The term "Gamer" by itself can apply to nearly anyone who plays video games on a regular basis or even once in a long while. However, even among gamers and the definitions on this site there is a large amount of debate about who and what gamers exactly are. The best way to define the term "gamer" is not to define it at all but accept that there are in fact many types of gamers out there and there is no blanket term that can cover them all.
Casual gamers are the people who mostly own console systems and buy mostly sports and racing games. They don't like fantasy games and only enjoy sci-fi games based on movies they may have seen. This group, unfortunatly, makes up
the bulk of the
gaming community and the current popularity of shitty games on shitty console systems is evidence of this. Casual Gamers think that having a "life" consists entirely of getting laid and drunk on a regular basis and have very little interest in games outside of a way to pass the time without spending alot of money.
The group of people who call themselves
Hardcore gamers aren't often quite as "hardcore" about gaming as they would like to think. These are the people you see complaining that games now come in fancy modes like "3D" and debating the finer points of why
Final Fantasy 6 was better than
Final Fantasy 7. The only people who might actually be hardcore are the people who sit an camp the firegiant
hideout in
evercamp for 72 hours at a time just to get some item that will help them camp better. I wouldn't rate either side of this coin as being a very pretty sight.
Finally there are the true gamers who actually treat gaming as a real HOBBY and not just a way to pass time or something to try and collect hundred upon thousands of. True Gamers just try to find an enjoy the best games out there and don't like
getting ripped off because Casual gamers are pushing the industry towards a point where the only games that will be profitable are Madden and GTA. True Gamers often own high quality
PC's and play PC games most often. Despite what most people might think a PC isn't hard to operate and doesn't cost too much. The people who say PC's are too expensive are often spending hundreds of dollars on console systems that can't do even half as many things as a PC can do and to make matters worse they own more than one of these
stone age devices.
Example:
True Gamers: Don't pay attention to the
poseurs and bums out there who just play Madden or are too busy talking about
Final Fantasy 6 to play anything at all. Just continue to buy good games from good companies so our little corner of the gaming community doesn't end up with an "Out of
bussiness" sign hanging on the door.