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Forums → Games → We shouldn't use the term "Gamer"
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Ever since the 80's, the people who play games have been called "Gamers". It's been a title that many have taken with pride, but also a title that has followed the industry about like a "My Little Pony" backpack. The term "Gamer" refers to a time of old, when games were considered a fad, toys, something for children. Why call us "Gamers"? If you read books, are you called a "Reader"? If you watch movies, are you called a "Watcher", or "Filmer"? If you listen to music, are you a "Listener"?
Games aren't what they used to be, games can now do what movies and music can't. They invoke thought, make one craft relationships, and often, take a step back and just sit in awe at what the player has just accomplished.
So, what are your opinions? Do you think the term "Gamer" is an honor? An insult? A title we must get rid of if we are ever to transcend into an art form? (a movement fast-approaching)
-Chillz
- 59 Replies
While the points raised in this thread are certainly true, I still find there is still a stigma associated with the term "gamer".Yes, its a descriptive term, but does society at large see that too? In my country, I see news often use a variation of the term to describe someone madly obsessed with games.
Especially if the industry continues with its nonsensical seperation of "hardcore" and "casual". If anything, it's those terms we should rid ourselves of.
A gamer is always a hardcore gamer otherwise you aren't a gamer. If you play casually you aren't a gamer , simple , you don't have skill in the games .
Casual gamers are the main reason that the only title that was good and solid was Starcraft 2 : Wings of Liberty in the last 2 years, I don't remember any other great multiplayer video game that got released within 2 years that owned.
WoW : Casualism expansion , fcking same **** all over again , Rated battlegrounds where you can't even lose rating points in and get all the epic pro gear !
Battlefield 3 : Exclusive bonus to people who pre-order because EA says quantity > quality and only care about the money.
Money = the casual crowd and that is ruining games . You always have challenge in older games , you see any challenge in newer games ? No I don't
The main problem is that nowdays the developers make games for losers !
awwww i agree with you so much i remember when video games used to be 1 day games and were still very difficult although they were for children. i cant find anymore good video games so i try and look for games i never got to play when i was younger. i just odnt understand casual "gamers". if your not hardcore, why waste so much money on games and consoles???
Woah woah woah, let's slow down there for a second...
A gamer is always a hardcore gamer otherwise you aren't a gamer. If you play casually you aren't a gamer , simple , you don't have skill in the games .
As had been said several times in earlier replies, you can be defined a gamer regardless of playing skill. This is applied via analogy towards other talents, musically, athletically, and artistically. You can be defined any one of those terms, even though you may not be as great as some of the pros out there. The same goes for "gamers".
You may not be as great at gaming as some of the other peers out there, but skill should never matter in a game. Passion matters. If you have a passion, a liking for, video games, then you should by all means be considered a gamer.
Skill? Throw it out of the equation. Now.
Casual gamers are the main reason that the only title that was good and solid was Starcraft 2 : Wings of Liberty in the last 2 years, I don't remember any other great multiplayer video game that got released within 2 years that owned.
I could have sworn that it didn't matter what kind of people were around for games to be developed and released. Sure, there are games that are directed to certain likings of gamers (genres), but you are sadly mistaken if you seriously believe that a certain population of gamers are the reason why games aren't as they are.
You want something to blame? Blame the internet and technological advances. Oh, and check around the library. I'm sure you'll find multiplayer games that rock. Maybe not as hyped and popular as Starcraft, but great all the same.
WoW : Casualism expansion , fcking same **** all over again , Rated battlegrounds where you can't even lose rating points in and get all the epic pro gear !
Lose the swearing and needless anger and I'll agree with you. WoW can be argued as pioneering Edward Jenner's theories with Conditioning. Needless to say, this is something we don't want ever in a videogame, but it's there anyway, because hey! Money!
Battlefield 3 : Exclusive bonus to people who pre-order because EA says quantity > quality and only care about the money.
Don't you be singling out Battlefield3 to this hellish act, because there are plenty more that do so, and the Battlefield series was definitely not the first. Again, blame the internet and technological advances.
Money = the casual crowd and that is ruining games . You always have challenge in older games , you see any challenge in newer games ? No I don't
Look harder. No, really, look harder. Over-generalizations of modern gaming leads to many contradictions about how modern gaming is, one of them being difficulty. Oh yes, there's definitely difficulty abound. You just have to look for it. Don't look for the popular, hyped, over-rated video games; they don't mean squat diddly poo around here.
