?t need to know the goddamn history who invented what.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It's guessing its someone that plays games, but more than just dabbling, sort of like a nice middle ground between so-called casual (only plays games occasionally and even then only Facebook or iphone games) and a hardcore (keeps up with the industry and appreciates games as an art) gamers.

Ostensibly someone who plays games and chooses to label themselves as such, which I no longer do.

EDIT: That is, I still play games, I just don't associate myself with that label.

I'm curious, why do you know longer label yourself as a gamer?

EDIT: I've changed my mind. Let's just say that gamers are no longer a group I want to associate with.

Why not?

Because if most other gamers are any example then being a gamer is hardly a condition to be desired.

 

[StBishop]

sniiiiip

-I did say 'playing more than an hour a day on average, if you have more free time than that'. As in, if you have more than an hour a day to spend on games, but aren't using it for that. And no, after class activities, going to the stores, and other such things are not counted as free time to me. From what you're saying, you don't have enough free time to play more than an hour. So that rule wouldn't apply to you.
-You know enough about accessories to know which ones there are apparently. As otherwise you wouldn't know they were crappy. Also, that rule was more aimed at people playing games more on console than on PC. As in, if you're more of a pc gamer rule 1 applies, if you're more of a console gamer, rule 2 applies. You own a gaming pc, so I'm guessing you at least used to game more on PC than console? (I should have been more clear on those first two rules, I guess.)

Yeah fair enough. The way I see it any time I'm not in class or working as free time, I tend to spend a lot of it reading stuff which is tangentially related to my studies.

I suppose it is stuff I have to do but you're right, it's not really free time as my marks would suffer if I gamed instead.

Yeah, I was a PC gamer, I predominantly play console now (easier to share games with my girlfriend and more Co-op options), but I like to keep my PC capable of running whatever I want in case something comes along on PC.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It's guessing its someone that plays games, but more than just dabbling, sort of like a nice middle ground between so-called casual (only plays games occasionally and even then only Facebook or iphone games) and a hardcore (keeps up with the industry and appreciates games as an art) gamers.

Ostensibly someone who plays games and chooses to label themselves as such, which I no longer do.

EDIT: That is, I still play games, I just don't associate myself with that label.

I'm curious, why do you know longer label yourself as a gamer?

EDIT: I've changed my mind. Let's just say that gamers are no longer a group I want to associate with.

Why not?

Because if most other gamers are any example then being a gamer is hardly a condition to be desired.

! Wait....a condition? You say it like it's a horrifying disease.

Well I got that phrase from from a Star Trek novel. The original line read "If you are any example then being Vulcan is hardly a condition to be desired." and was spoken by Spock to his father.
Anyway, the point I was trying to convey is that the behavior of most other gamers makes it so that any respectable person wouldn't want to be labeled as such, which is certainly the case with me.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It's guessing its someone that plays games, but more than just dabbling, sort of like a nice middle ground between so-called casual (only plays games occasionally and even then only Facebook or iphone games) and a hardcore (keeps up with the industry and appreciates games as an art) gamers.

Ostensibly someone who plays games and chooses to label themselves as such, which I no longer do.

EDIT: That is, I still play games, I just don't associate myself with that label.

I'm curious, why do you know longer label yourself as a gamer?

EDIT: I've changed my mind. Let's just say that gamers are no longer a group I want to associate with.

Why not?

Because if most other gamers are any example then being a gamer is hardly a condition to be desired.

! Wait....a condition? You say it like it's a horrifying disease.

Well I got that phrase from from a Star Trek novel. The original line read "If you are any example then being Vulcan is hardly a condition to be desired." and was spoken by Spock to his father.
Anyway, the point I was trying to convey is that the behavior of most other gamers makes it so that any respectable person wouldn't want to be labeled as such, which is certainly the case with me.

And what about those that carry that title as though it were a shining badge of honor? And I'm not talking about the jerky think "I'm better than you because of how good I am at Black Ops" kind of people, either. I mean the kinds of people who took part of life lessons, were challenged to think a different way about something,were inspired,felt they were part of something they be proud of,people that shared their interests,were introduced to amazing things because they resemble something they liked,kind of of people that can find meaning in the games they play,and can even create or elaborate on existing characters in interesting ways? Those that aren't total jerks to people, but just enjoy gaming not just for the reasons stated above,but for finding other like minded individuals that share thier interests,helping them find friends. What about those kind of gamers? What about....me?

Hence why I used the qualifier "most." At the very least, enough that I don't want to be associated with them by labeling myself as a gamer.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

No "miserable pile of secrets" reference? I'm Insulted!

But seriously? Anyone who enjoys games and plays regularly. That's pretty much how it works for all other hobbies.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

I was torn between "a hardcore player who takes games seriously" and "someone who plays games a lot," so I picked the former because it had the least amount of votes of the two and I'm a pain in the ass.

Since games are so ubiquitous now, it just seems weird for there to be a term for anyone who plays them. We don't have people saying that they're "movie watchers" because they enjoy watching the occasional movie in their free time. So I liken "gamer" to "movie buff"--someone who really likes games to the point that, when they're not playing them, they're usually comparing, dissecting, and analyzing them. (Exaggeration, but still.)

And for the record, I don't consider myself a gamer. If other people consider me one, though, that's fine. Labels don't define us, we define labels!