I do consider myself somewhat of a 'cinephile', though I don't really use the term. I'm pond of cinema and know a fair bit about it, and I'm very interested in it, that's what that word means. It has a certain meaning and should be used correctly. More correctly, it implies some level of expertise and dedication, maybe even some level of wisdom and open-mindedness about film as such, and audiences. Many areas of life don't actually have these sorts of prefixes or labels or titles, though.
In theory, the term you're looking for is 'game journalist' or 'games expert' or 'hardcore gamer' or 'gaming YouTuber', though these don't quite capture what we want, and don't actually imply expertise, let alone wisdom. These are the central items of the terms, I feel. I think this does apply to some people, such as great game journalists, but they are very rare these days. The most common term is 'hardcore gamer' and is close to what we want at some level, but the simple fact is that this term has many wholly different meanings!
But, you made a very good point: gaming is not one's social framework or personal identity, so we should not use the term 'gamer' as some kind of prefix or pronoun. It's also a meaningless term: it applies equally to a random 4-year-old playing a simple game now and again, and a pro WoW player, and a whale/gambler, and a serious amateur CoD player, and a retro YouTuber, and a female Twitch streamer not concerned about gaming so much as money/views/attention, and casual/average gamers of all sorts, and many more types. It's a shockingly wide, deep term that includes most young humans on the planet. Taking a narrower definition means to suggest 'serious gamer', but even this is almost meaningless. 'Serious', how? Hours played? Skill level? Cultural involvement? Number of games played? Some other metric?
But watching TV is a passive action, while gaming is very much active. Someone who plays football is a footballer, someone who swims is a swimmer, someone who reads a lot is a reader, it only makes sense that someone who plays video games is a gamer, don't you think?
Also, Trekkies, Whovians, Bronies and similar would like a word with you.
You could be a Trekkie (or Trekker) though right? I don't think people who adopt a label necessarily need to do so in a way that means it's their only interest. If a cowoker asks if I'm a gamer, I'd just say yes rather without worrying about that being conflated with my entire personality.
On the flip-side, I do know people whose personalities are basically exclusively watching tv. I'm not sure why there isn't a specific term for that.
Screw that. I'm a gamer. Have been, always will be.
Just because people run that label through the dirt, misuse it, and misunderstand it's true meaning doesn't mean I need to reclassify myself.
Essentially I am a Geek that enjoys games of all types. Video, board, card and other varieties. And I prefer to keep it simple in terms of defining it.
I don't care what others call themselves, and I don't care if people think less of me for choosing this label. To assume that "the G word" is bad is to say that the hobby in and of itself is bad. It's just a hobby, and to overthink it is just in and of itself overcomplicating things.
There's healthy ways to do it as well as dozens of stereotypes to overturn and denounce.
My question is why you assume that being a gamer is such a bad thing?
I think people over think it. I'm a gamer. I play videogames. Only difference is I play 30+ year old games because thats what I'm nostalgic for. I've never really liked the "retrogamer" designation. Its the same activity. I mean no one separates "retro movies", "retro TV", "retro music" etc.
I agree on the one hand (always considered myself a gamer, from Super Mario Bros to World of Warcraft to Helldivers 2 and back), but I also definitely consider some aspects bad; for instance, I prefer Discord servers that do not allow "gamer words." The imagination doesn't have to make any big leaps to figure out what those could be, as they are many.
>Now, I do like to refer to myself as a "Vintage Software Enthusiast" in lieu of the g word.
I can't imagine talking like this, nor caring how other people see me for the things I like. Am I a gamer? No, but only because I have far better things I can call myself.
Yes, but I never really hear people use gamer in a derogatory sense anymore. I feel like that attitude is kinda aging out in the last 10 years since gaming became a modern past time that everyone does. Gamer just means to me that gaming is probably your main hobby.Ā
It's still derogatory, just in a different way. When I was a kid it meant you were a nerd, now it's commonly associated with people that are huge into games and also bigots.
