A Portrait of a Gamer

[Dante]

I have had an interesting conversation regarding what constitutes a gamer (from PC mater race all the way to console peasant and worse). So I am opening this to the floor. What do you think makes you a gamer or not? What are the absolute hallmarks of a gamer, and what behaviour, if you do it, means you aren't a gamer and never will be.

Gamers, Game enthusiasts, Non-Gamers... discuss.

 

[Citizen Insane]

Gatekeeping thread?

To me gamers are people who have gaming as a specific (isolated) hobby of theirs, I've played [digital video games] (perhaps an important criteria) for most of my life now, since like age 10 - am 33 now. I've played maybe around 90~ different games total I think in those 23 years, one of them I have 4500 hours in... and I don't know why

There's a spectrum of gamers out there.... ah yea - Mobile phone / Console / PC / Arcade / what else?

I'll write a bit more later @Dante - topic is cool

 

[Citizen Insane]

I'm mostly a PC gamer - I guess based on the ratio - time spent, but have spent time playing on Nintendo Switch recently: visual novels and such - I hope I can be a 1080p (full HD) gamer for a long time.

UHD/4K gaming I dunno. Those high end GPUs seem to sweat at that level still (framerate & graphic settings wise). And.. I don't have a 4K monitor :p expensive stuff altogether.

Ultra settings by the way, just yuk. So unnecessary - unless you're benchmarking I suppose? I dunno...

I mostly play games as ways of escapism - That has seen some extremes here and there, back when I was at school for example or experiencing anxiety & psychosis.

 

[Ziggy]

You could say if you play games then you're a gamer, but if you walk to the bus stop are you a walker? and if you sing in the shower are you a musician? I'd expect a walker to be able to use a map and plan routes and a musician to know the difference between classical and heavy metal etc. That's what comes about when you take an interest in your hobby, so I think a gamer should know what an RPG is, or know a bit about the major game developers, Capcom, Sega etc. rather than it being about what games you play and on what system. (As Manic Miner on the ZX Spectrum is still way better than a lot of the games coming out today)

 

[1Lefty]

I think I used to be a gamer, strictly PC, single player, and I liked first-person shooters. That was years ago, and my favorite was Quake (1,2 and 3). Unreal, HalfLife and Serious Sam were fun, too.

What I think made me a gamer was that I would rather play than sleep. Actually, things like eating, and bathroom breaks were inconveniences that I resented. At times, I would dream about games. I got into overclocking, and downloading new drivers, etc. just to optimize my pc for performance. I had a dedicated game pc and monitor (21" CRT , woohoo) and whatever the best graphics card I could find was. Sound card and speakers also, as much ram as I could. That pretty much grabbed all my attention and money.

I don't play any games now, and haven't for years. I think this cheap notebook has better everything than that tower I used to have. I might get bored sometime, and try to find a copy of Quake, just to see how it runs.

peace

 

[KM76710]

It has been a while since I played games. The ones I typically got into were more of combat type flight simulators types. That and the great game ever created...Pong.

 

[Dante]

Im a Sim or RPG fan myself, Portal, Elder scrolls, Space Engineers, 7 Days to Die, BG3... though I have dabbled in others, but I usually shy away from PvP, the communities can be so toxic. Hunt: Showdown is an exception though, strangely healthy community and a punishingly difficult game.

I think that a gamer is like a painter or a runner. It is at least a hobby that you have invested enough interest and effort into to become skilled at it.