Thoughts on the word "gamer"

[Boofytan]

Never liked it. I feel the same way as Larry David when he jokingly uses the term the 'bald community'

 

[WesternYokai]

To be a gamer you need a room like this (bonus points for each funko or mario bros memorabilia you have)

 

[ciro64]

On a more serious post this time, I think the word is alright. What else are we gonna call people who plays videogames?

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

On a more serious post this time, I think the word is alright. What else are we gonna call people who plays videogames?

Good point

Post automatically merged: May 19, 2025

My definition: A person who cannot live their life without inventing games. Then you gotta ask "what's a game". Game is a situation that has rules just to feel fun. Goal is opposite of the rule. What makes exist is the harmony of rule and the goal for the sense of fun. Sense of fun is the coin, rule and goal is just another side of the coin.

This is why video games were liked despite how simple it's. The most basic video game rule is not dying. It's interesting because it's the 1st biological programming of life forms. They are complex chemical systems who try to keep their usual chemical patterns because one of the fundamental law of physics is the tendency of things want to stabilize therefore they insist of staying stable. To stabilize as a life form you gotta protect yourself, therefore your life. That's why humans are aware enough to enjoy surviving and it's part of why surviving in games are very appealing.

This is what they realized by developing video games but for example creator of Super Mario did something amazing. He created a game you collect that something looks like money. He improved the sense of surviving in the way how humans think owning will help them stabilize the sense of their sense. Later this evolved into collectable systems in video games.

However video games became something not a game anymore. To sell video games companies studied biological wished people have. SEGA realized teens love kick ass music and gore so they played on that. But as decades pasts video game companies learned more about "what is human". They gained awareness of another biological programming: The tendency of life forms to multiply themselves. Life forms are like a fire who has a mind. Then question yourself if planets and suns have a mind but then you would go crazy as much as Carl Jung (the guy inspired Persona series ) lol.

So for the sake of money they made video games "biological satisfaction programs" and for it they invented porn games and interactive story programs you know as Snatcher and Death Stranding. They don't care to be a game, they want to be something else.

Then you may question and protest how Death Stranding is a game, but then I would say a game cannot be a game if it doesn't care about the goal of fun. You can have fun breathing, it won't make it a game. I already defined my definition of game, it's why in that context no one can convince me Death Stranding is a game. Period. As a result video games are either a program that make you think they worth to waste time because you are sexually attracted to a digital person or they make you think you should like it because of excuses like long cutscenes and mindless chore gameplay. And then new video games attractive to "watchers", not "gamers". Watchers likes to watch and they are way more than gamers. Video game companies realized it therefore instead of satisfying gamers they only care about watchers therefore it's why video games became something like "interactive Netflix".

A person may be gamer or watcher simultaneously, therefore new video games very appealing to them and watchers but when you are a gamer like me you care more about games that has no story but stylish way to defeat your enemies instead of "playing" new video games and watching lesbians girl dramas and you care to walk for one hour listening to digital people just to see more about it lol. This is not and cannot be "playing" for me ever.

Carl Jung inspired Persona?? I really need to play that series

Also this was an excellent read

 

[DragonMals]

you play board games? You're a gamer.
you play card games? You're a gamer.
you play video games? You're a gamer.
You show interest in board/card/video/any other form of games out there? You're interested in becoming a gamer.

Anything that involves somebody participating in an objective, with a winner or a lower is considered to be a gamer

 

[χKai]

you play board games? You're a gamer.
you play card games? You're a gamer.
you play video games? You're a gamer.
You show interest in board/card/video/any other form of games out there? You're interested in becoming a gamer.

Anything that involves somebody participating in an objective, with a winner or a lower is considered to be a gamer

It is a rite of passage, playing dumb little Facebook games doesn't make you a gamer no matter how much you play them.

No matter the genre or era, if you have an overall general interest in games, be it a specific genre, series, or otherwise, then you are a gamer (of that particular series/genre/otherwise, or  otherwise) but it doesn't apply to people for just liking games..

I feel there's a threshold there in the varying interest of games/gaming itself, you don't have to be a speedrunner or be into every game to qualify but it also doesn't apply for simply liking a (or a handful of) game(s).

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

you play board games? You're a gamer.
you play card games? You're a gamer.
you play video games? You're a gamer.
You show interest in board/card/video/any other form of games out there? You're interested in becoming a gamer.

Anything that involves somebody participating in an objective, with a winner or a lower is considered to be a gamer

Yeah Old High German word originally meaning communion, amusement, and pleasure oh my

Its funny because often times I'm literally an old high German

 

[χKai]

Edited earlier post for full synposis.

 

[Kamako]

...playing dumb little Facebook games doesn't make you a gamer no matter how much you play them.

No matter the genre or era, if you have an overall general interest in games, be it a specific genre, series, or otherwise, then you are a gamer...but it doesn't apply to people for just liking games..

I feel like the idea in your first paragraph clashes with the those in the second.

You're a gamer if you have an interest in games, but not if you just like games? And it has to be specific types of games, liked in a particular way?

 

[χKai]

I feel like the idea in your first paragraph clashes with the those in the second.

You're a gamer if you have an interest in games, but not if you just like games? And it has to be specific types of games, liked in a particular way?

I never said that, just that having an interest only in those specific games doesn't make you a 'gamer', like Facebook games or Hentai Steam games.