The main problem is that nowdays the developers make games for losers
And you're all buying them! Ahaha--wait...
i think that being a "gamer" is a great honor! i believe that gaming is a form of skill, not just entertainment. its a way of life in my opinion. people choose to take up gaming, people don't choose to take up watching movies, hence not just entertainment.
I've been gaming since i was four. i started out with simple Mario or Sonic. then at about age 6, i took up fps. i played violent games very early, and, in my opinion, made me a better person by learning to understand whats right and whats wrong.
well that's my opinion. please reply!!!
i think that being a "gamer" is a great honor! i believe that gaming is a form of skill, not just entertainment.
You may not be as great at gaming as some of the other peers out there, but skill should never matter in a game. Passion matters. If you have a passion, a liking for, video games, then you should by all means be considered a gamer.
Skill? Throw it out of the equation. Now.
That is all.
Games aren't what they used to be, games can now do what movies and music can't. They invoke thought, make one craft relationships, and often, take a step back and just sit in awe at what the player has just accomplished
Like the 14 minute Bioshock:Infinite Demo . That did a terrific job of everything you just listed.
So, what are your opinions? Do you think the term "Gamer" is an honor? An insult? A title we must get rid of if we are ever to transcend into an art form? (a movement fast-approaching)
As long as there is no negative stigma associated with the word 'Gamer', I take pride in calling myself one.
Gaming as an Art form?Err... Care to elaborate?
A gamer is always a hardcore gamer otherwise you aren't a gamer. If you play casually you aren't a gamer , simple , you don't have skill in the games .
And this folks, is why using those terms is bad. It inevitably leads to silly elitism. You know what's going to happen if you focus solely on the ZOMGhardcore? Gaming will never expand and will ultimately become niche.
Who are you to deny gaming to people that aren't deeply involved in it?
Casual gamers are the main reason that the only title that was good and solid was Starcraft 2 : Wings of Liberty in the last 2 years, I don't remember any other great multiplayer video game that got released within 2 years that owned.
Opinion. That's all that is.
Also, New Super Mario Bros Wii. That game is seriously fun with 4 people, no matter the "skill level" (that's actually why the game is so awesome).
WoW : Casualism expansion , fcking same **** all over again , Rated battlegrounds where you can't even lose rating points in and get all the epic pro gear !
You mean the expansion that completely changed the old landscape? Riiiiight nothing new at all. From what I could tell, it sparked new interest in the game for those that stopped playing it, because it changed everything about the land.
Battlefield 3 : Exclusive bonus to people who pre-order because EA says quantity > quality and only care about the money.
A trend not exclusive to EA but the AAA industry as a whole.
Money = the casual crowd and that is ruining games . You always have challenge in older games , you see any challenge in newer games ? No I don't
I hope you realise that argument extends to your so-called "hardcore games" (in both the "challenge" and "money" departements, because franchises like Halo are clearly being milked for all their worth)
But if you want to argue what is "ruining games", there's a few much more convincing arguments:
- Pointless seperation into groups
You know what the main problem with "hardcore" and "casual" is? A large part of the industry looks down on the "causual" just because they don't spend a lot of time playing games. Need some proof? Look at all the Wii shovelware made by such companies as EA and Ubisoft, who wrongly assumed people are stupid and will buy anything that has the word "arty" in the title as has Wiimote waggling. If you go the extra mile to seperate people, you also go the extra mile of making gaming less accessable to the masses.
There should only be two groups. Either you play games.....or you don't.
-Lack of risk-taking by AAA studios
By that I mean the -constant- recycling of game concepts (and before anyone puts words into my mouth, I don't just mean FPS). No big publisher will actually take a risk in making a new IP, mainly because production costs have increased exponentially.
-The lack of any "middle ground"
This is somewhat related to the previous point. Nowadays, you either make an Indie game (which is on the low end of production) or an AAA game (which is on the high end). You'll notice that less and less games are made that strike this middle ground of having an "average" budget, meaning they don't participate in the ridiculous race for the best graphics. Even if such games exist, they are rarely reported on.
Now the reason for this is obvious. Most of these games are instantly panned by "critics" upon release which in the long run could be damaging to sales, so why WOULDN'T you go for the AAA approach? But the problem is that it also means that it's much harder for a moderately sized dev. team to be successful.
