http://www.avault.com/articles/getarticle.asp?name=greatgamer
Has anyone ever suggested that they were? First I’ve heard of it.
Troy
Interesting topic, but it’s flawed. The problem is that the game-playing segment of the population is too large. This would be akin to asking whether “people who watch movies” should be film critics.
- Alan
At some point the fact that the term “gamer” has become fairly meaningless needs to be addressed. We don’t call people who watch movies “moviers.” I realize it helps that “game” can be used as a verb, but I honestly don’t know anyone who doesn’t play some form of videogame these days. It doesn’t seem like games are niche enough to warrant a label for those who play them anymore.
It really is sort of hard to comment on this without knowing what brought the article on. Honestly, the only people who pretend that “pro gamers” have any importance is AVault’s parent company, the CPL. Very few actually give a shit what the “successful gamers” have to say otherwise. In fact, it’s pretty much known that you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when you bother to seek the opinion of those people.
I think the problem is that people reivew games without understanding them. You can not compare game reviewing to movie reviewing. You can sit and watch a movie for two hours and then think about it for another two. You can not really grok a game unless you put a hell of a lot of hours into it. For multi-player RTS games, your proabbly need at least 40 to 60 hours to have a decent foundation of understanding the games. For MMOGs, much longer.
I do not really even read reviews anymore, they are so meaningless. The one site I used to use, Avault, lost its soul quite some time ago. Othersites, such as gamespot, seem to give to many bad games good reviews and I feel that they are somewhat bought and not honest.
The only reliable source is a community like this one where you can talk to other gamers.
I think that “Gamers” is similar to “Trekkers” (or the less accurate “Trekkies”) I watch Star Trek a lot more than most people but I hardly consider myself a “Trekker.” And I know quite a few people that play games very casually that I would never call “Gamers.”
If you buy more than 10 games a year, you own more than one platform, and you’ve played online then you’re probably a Gamer. Otherwise you’re just a normal person.
We do call them “moviegoers”, though. Which is pretty much the same thing as “gamer” these days, but I get your point.
“Hardcore gamer” is the closest we have to the equivalent of a term like “film buff”.
I think the fact that you bother to draw a distinction between “Trekker” and “Trekkie” shoots your “I’m not one” assertion all to hell.
If you buy more than 10 games a year, you own more than one platform, and you’ve played online then you’re probably a Gamer. Otherwise you’re just a normal person.
And if you watch more than ten episodes of Star Trek a year, you’re a Trekkie? If you watch more than ten movies a year you’re a film freak? What if you buy more than ten parlor/puzzle games a year? What about people who just play PnP RPGs and call themselves gamers?
It’s an archaic term that doesn’t really mean anything today, and never really was descriptive enough to carry any real weight beyond being a synonym for “dork.”
“The seemingly natural progression from player to critic is, however, fraught with controversy.”
It’s about time someone tackled this topic, and the controversies therein.
I do like this: “I have also heard indirectly that some game magazines even screen potential reviewers by their level of skill at virtual electronic recreation (the Adrenaline Vault specifically does not do this for new recruits).”
I’ve heard, indirectly, that Tom Chick where’s women’s clothing. I think I’ll put it into an editorial instead of, I dunno, asking him.
And what exactly does “virtual electronic recreation” mean? Is that a way to avoid using “game” twice in the same sentence?
Gamer- Can name most of the monsters from Doom,Quake, Quake II and unreal.
Remembers individual levels as if they were rooms in thier own house.
Knows the name of not only AAA designers, but the nicknames of guys from the mod scenes.
For that matter plays MODs. All the time. Just to see…you know…
Plays anything if someone even marginally recommends it. An ‘it’s alright’ is good enough.
Learns the nuances of games- build orders, rocket jumping, min maxing whatever.
Likes ESPN 2k5 over Madden
Understands achronyms - MMORPGS,LOMAC wahtever.
Hangs out in gaming forums.
Gamer over movier- well, you actually are doing an action in games…er…gaming, you are passive enjoying movies, I’m movieing?
Matt,
Look, obviously there’s never going to be an exact dividing line between what makes somebody a casual hobbyist at something and a hardcore hobbyist at something, but there is a very obvious difference between somebody that only buys The Sims 2 in all of 2004 and somebody that buys 20 games, plays MMORPGs, owns multiple consoles etc. One of those people is a casual hobbyist when it comes to games and the other is a hardcore hobbyist.
