Sashanan posted...
Certainly. "But you don't game much anymore so you're not really one now!" I'm sorry to differ with you, sir, but I
am
a gamer. I've
always
been a gamer. I should know, sir. I've always been here.
It's like the inverse of being Straight Edge. Their motto is "If you're not now, you never were."
But for gamers, it's more like "If you were once, you are forever. Because you ain't never washing that stank off."
bachewychomp posted...
I honestly find the "craft" of video games more interesting than actual games themselves these days. I think I've put more hours this year into playing ROMhacks, researching old games/hardware and learning how to make games/hacks myself than actually playing commercially-released games.
So it's hard to say I'm not a "gamer" since it's still a big interest of mine, but I said "unfortunately" because I think it carries a kind of loser connotation. The people who are loudest about self-identifying as "gamers" seem to be the type to play as many hours as humanly possible, and excuse a lack of hygiene/social skills/etc. as just part of the identity.
I think the problem is that the term carries different connotations to different people. Because it's basically a self-applied "title", there's no real official definition of what it means, and no licensing board that gets to determine precisely what is and isn't "gamer".
Personally, I've always seen it less about whether you play games, and more about how immersed you are in "gamer culture". Do you own game posters or T-shirts? Do you own any mini-figs of game characters? Do you listen to game music? Do you know all the latest video game jokes and memes? Do you watch other people play games on YouTube or Twitch? Do you keep up with what games are currently in development, or are on the cusp of being released? Do you, oh, I don't know,
hang out on a message board specifically devoted to video games
?
For me, all of that sort of behavior makes you more of a gamer than
just
playing games. Because there is a difference between someone who "plays games", and someone who is
defined
by games.
I consider someone who plays games maybe 1 hour a month at best but still engages with gamer culture on a regular basis to be far more of a "gamer" than someone who spends 2 hours every day playing a random Bejeweled rip-off mobile game, but who never pays attention to anything
outside
of that.
In your specific case, even purely from the "plays games" side of things, I'd say playing ROMhacks makes you
waaay
more of a gamer than most people, because the average casual has no idea what those are, let alone how to find them, let alone
wanting
to. Beyond that, if you're so into games that you're immersing yourself in their history, and even attempting to make your own games, you're pretty clearly a gamer.
Plus, again, you're
here
. Most of us here either are or were gamers at some point, regardless of whether or not we ever saw ourselves that way, or wanted to be.