Someone who....you know....plays games? That's a tough question there

You never heard "Hardcore" and "Casual" because until the advent of smartphones, games just weren't a part of every person's life. Gaming had a very narrow following in the 8 and 16-bit era. It boomed and became popular with the first PlayStation, and now with smartphones, everyone and their grandmother has their own favorite game.

This is going to sound like crap coming from someone with a Harvest Moon avatar, but what I'm about to say is true for two reasons. ANYONE who plays games regularly is a gamer, just like anyone who acts is an actor, or who dances is a dancer.

Why is this true? First - it's common English. The suffix -er denotes someone who does the verb in the sentence. Simple enough. Now, English is a tricky language - often (but not always!) this denotation implies a profession or employment. We can usually tell from the context that it is being used in. If you were to see a ballet, you would assume that every dancer on the stage was a professional. If you were to to to a wedding, you would assume that the dancers at the reception were not professional.

Second. The Guardian's use of the word Gamer is legit not only because of the English language, but because these "casual gamers" make up a significant portion of game consumption, and steer the industry as a whole. There are arguably more programmers making casual games than there are console games. Smartphone and tablet games generate a ton of cash, and are used by pretty much everyone. Casual game mechanics have begun to enter our games, in the form of micro-transactions and rewards for continuous play. You can plug your ears and shut your eyes, but casual games and gamers are HERE, and they influence the industry. They are what made the Wii and DS arguably the most successful gaming machines of the last generation, and they're not going away.

Treating "gamer" like a title like this sounds almost religious in nature... something that is gained after much dedication, sacrifice, and focus in one's life. It's an emotional title, one that people feel they need to defend. That's apparent when titles like "True Gamer" and "Real Gamer" are flung around. Find a different title to defend. Stating that the only people who can identify as a gamer is someone who devotes their life, time, and finances to the hobby is just hyper-exclusive and silly.

Everyone has some very valid points on both sides of the argument. What I'm mostly trying to convey is that more than just playing a game even though that might be a big part of it. I guess you could also divide people who play games into casual and hardcore, but I'd rather not delve into that today LOL.

To me a gamer is anyone playing video games on a somewhat regular basis.

Then you have casual gamers and hardcore gamers. I'd say hardcore gamers is anyone who can play almost any new games and pick up the pace after 20-30 minutes (controls, level of difficulty, overall gameplay). Casual gamers play less regularly and when they do, it's fun to them but it's less natural sort of speak and need to read the manual, and you'll hear what do I have to do now in their gaming sessions.

Meaning of 'game':

1.
a form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules.

2.
an activity that one engages in for amusement.

That covers all games.

Any other definition of 'gamer' is subjective even if for the best intentions.

Some people who regard themselves as gamers praise Tetris above many other games. For me, Tetris is one of the most lacklustre examples that you could have of a 'VIDEOgame'
It's for spacial puzzle and reflex fans, something that you could replicate, although not as elegantly, in real life with a crane and some shapes. But those things alone don't personally give me particular amusement. For me, I don't like it to be easy to replicate a videogame in real life in the exact same aesthetic form that the videogame provides.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau

Wuchang is great. Nine Sols didn’t have a physical copy so I never played it but I’ve heard good things so I will check it out. I stopped playing sports games many years ago when before the card dlc’s or whatever they’re called.

Last comment… ):

Great month for others, but not me. Hate soccer and soulslikes. Maybe Nine Sols is good.

🫡 it was fun while it lasted, N4G.

FC26!