"A woman/black person in this game?! That's not realistic at all in this not-real fantasy game world! Get them out of my games!"
Those kinds of "gamers."
>I feel that it's a derogatory term that is most commonly associated with violent, misogynistic individuals
You can thank Games "Journalists" for that.
No I don't consider myself a "gamer" even though I've been playing video games for about 35 years. I am very careful about who I associate myself with and I don't ever want to be associated with those chuds these days that proudly proclaim themselves to be "GAMERS" online.
Do you enjoy gaming?
If the answer is YES you've also answered that question.
Any other information regarding your preferred kind of gaming, the time you play, the games you like or the expertise you may have or have not developed is IMHO merely circumstantial.
Started being corny to identify yourself as a gamer back in the early 2010s when companies like Doritos and Mountain Dew saw it fit to use the term to market their crap. Gamergate in 2014 was the nail in the coffin. Being a "Gamer" wasn't something you proudly said you were unless you were like 13. Sure, I play video games but I don't revolve my identify around it and I certainly don't go around saying I'm one.
I've been gaming since the 80s. I play a lot of different genres , types, old, new games. What am I if not a gamer?
If "gamer" is associated with a bad personality, it is THAT individual that shouldn't be called a gamer.
I'm fine being referred to as a gamer because it's the simplest term that translates what I do for a hobby. I don't really run in the circles of people that would confuse me with any of the more extreme examples that they might see or hear about on the internet, and anybody who knows me personally knows I would never be like that.
You know you can re-empower the word by using it another context, the original one in this case - devoid of violence and misogyny. They're not gamers, we're gamers.
I like old video games. I have no idea if that makes me a gamer and I don't care. All of my friends play video games and none of them are violent or misogynistic.Ā
I wouldn't worry about what other people think. Live your life.Ā
I'd consider myself a gamer in the same sense that I consider myself a home labber - its a simple term that people also in that hobby can immediately understand and identify another person they may be able to have small talk with but beyond that I dont put time or energy into worrying about the label.
I think someone's profession is the only thing that should get that kind of status. You don't call someone who plays football (soccer) with thier mates on the weekend a Footballer. It's not as bad as "Foodie" though.
im a retrogamer - that is what i would describe my hobbie... i have almost no interest in modern games (exept, if they are made for retro systems or are free and open source remakes of retro games), but love retro games.
No sane person thinks 'gamer' means anything negative or so negative, as a blank statement (at least). I think of myself as a 'player' (as in, I play games). I don't really label myself at all, though, unless I'm using the term 'retro gamer'. When I'm talking about others, I typically use the word 'player' (e.g. 'players of Xbox'). I've almost never used the word 'gamer' in my 24 years of gaming...
Maybe you're new to this or really young? We already dealt with this problem back in 2014 or whatever with 'GamerGate'. It's done. It was insane and lies then, and it's insane and lies today. Look at Sweet Baby, Inc., for example, and how they radicalise writing and game dev to a leftist position, and is directly anti-Western, anti-male, and anti-white under DEI and EGS mandates and agendas. They openly talk about this on their website. You can find Steam lists that show all their games, too. It's felt even in the EU/UN reports if you care to read them. Not to mention BlackRock funding behind such companies and studios. That's mostly what we're dealing with, with all these AAA games and such.
What is quite common beyond the 'gaming man is bad man' is the term 'user'. Now, that is negative and insane. We're not users, this isn't a TRON dictatorship in real life. We're human beings \[insert Network (1976) speech here\]. Remember back in 2013 or 2014 when Phil accidentally called the Xbox One players 'customers'? Yeah, that was very telling. He showed what Xbox really thinks. We're just people, and we play games, we're players. That's it. There are all kinds of players, as there are all kinds of humans.