My sister called me the other day and told me “is it safe for me to date a gamer?” Apparently this new guy she met calls himself a gamer to women he meets and it’s important enough to him to self-identify as a gamer. Admittedly she was slightly worried that the gaming was going to cause problems, but she was easily reassured that we’re awesome.
The key thing here is self-identification. If you play games but you don’t really obsess about it or write long posts on an internet forum and you don’t identify yourself as a gamer then you’re probably not a gamer. If you watch Star Trek somewhat frequently but you hated 3 of the 5 series and you didn’t even see the latest movie but you don’t call yourself a “Trekker” then you’re probably not a Trekker. (Allowing of course for people who are fooling themselves by watching Trek 8 hours per day and playing WoW another 8 hours but that refuse to describe themselves as either Trekkers or Gamers.)
Let me bring in two other examples…
The prevalence of extremely cheap and fun electric RC planes and helicopters (from Interactive Toy Concepts and Hobbyzone for instance) has meant that lots of people are now getting interested in RC planes that would never have attempted to start the hobby previously. I got into it with one of the cheap planes but I’ve now exanded into the more expensive equipment. Basically I own 3 planes at this point which is nothing compared to the serious hobbyists. I fly my planes when I feel like it, I don’t belong to an RC club, and I don’t do anything with it over the winter. I would barely qualify as an RC hobbyist to most of the hardcore and there are tons of people out there that have flown RC planes but have never gone to the next level that wouldn’t know half of what I know about the hobby.
I can contrast this with my interest in trains. I’ve done enough with trains to consider myself both a railfan and a modeler even though I haven’t done a lot lately. I would consider myself a serious train hobbyist but not a serious RC hobbyist. Again, it’s self-identification and it’s subjective.
In the end, I don’t exactly understand what you’re getting so exercised about it. It seems like your main argument is that you think the term is basically derogatory and should be dispensed with, but I hardly think that Gamer has become some kind of slur. As in my sister’s case, it had a slight negative connotation but wasn’t going to put her off from dating this guy. There’s clearly going to continue to be a word that describes people who are very seriously interested in video games. The trend towards more people being interested in video games is eventually going to make “Gamer” lose whatever negative connotation it has.
If you want to ape the political correctness movement and start calling us “Interactive Entertainment Americans” or something equally stupid then you can give it a try, but I’m going to proudly continue to call myself a gamer.
Only about three of those apply to me (level memory, acronyms, gaming forums), but I’ve been playing games since 1979.
This is exactly my point. To include everyone who plays games to any regular degree, the term “gamer” must now be expanded to the point that it becomes useless as a label. It no longer really indicates anything beyond “someone who plays games,” which is essentially everyone these days.
It could be a national difference, but I know very few people who play games regularly, beyond Minesweeper and Microsoft Solitaire, most of my friends think I’m a bit wierd for doing so. You only have to listen to a TV or radio discussion on ‘violent video games’ to realise how many people are ignorant of the whole subject.
On the main question; surely game reviewers, like film critics, are pretty much self-appointed experts, people who’ve turned their hobby into a paying job. I can’t see that anyone who doesn’t enjoy games or movies becoming a reviewer in either field.
That’s not even close to my main argument. Quite the opposite, in fact. I assert that the term has become so broad and overused that it no longer really indicates anything, and is essentially useless. I certainly don’t expect it to go away, but I do think it’s become the crate of game terminology.
Well I guess I misunderstood then. I still don’t really agree with you though because I believe that the term is still valid since it’s mostly self-applied. I guess I’m just not seeing the dilution of the word in the way you’re suggesting.
Well I guess I misunderstood then. I still don’t really agree with you though because I believe that the term is still valid since it’s mostly self-applied. I guess I’m just not seeing the dilution of the word in the way you’re suggesting.[/quote]
It may be tied in to working somewhere the term “gamer” is synonymous with “18-34 year old male,” yet anyone in the know is fully aware that that simply isn’t what it means. Not always, anyway.
Aside from that, I always hated when people would add adjectives to “gamer.” “Hardcore gamer,” “casual gamer,” “weaksauce gamer,” whatever. You play games, you’re a gamer. At this point, it seems that so many people fall under that heading that it just doesn’t mean anything useful anymore. As mentioned above, it’s like saying “I’m a moviegoer.” That’s nice. So’s about half the population.
I think we’re just operating on different definitions of the same term. I rarely think of “gamer” as a self-appointed label.
Are you going anywhere with this?
This is an interesting discussion that doesn’t need the forum police if you don’t mind.
:roll:
Are you going anywhere with this?
Come on, guys. Kick it into high gear. Jon R’s getting annoyed. :roll: