[General Discussion] What is a gamer, anyway?

I consider myself a gamer, but that doesn't mean that I play every day, sometimes not even once a week, and my last purchase was more than half a year ago. (But that's only because very few games catch my interest these days.) But when I play I immerse myself totally into the game, just like I did twenty years ago. In the last couple of years more and more crap got released (and less and less games down my alley), and so far the next generation has managed to announce exactly zero games that interest me. None whatsoever. Every franchise gets an update - more of the same in most cases -, and the only company remotely interested in innovation concentrates on kid's games and / or games for japanophiles. So my gaming life consists of playing my old C64, SNES, PS, PS2, PC etc. games over and over again. Still I consider myself a gamer, so IMHO a gamer doesn't have to be a gaming freak like I used to be.

Today everyone and their dog is a gamer because gaming's much more commonplace and a little bit more socially accepted than in the eighties. (Exceptions prove the rule - today's tabloids and politicians don't fuss over "killer games" that much more than those of yesteryear.) Back then it was a major hobby for me and everyone I knew. Today I feel like the last Mohican because all the others I personally knew have lost interest. Many of this generation's gamers seem to approach this hobby much more casually - switching on the PC or a console is on an equal footing with switching on the TV, and today's gamers don't get nowhere near as many puzzled or skeptical looks when they tell people what they do in their spare time.

So the games don't have improved all that much, but their acceptance has.

Zorro

How ya doing, buddy?