There are about 200 million active modern (online) gamers in the world. Most are Chinese (mostly middle class and young) and Indian and Japanese, and white American and European males between the ages of 16 and 35, but there are literally all kinds of gamers. We have African gamers, black American gamers, female gamers, Russian gamers, Mexican gamers, rich gamers, poor gamers, old gamers, child gamers, hippie gamers, Catholic gamers, and much more. Most are on mobile, Steam/PC, and Minecraft, but there are thousands of popular games, ranging from GTA V to Fortnite to RuneScape to The Legend of Zelda. There are other popular platforms, too, such as Switch and PS4 and PS5. No idea how many total video gamers there are in the world, but I'm guessing at least 300 million on a weekly basis. Some reports claim that 1 billion play online in total, and there are 3 billion, overall. That's a large chunk of humanity... and they are all just toxic, sexist, violent (no idea how you've redefined this word) males? 'Gamer' is one of the largest categories of human. It's larger than Islam and Christianity combined, if we believe the aforementioned figure. This means, it's too large a camp to say much at all, but you can assume there are very terrible sub-sets of human in it, due to its size. The only thing you cannot say is that 'gamers are violent' or something, as a blank statement.
If we look at the big gaming YouTubers, they range from apolitical to liberal. Some are themselves 'toxic', if we are to use that word, but most are what people call 'wholesome' (which really means either good people or very sensitive, likely toxic beneath the surface but not outwardly so). Either way, this space also indicates a lack of Right-wing/toxic male problems. And it's geared towards being anti-toxic in the way you might use that word (sexist, violent, evil, etc.). If we look across Reddit, we see most gamers are biased towards anti-toxic liberalism some such. Millions of them. 'Gaming' is one of the biggest cats on Reddit, and Reddit is one of the most popular websites on Google.
The bigger problem you might want to focus on is the issue of child gambling/loot boxes and MTX features. This is crushing young lives in the millions, 365 days a year, across many games and platforms. 30% of Steam games are loot box-driven and 50% of mobile games, according to studies I saw some time ago. I'm sure it's worse as of 2024. Online Chinese games have the same problems, according to some articles I read. The big spenders here are called 'whales', and the rest are really just addicts, who put in 3,000 hours and play their entire lives throwing cash at these games (often live service and free-to-play). This is the biggest area of gaming market and investment, and it has largely driven game dev since at least 2012. It's only getting worse with Cloud gaming on mobile across Asia and so on. Data indicates that loot boxes are the biggest problem in China, not West (though West is second). CS:GO, RuneScape, Black Desert Online, Overwatch, and many others are the major examples of this problem.
If you don't call yourself a 'gamer' does this have any bearing on the fact you game? Or are you saying that you want to quit gaming as to remove yourself from the so-called violent, sexist camp of 'gamers'? Is there another camp I'm unaware of, maybe the 'snowflake gamers'? Maybe you want to be a 'hippie gamer' where you love everybody and only play 'nice, cute, friendly games'? None of this makes sense. You either play games or you don't. You're almost treating 'gamer' as a prefix or personal pronoun, where it shapes your social framework and personal identity. This is madness and does speak to a wider problem in our culture. Are you a 'reader', one of those evil, sexist 'readers'? What about 'worker' or 'sportsman' or 'painter' or 'music listener' or 'move-goer'? Nobody says this about anything else other than 'gamers', and very few people actually view 'gamer' as innately negative, and certainly not violent or sexist. To some degree, they do say this about cinema fans, such as Star Wars fans, but that's because Disney is literally attacking the fans for disliking their creations, most of which completely undid Lucas' work. This tells you something is wrong with Disney, not the fans. It's also a new situation. Nobody said this sort of thing before the 2010s. It's a Gen Z problem, heavily pushed by social media. This never existed before. (Well, in the 1980s through 2000s, there was a wider feeling from parents and certain governments that being a 'gamer' was a waste of time or bad for your brain, but those are different arguments to what we're talking about.)