It's a very gated community.

 

[Kamako]

I never said that, just that having an interet only in those specific games doesn't make you a 'gamer', like Facebook games or Hentai Steam games.

It's a very gated community.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here btw.

Unlike some folks, I actually think a little bit of gatekeeping is a good thing, but it's all still super subjective.

What about if someone was amongst the best players ever at a specific Facebook game. Had invested hundreds or thousands of hours into it. Enough to know all the mechanics etc. They may argue anyone who doesn't exhibit a certain level of interest or skill in that game isn't a "true gamer"

 

[χKai]

I'm just playing devil's advocate here btw.

Unlike some folks, I actually think a little bit of gatekeeping is a good thing, but it's all still super subjective.

What about if someone was amongst the best players ever at a specific Facebook game. Had invested hundreds or thousands of hours into it. Enough to know all the mechanics etc. They may argue anyone who doesn't exhibit a certain level of interest or skill in that game isn't a "true gamer"

They'd still be a Facebook gamer, and the rest of the gaming community would make fun of them like society does to poor people and people with a 'condition'.

Post automatically merged: May 19, 2025

Being the best Facebook gamer would be akin to winning the Special Olympics.

 

[Kamako]

They'd still be a Facebook gamer, and the rest of the gaming community would make fun of them like society does to poor people and people with a 'condition'.

I don't see a difference. If you play and enjoy games, you're a gamer. I think most would agree with that.

Drawing a line between "gamer" and "Facebook gamer" and labelling one superior to the other is what creates derision in the first place.

 

[Antilocal123]

Most nothing argument ever lmao

 

[χKai]

I don't see a difference. If you play and enjoy games, you're a gamer. I think most would agree with that.

Drawing a line between "gamer" and "Facebook gamer" and labelling one superior to the other is what creates derision in the first place.

Do you like Mario games?

 

[Kamako]

Do you like Mario games?

Yep, all of the ones I've played. And the first one is pretty damn hard to beat without warps or save states.

 

[χKai]

Yep, all of the ones I've played. And the first one is pretty damn hard to beat without warps or save states.

What about these?

Even if you don't like the ones listed I'm not gonna be like "Oh well then you're not a true Mario gamer", just because of that. Concurrently, even if you're not a Kaizo Mario fan it wouldn't mean you weren't a Mario gamer for not liking them.

 

[Kamako]

What about these?
Even if you don't like the ones listed I'm not gonna be like "Oh well then you're not a true Mario gamer", just because of that. Concurrently, even if you're not a Kaizo Mario fan it wouldn't mean you weren't a Mario gamer for not liking them.

I haven't played them.
Me neither. :)

 

[χKai]

I haven't played them.
Me neither. :)

Furthermore, I beat Kaizo Mario when I was 12, and have beaten a bunch of other Kaizos since.

Does that make me more of a Mario gamer?

No! Because I still haven't beaten the New Super Mario Bros., the GBA Mario Advance games, Mario Bros. Wii, Galaxy, Odyssey, and a butt-ton of other games. But more importantly, it's because it just makes me more of a Kaizo Mario player rather than taking away from someone else's gamer status.

 

[Kamako]

...it just makes me more of a Kaizo Mario player rather than taking away from someone else's gamer status.

Right! So that's why I was so confused when you refuted DragonMals defintion.

It is like you are trying to argue for a gatekeeping definition and an all-inclusive definition at the same time.

 

[LightningmanEXE]

I feel like it describes a kind of fictitious person who dresses up in 90s cool colorful clothing, eats nothing but Doritos and drinks mountain dew, and only plays the most basic shooters, fighting games, and rts's available. it's the kind of person an ad agency invented themselves and then forgot wasn't a real class of people. I kind of love this image, it's very goofy. I love it in the same way I love over the top edge lord characters and overly trope anime protags.

Any person who genuinely cares about the game industry isn't going to call themselves a gamer unironically unless they are a cooperate suit in it for the money, or an actor trying to convince us they spent years stomping... KOOPAS.

 

[χKai]

Right! So that's why I was so confused when you refuted DragonMals defintion.

Because one does not simply become a gamer by playing a few games.

It's if they really take true interest in the artform when someone decides in their heart and soul to become a Gamer, developing a passion for playing many different entries into the giant mixed fruit cocktail of the art form itself.

 

[Kamako]

Because one does not simply become a gamer by playing a few games.

What number of games does someone have to play to become a gamer? Do they have to play a game in ever genre? Idk, it just seems a little arbitrary to me.

What matters though is that we're both passionate about vidya games, and to me, that rules

 

[χKai]

What matters though is that we're both passionate about vidya games, and to me, that rules

I think this is what it most boils down to.
Someone can play Super Mario Bros., beat the game, and care very little or have no interest in doing it again, nor playing other games.
Whereas someone else will do it, and then want to play more, moving on through the series in pursuit of that satisfaction they had of doing so the first time.

What separates the gamers from mere people gaming.

 

[Kamako]

I think this is what it most boils down to.
Someone can play Super Mario Bros., beat the game, and care very little or have no interest in doing it again, nor playing other games.

Again, it might just be semantics, but I think if anyone bothers to take the time to beat a Mario game, they'll probably want to play another game afterwards.

As soon as you start playing games, and try to engage and understand the rules, you qualify as a gamer imo