-The Industry's Hype Engine
Nowadays, this industry is built on amazing amounts of hype surrounding games. Because of this, the role of the "critic" has increased to very high levels (and wrongfully so in my opinion). A lot of modern games only ever sale in their first few weeks of release and then completely fall of the charts, which clearly suggests that the market completely loses interest in those games after the hype phase is over.
But buying because of publisher hype ultimately leads to less effort being put into the games themselves and more effort being put into hyping. This is one of a few shining examples of why Hype is a bad thing.
-Ridiculous anti-consumer business models
By this I mean the atrocious amounts of DRM(mostly on PC games), DLC (for pretty much ANYTHING, the worst being on-disc DLC that you just unlock) and other things like this to kill any attempts of a used-game market. How can you possibly make gaming attractive to a non-gamer if they see business practices like this?
The main problem is that nowdays the developers make games for losers !
Nope, I'd say it's because they make crappy games to appease the "hardcore".
You may not be as great at gaming as some of the other peers out there, but skill should never matter in a game. Passion matters. If you have a passion, a liking for, video games, then you should by all means be considered a gamer.
Actually I'd go even further and say you don't even need passion, just as long as you have fun playing games. I mean one can like movies without being passionate about them, right?
WoW can be argued as pioneering Edward Jenner's theories with Conditioning.
Can you elaborate? All I could find on Jenner is related to vaccination and not conditioning (unless of course you meant someone entirely different ).
Look harder. No, really, look harder. Over-generalizations of modern gaming leads to many contradictions about how modern gaming is, one of them being difficulty. Oh yes, there's definitely difficulty abound. You just have to look for it. Don't look for the popular, hyped, over-rated video games; they don't mean squat diddly poo around here.
Actually they do, since they influence the industries direction at large. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that direction is a different matter obviously. And it's very obvious that overall difficulty of games has declined over all and I can explain why: Nowadays, it is expected that a player plays through the game from start to finish. Contrast that to some of those games that define "retro-hard". Back then, it wasn't expected of you to finish a game (although doing so obviously gave bragging rights ;P) and a lot of what gives old games this sense of replayability is that they are designed to be tackled several times and eventually replayed.
Of course, making said difficulty fair and not frustrating is a whole different thing entirely, so I'll try not to derail this thread.
i think that being a "gamer" is a great honor! i believe that gaming is a form of skill, not just entertainment. its a way of life in my opinion. people choose to take up gaming, people don't choose to take up watching movies, hence not just entertainment.
Because gaming, unlike movies, is an interactive medium. However that doesn't mean it's anything other than an entertainment medium (which is its main purpose after all). It simply means the two are different.
I'm proud of being a gamer! I've finished my first game with 4 or 5 years. It was Kung-Fu Master for the gameboy.
For all the time I'm now gaming (Gameboy, Amiga, NES, SNES, Mega Drive, PlayStation 1 and 2, N64, Game Gear, DS and PC). But todays games lag extremely in gameplay and story. It's always the same pattern. Boring! But people, that are playing since everyone does, are not gamers! A friend of mine said, when we met the first time, that he's a gamer, too. LOL!!! I've finished my first game before he was born. And his first console was the PS 3. So I say, if you're a real gamer, be proud of it!
I'm proud of being a gamer! I've finished my first game with 4 or 5 years. It was Kung-Fu Master for the gameboy.
For all the time I'm now gaming (Gameboy, Amiga, NES, SNES, Mega Drive, PlayStation 1 and 2, N64, Game Gear, DS and PC). But todays games lag extremely in gameplay and story. It's always the same pattern. Boring! But people, that are playing since everyone does, are not gamers! A friend of mine said, when we met the first time, that he's a gamer, too. LOL!!! I've finished my first game before he was born. And his first console was the PS 3. So I say, if you're a real gamer, be proud of it!
So he's not a gamer just because he started later than you did? >_>
No offense, but that's a pretty close-minded view. So only people that played games at the same time as you (or even earlier) are "teh true gamers"?
Either you play games, or you don't. Any other distinction just feels like pointless elitism.
[/quote]So he's not a gamer just because he started later than you did? >_>
So only people that played games at the same time as you (or even earlier) are "teh true gamers"?[quote]
No, because he's only interested in playing video games, since the graphics are great and the most people are playing.
I was interested, even when other people said to me, that I'm a little child because I'm gaming.