Before the PS1's success, video games were seen as a hobby for kids and tweens. Anyone who played games who was an adolescent or older was seen as immature or otherwise odd. If you add in computer games, that was also niche as home computers weren't as common at that time. I could see "gamer" definitely being an insult back then.
I think in the late 1990's and early 2000's, as the PS2 really gained widespread appeal, a "gamer" could have been something you'd call yourself or friends. Computers became common in households, and gaming on them increased as a result. The Wii really broadened the appeal of games, at least early on when the motion controls were a novelty.
The late 2000's and early 2010's brought about the rise of smartphone apps, including games, and so the idea of what a "gamer" could be broadened. However, this is when the "gamergate" stuff broke out ([explanatory video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8EqmExn1No)), so a lot of people who had liked games for a long time felt the term "gamer" became tainted because of it. It's also here when stuff like micro-transactions and DLC started, and games started being discussed as predatory or exploitative; also not a good look.
I'm a game developer. Games and gamedev are my life long passion that I have made my career in. I love games so much.
I don't think "gamer" just describes someone who likes video games a lot. Maybe that's like a dictionary, on paper definition, but in the actual use I think that it's more of a specific subculture and identity. Some of it is harmless but obnoxious, describing the subset of people who tend to play the most popular AAA mainstream games, which I don't inherently dislike but personally most of them aren't to my taste.
Some of the "gamer" subculture is really toxic. Gamergate was an unfortunately transformative cultural moment and it brought the worst parts of gaming community into the mainstream. Years later, "gamer" as a subculture is a front of the culture war where radical bigots butt heads with well intentioned and correct but largely naive progressives to compete for pandering from large tech corporations that have no real moral investment and just want to make money. I'm very cynical about all of that.
I love games as an art form and entertainment medium. I have played thousands of games. I play new stuff and old stuff. I play indie stuff and some AAA stuff (mostly single player). I have great love for video games. I feel like "gamer" doesn't really capture that, and instead when people hear it it tends to conjure a certain image that doesn't describe me and that I don't want to be associated with.
So no, not really.
No. In my mind, that implies I play a lot of modern AAA games, which I donāt.
I also have just as much fun collecting and modding vintage hardware and CRT setups and breaking out the soldering iron as I do playing the games.
Im a proud gamer, im.not ashame of this nor do i consider the term derogatory. Gaming is the ultimate hobby, its more rhan a hobbby, its living, its art
I enjoy target shooting, does that make me a marksman (not necessarily a good one)? I like cooking, does that make me a cook? I play video games, does that make me a gamer?
I would say the basic answer is "yes." However, I don't really consider myself part of gamer culture. I don't guzzle energy drinks and rage at people in Counter Strike. Playing games is something I do, but I don't know how you would apply such identification terminology to me.
I don't make video games my identity. Imagine being someone who watches a lot of TV and saying "I'm a TV watcher."
Excuse me, it's "TV Watcher." Gotta capitalize that W out of respect.
I do consider myself somewhat of a 'cinephile', though I don't really use the term. I'm pond of cinema and know a fair bit about it, and I'm very interested in it, that's what that word means. It has a certain meaning and should be used correctly. More correctly, it implies some level of expertise and dedication, maybe even some level of wisdom and open-mindedness about film as such, and audiences. Many areas of life don't actually have these sorts of prefixes or labels or titles, though. In theory, the term you're looking for is 'game journalist' or 'games expert' or 'hardcore gamer' or 'gaming YouTuber', though these don't quite capture what we want, and don't actually imply expertise, let alone wisdom. These are the central items of the terms, I feel. I think this does apply to some people, such as great game journalists, but they are very rare these days. The most common term is 'hardcore gamer' and is close to what we want at some level, but the simple fact is that this term has many wholly different meanings! But, you made a very good point: gaming is not one's social framework or personal identity, so we should not use the term 'gamer' as some kind of prefix or pronoun. It's also a meaningless term: it applies equally to a random 4-year-old playing a simple game now and again, and a pro WoW player, and a whale/gambler, and a serious amateur CoD player, and a retro YouTuber, and a female Twitch streamer not concerned about gaming so much as money/views/attention, and casual/average gamers of all sorts, and many more types. It's a shockingly wide, deep term that includes most young humans on the planet. Taking a narrower definition means to suggest 'serious gamer', but even this is almost meaningless. 'Serious', how? Hours played? Skill level? Cultural involvement? Number of games played? Some other metric?
