After Dark Ep 4: Are You An Elitist Gamer?

Yay! No Darnell! Maybe we’ll have three people who add to the show now! But definetly the teams that watched, need to be Disqualified, *none* of this should be on Riots shoulders.

I kinda have to agree with Schaffnit on the gamer topic. I consider a gamer to be one who has played, and continues to play, a myriad of games, and has at least occasionally gone outside the game to learn more about it.

A ‘gamer’ obsesses over games to varying degrees, not just plays them a lot.

Real gamers visit gamebreaker.tv.

Ah the infamous question of “What is a gamer?” Personally, I think the issue is, as with many things in life, the fact that there are lots of different ways you can approach the meaning of a word. From a strictly technical perspective, a gamer would be one who plays games. Anyone who plays video games is some form of gamer. However, culture and context both apply significance and meaning to certain subsets of gamers, but frustratingly use the same word. While I say the technical definition is merely “one who games”, I would say that the broader (and more significant) definition would be someone who is passionate about gaming. It doesn’t have to be measured in hours per day or in exactly what genres are considered to be “hardcore”, I think that it is all in the mindset, the attitude, and the investment. 

Many people who just “casually” game are doing it just to fit in some entertainment into a slot in their lives. This isn’t a bad thing, but typically it means that they would be fine filling that same time slot with some other activity and wouldn’t overly miss the casual games they played. What I think of when someone says “gamer” though is someone who chooses games because they *prefer and care about* games. They (we) follow the industry, the trends, and we think about what makes a game good or bad. It’s more than just “something to pass the time”, it’s a lifestyle choice.

It’s like the difference between someone who watches movies, which is pretty much everyone in the world, and someone who is what I would call a movie aficionado. The former will watch new movies they hear are good, or will occasionally rent or stream a movie to pass some time. The latter is someone who watches an enormous quantity of movies and is invested/interested in the aspects that make film good, interested in ways that the medium can communicate its messages, and fairly analytical about them.

As I said, many other disciplines or hobbies have specific distinctions for the level of investment. Gamers are all lumped into one group and one word. Culturally, I think of someone calling themself a gamer as someone basically saying they are an aficionado, more than simply “one who games”. It’s not about elitism, it’s merely about making a distinction about your level of involvement. More or less is not better or worse, merely different.