Gaming has a history. Most of the things I missed, I've played later on emulators. Everyone can do that.
Example for both arguements:
He likes FinalFantasy13. I said: Play all the others, too. They're worth it!
He: No, old crap with ugly graphics. 8(
But the great stories and the fantastic gameplay aren't worth it?
Also I'm thinking that experience has much to do with it.
I've played hundreds of games out of every genre.
I say, there's a difference between a gamer and someone who plays video games! Years ago it was a shame, so now, when nearly everybody plays, it also can be a honor (elitism ;D)!
Actually I'd go even further and say you don't even need passion, just as long as you have fun playing games. I mean one can like movies without being passionate about them, right?
This is what passion is, Kenty. I even said "a liking for".
Can you elaborate? All I could find on Jenner is related to vaccination and not conditioning (unless of course you meant someone entirely different ).
Skinner! Skinner boxes. My bad. Skinner, Jenner...yeah, that can be misunderstood...
Actually they do, since they influence the industries direction at large. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that direction is a different matter obviously. And it's very obvious that overall difficulty of games has declined over all and I can explain why: Nowadays, it is expected that a player plays through the game from start to finish. Contrast that to some of those games that define "retro-hard". Back then, it wasn't expected of you to finish a game (although doing so obviously gave bragging rights ;P) and a lot of what gives old games this sense of replayability is that they are designed to be tackled several times and eventually replayed.
Point being, anyone who says modern games are easier to beat than retro games are highly mistaken, because there are plenty of video games out there that take time to beat. Popular games do not dictate the entirety of gaming's library.
Point being, anyone who says modern games are easier to beat than retro games are highly mistaken, because there are plenty of video games out there that take time to beat. Popular games do not dictate the entirety of gaming's library.
As true as this is, I have yet to play a game that's harder or as hard as Battletoads or Castlevania (the first one).
As true as this is, I have yet to play a game that's harder or as hard as Battletoads or Castlevania (the first one).
Of course, the two most easiest retro type games are included. Putting that aside, I prefer being called a gamer, feels like just a title given, no honor or anything, More like a moniker imo
No, because he's only interested in playing video games, since the graphics are great and the most people are playing.
And why is that so wrong? Everyone has different tastes and motivations.
Gaming has a history. Most of the things I missed, I've played later on emulators. Everyone can do that.
Example for both arguements:
He likes FinalFantasy13. I said: Play all the others, too. They're worth it!
He: No, old crap with ugly graphics. 8(
But the great stories and the fantastic gameplay aren't worth it?
Also I'm thinking that experience has much to do with it.
I've played hundreds of games out of every genre.
But why would they absolutely need to just to be classified as "gamer"? Just like there's people that watch movies because they have explosions and stuff in them, there's people that like visually appealing games.
This is what passion is, Kenty. I even said "a liking for".
Maybe, but I always figured there's being "assionate" about games and then there's a level between "assion" and "not playing at all".
For instance, I wouldn't call my friends "assionate" about games, since they only veeeeeeeery rarely play them. But at the same time, they enjoy the random round of Fifa, Rockband and other party games.
Of course, all I'm doing is arguing semantics so I might as well drop that point.
Skinner! Skinner boxes. My bad. Skinner, Jenner...yeah, that can be misunderstood...
Yes, that makes a lot more sense.
And I also agree that those are vastly overused in modern games today (just look at the mass of games that have some form of RPG or point system). I'd say even Achievements in general are a form of Skinner Box.
But I wouldn't say WoW pioneered the concept in game design (especially since it isn't even the first MMO, just the most successful). Looking back, even the earliest of RPGs used the idea of a Skinner Box, even if modern games might embrace the concept a little more.
Point being, anyone who says modern games are easier to beat than retro games are highly mistaken, because there are plenty of video games out there that take time to beat. Popular games do not dictate the entirety of gaming's library.
And that's where I disagree. I'm not saying that every modern game is easier than every retro game, because that would just be a broad generalisation. But think of it this way: There's plenty of modern games that take time to beat, sure, but is it because the game is genuinly hard or because it has a long play-time because of a lengthy campaign? What modern game is there that not many people have beaten because of difficulty?
I mean, it's not like most retro games took very long to beat (except maybe old Final Fantasy games or other RPGs) once you mastered them. It's just that a lot of modern games get their play time from long Singleplayer and/or Multiplayer.
If you have any examples, feel free to share.
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