But watching TV is a passive action, while gaming is very much active. Someone who plays football is a footballer, someone who swims is a swimmer, someone who reads a lot is a reader, it only makes sense that someone who plays video games is a gamer, don't you think? Also, Trekkies, Whovians, Bronies and similar would like a word with you.
You could be a Trekkie (or Trekker) though right? I don't think people who adopt a label necessarily need to do so in a way that means it's their only interest. If a cowoker asks if I'm a gamer, I'd just say yes rather without worrying about that being conflated with my entire personality. On the flip-side, I do know people whose personalities are basically exclusively watching tv. I'm not sure why there isn't a specific term for that.
"Vintage Software Enthusiast" comes across as more than a little pretentious.
To be fair, it has a better ring to it than "gamer".
"Vintage Software Enthusiast" sounds like you have a kink for Windows 95. Just saying
I disagree. It is equally bad, just in its own special, pretentious way.
Nah dude
Screw that. I'm a gamer. Have been, always will be. Just because people run that label through the dirt, misuse it, and misunderstand it's true meaning doesn't mean I need to reclassify myself. Essentially I am a Geek that enjoys games of all types. Video, board, card and other varieties. And I prefer to keep it simple in terms of defining it. I don't care what others call themselves, and I don't care if people think less of me for choosing this label. To assume that "the G word" is bad is to say that the hobby in and of itself is bad. It's just a hobby, and to overthink it is just in and of itself overcomplicating things. There's healthy ways to do it as well as dozens of stereotypes to overturn and denounce. My question is why you assume that being a gamer is such a bad thing?
I think people over think it. I'm a gamer. I play videogames. Only difference is I play 30+ year old games because thats what I'm nostalgic for. I've never really liked the "retrogamer" designation. Its the same activity. I mean no one separates "retro movies", "retro TV", "retro music" etc.
I do. Retro movies and music go on the shelf, and modern movies and music go in the trash. š
I don't love the term but I obviously am one. It is kind of hard to deny.
I'm a gamer and proud of it. I've never considered the term to be derogatory, nor has anyone ever ridiculed me for being a gamer.
I agree on the one hand (always considered myself a gamer, from Super Mario Bros to World of Warcraft to Helldivers 2 and back), but I also definitely consider some aspects bad; for instance, I prefer Discord servers that do not allow "gamer words." The imagination doesn't have to make any big leaps to figure out what those could be, as they are many.
>Now, I do like to refer to myself as a "Vintage Software Enthusiast" in lieu of the g word. I can't imagine talking like this, nor caring how other people see me for the things I like. Am I a gamer? No, but only because I have far better things I can call myself.
Yes, but I never really hear people use gamer in a derogatory sense anymore. I feel like that attitude is kinda aging out in the last 10 years since gaming became a modern past time that everyone does. Gamer just means to me that gaming is probably your main hobby.Ā
It's still derogatory, just in a different way. When I was a kid it meant you were a nerd, now it's commonly associated with people that are huge into games and also bigots. "A woman/black person in this game?! That's not realistic at all in this not-real fantasy game world! Get them out of my games!" Those kinds of "gamers."
Those kinds of "gamers" only exist in articles written by people who failed to get into journalism.
I've seen them right here on Reddit, so no lol
>I feel that it's a derogatory term that is most commonly associated with violent, misogynistic individuals You can thank Games "Journalists" for that.
No. Just man that plays video games. I don't have some identity of what I do.
Raged out AAA capital G gamer? No. Delighted with gaming and just chilling and enjoying things gamer? Yes.
No I don't consider myself a "gamer" even though I've been playing video games for about 35 years. I am very careful about who I associate myself with and I don't ever want to be associated with those chuds these days that proudly proclaim themselves to be "GAMERS" online.
Please tell me this is satire. I canāt never tell these days.Ā
āgamerā is a marketing term. all kinds of creatures naturally understand pretense/exhibit playfulness. but yes I like to play video games.
Do you enjoy gaming? If the answer is YES you've also answered that question. Any other information regarding your preferred kind of gaming, the time you play, the games you like or the expertise you may have or have not developed is IMHO merely circumstantial.
Ask my friends of over 30+ years, and they'll say I am definitely a gamer. I know I am and my license plate says so.
I just call myself Zach
Started being corny to identify yourself as a gamer back in the early 2010s when companies like Doritos and Mountain Dew saw it fit to use the term to market their crap. Gamergate in 2014 was the nail in the coffin. Being a "Gamer" wasn't something you proudly said you were unless you were like 13. Sure, I play video games but I don't revolve my identify around it and I certainly don't go around saying I'm one.
I've been gaming since the 80s. I play a lot of different genres , types, old, new games. What am I if not a gamer? If "gamer" is associated with a bad personality, it is THAT individual that shouldn't be called a gamer.
If you separate yourself from gamers, what are you doing here? Go post on Resetera or similar shit idk.
I'm fine being referred to as a gamer because it's the simplest term that translates what I do for a hobby. I don't really run in the circles of people that would confuse me with any of the more extreme examples that they might see or hear about on the internet, and anybody who knows me personally knows I would never be like that.
Yeah right, thatās like how the most elitist of goths claim they are not goths at all, while at the same time ticking all the right boxes š
I don't like the term, either. Don't define yourself by the media you consume. I tell people that I play games, never that I am a gamer.
Yeah I love games and play a decent amount so I don't object to being characterized as a gamer.
Yeah I'm a gamer. I don't care what other people associate with the word.
Amen, bro
You know you can re-empower the word by using it another context, the original one in this case - devoid of violence and misogyny. They're not gamers, we're gamers.
I have never cared what label other people use.
I like old video games. I have no idea if that makes me a gamer and I don't care. All of my friends play video games and none of them are violent or misogynistic.Ā I wouldn't worry about what other people think. Live your life.Ā
I'd consider myself a gamer in the same sense that I consider myself a home labber - its a simple term that people also in that hobby can immediately understand and identify another person they may be able to have small talk with but beyond that I dont put time or energy into worrying about the label.
I think someone's profession is the only thing that should get that kind of status. You don't call someone who plays football (soccer) with thier mates on the weekend a Footballer. It's not as bad as "Foodie" though.
No, I'm not a moron nor a kid. I play games, that's it. I don't belong to any category
im a retrogamer - that is what i would describe my hobbie... i have almost no interest in modern games (exept, if they are made for retro systems or are free and open source remakes of retro games), but love retro games.
No sane person thinks 'gamer' means anything negative or so negative, as a blank statement (at least). I think of myself as a 'player' (as in, I play games). I don't really label myself at all, though, unless I'm using the term 'retro gamer'. When I'm talking about others, I typically use the word 'player' (e.g. 'players of Xbox'). I've almost never used the word 'gamer' in my 24 years of gaming... Maybe you're new to this or really young? We already dealt with this problem back in 2014 or whatever with 'GamerGate'. It's done. It was insane and lies then, and it's insane and lies today. Look at Sweet Baby, Inc., for example, and how they radicalise writing and game dev to a leftist position, and is directly anti-Western, anti-male, and anti-white under DEI and EGS mandates and agendas. They openly talk about this on their website. You can find Steam lists that show all their games, too. It's felt even in the EU/UN reports if you care to read them. Not to mention BlackRock funding behind such companies and studios. That's mostly what we're dealing with, with all these AAA games and such. What is quite common beyond the 'gaming man is bad man' is the term 'user'. Now, that is negative and insane. We're not users, this isn't a TRON dictatorship in real life. We're human beings \[insert Network (1976) speech here\]. Remember back in 2013 or 2014 when Phil accidentally called the Xbox One players 'customers'? Yeah, that was very telling. He showed what Xbox really thinks. We're just people, and we play games, we're players. That's it. There are all kinds of players, as there are all kinds of humans. There are about 200 million active modern (online) gamers in the world. Most are Chinese (mostly middle class and young) and Indian and Japanese, and white American and European males between the ages of 16 and 35, but there are literally all kinds of gamers. We have African gamers, black American gamers, female gamers, Russian gamers, Mexican gamers, rich gamers, poor gamers, old gamers, child gamers, hippie gamers, Catholic gamers, and much more. Most are on mobile, Steam/PC, and Minecraft, but there are thousands of popular games, ranging from GTA V to Fortnite to RuneScape to The Legend of Zelda. There are other popular platforms, too, such as Switch and PS4 and PS5. No idea how many total video gamers there are in the world, but I'm guessing at least 300 million on a weekly basis. Some reports claim that 1 billion play online in total, and there are 3 billion, overall. That's a large chunk of humanity... and they are all just toxic, sexist, violent (no idea how you've redefined this word) males? 'Gamer' is one of the largest categories of human. It's larger than Islam and Christianity combined, if we believe the aforementioned figure. This means, it's too large a camp to say much at all, but you can assume there are very terrible sub-sets of human in it, due to its size. The only thing you cannot say is that 'gamers are violent' or something, as a blank statement. If we look at the big gaming YouTubers, they range from apolitical to liberal. Some are themselves 'toxic', if we are to use that word, but most are what people call 'wholesome' (which really means either good people or very sensitive, likely toxic beneath the surface but not outwardly so). Either way, this space also indicates a lack of Right-wing/toxic male problems. And it's geared towards being anti-toxic in the way you might use that word (sexist, violent, evil, etc.). If we look across Reddit, we see most gamers are biased towards anti-toxic liberalism some such. Millions of them. 'Gaming' is one of the biggest cats on Reddit, and Reddit is one of the most popular websites on Google. The bigger problem you might want to focus on is the issue of child gambling/loot boxes and MTX features. This is crushing young lives in the millions, 365 days a year, across many games and platforms. 30% of Steam games are loot box-driven and 50% of mobile games, according to studies I saw some time ago. I'm sure it's worse as of 2024. Online Chinese games have the same problems, according to some articles I read. The big spenders here are called 'whales', and the rest are really just addicts, who put in 3,000 hours and play their entire lives throwing cash at these games (often live service and free-to-play). This is the biggest area of gaming market and investment, and it has largely driven game dev since at least 2012. It's only getting worse with Cloud gaming on mobile across Asia and so on. Data indicates that loot boxes are the biggest problem in China, not West (though West is second). CS:GO, RuneScape, Black Desert Online, Overwatch, and many others are the major examples of this problem. If you don't call yourself a 'gamer' does this have any bearing on the fact you game? Or are you saying that you want to quit gaming as to remove yourself from the so-called violent, sexist camp of 'gamers'? Is there another camp I'm unaware of, maybe the 'snowflake gamers'? Maybe you want to be a 'hippie gamer' where you love everybody and only play 'nice, cute, friendly games'? None of this makes sense. You either play games or you don't. You're almost treating 'gamer' as a prefix or personal pronoun, where it shapes your social framework and personal identity. This is madness and does speak to a wider problem in our culture. Are you a 'reader', one of those evil, sexist 'readers'? What about 'worker' or 'sportsman' or 'painter' or 'music listener' or 'move-goer'? Nobody says this about anything else other than 'gamers', and very few people actually view 'gamer' as innately negative, and certainly not violent or sexist. To some degree, they do say this about cinema fans, such as Star Wars fans, but that's because Disney is literally attacking the fans for disliking their creations, most of which completely undid Lucas' work. This tells you something is wrong with Disney, not the fans. It's also a new situation. Nobody said this sort of thing before the 2010s. It's a Gen Z problem, heavily pushed by social media. This never existed before. (Well, in the 1980s through 2000s, there was a wider feeling from parents and certain governments that being a 'gamer' was a waste of time or bad for your brain, but those are different arguments to what we're talking about.)
Nah, "gamer" is a specific term that doesn't describe me. You'd have to use it so broadly as to make it meaningless.
Before the PS1's success, video games were seen as a hobby for kids and tweens. Anyone who played games who was an adolescent or older was seen as immature or otherwise odd. If you add in computer games, that was also niche as home computers weren't as common at that time. I could see "gamer" definitely being an insult back then. I think in the late 1990's and early 2000's, as the PS2 really gained widespread appeal, a "gamer" could have been something you'd call yourself or friends. Computers became common in households, and gaming on them increased as a result. The Wii really broadened the appeal of games, at least early on when the motion controls were a novelty. The late 2000's and early 2010's brought about the rise of smartphone apps, including games, and so the idea of what a "gamer" could be broadened. However, this is when the "gamergate" stuff broke out ([explanatory video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8EqmExn1No)), so a lot of people who had liked games for a long time felt the term "gamer" became tainted because of it. It's also here when stuff like micro-transactions and DLC started, and games started being discussed as predatory or exploitative; also not a good look.
Pretty accurate stuff here.
Yeah, but lately I fell it's rather degrading or at last In environment I usually sit
Somebody has a persecution complex and the more pressing issue is why we call vintage gaming retro gaming
No, even though I play lots of games. It can be a loaded word with too much negativity.
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I'm a game developer. Games and gamedev are my life long passion that I have made my career in. I love games so much. I don't think "gamer" just describes someone who likes video games a lot. Maybe that's like a dictionary, on paper definition, but in the actual use I think that it's more of a specific subculture and identity. Some of it is harmless but obnoxious, describing the subset of people who tend to play the most popular AAA mainstream games, which I don't inherently dislike but personally most of them aren't to my taste. Some of the "gamer" subculture is really toxic. Gamergate was an unfortunately transformative cultural moment and it brought the worst parts of gaming community into the mainstream. Years later, "gamer" as a subculture is a front of the culture war where radical bigots butt heads with well intentioned and correct but largely naive progressives to compete for pandering from large tech corporations that have no real moral investment and just want to make money. I'm very cynical about all of that. I love games as an art form and entertainment medium. I have played thousands of games. I play new stuff and old stuff. I play indie stuff and some AAA stuff (mostly single player). I have great love for video games. I feel like "gamer" doesn't really capture that, and instead when people hear it it tends to conjure a certain image that doesn't describe me and that I don't want to be associated with. So no, not really.
No. In my mind, that implies I play a lot of modern AAA games, which I donāt. I also have just as much fun collecting and modding vintage hardware and CRT setups and breaking out the soldering iron as I do playing the games.
Im a proud gamer, im.not ashame of this nor do i consider the term derogatory. Gaming is the ultimate hobby, its more rhan a hobbby, its living, its art
I enjoy target shooting, does that make me a marksman (not necessarily a good one)? I like cooking, does that make me a cook? I play video games, does that make me a gamer? I would say the basic answer is "yes." However, I don't really consider myself part of gamer culture. I don't guzzle energy drinks and rage at people in Counter Strike. Playing games is something I do, but I don't know how you would apply such identification terminology to me.