Kotaku has an article about a session at PAX where some marketing people tried to define what a "Gamer" is. Apparently people got worked, and there were some arguments and references to "The Sims". The article is here, and the whole thing is pretty lame, but I figure we can have a pretty good argument over it soo...

My definition of "Gamer"? "A person who acquires and plays games." Seems pretty simple, but you won't hear me referring to myself as one. (Unless you count "game snob".)

Gamer. "One who games."

I kind of see where the guy who got boo'd may have been going, if he was a literalist. Someone who only games for ten minutes a day isn't a "gamer", they're a "*er" of whatever they spend the other 99% of their idle time doing. Probably "Socializer". Maybe "Reader". "Web Browser".

Gamer is a label. Just because alot of unqualified people mis-label themselves doesn't make it true.

I had a super long response to this written out, but I won't bore you all with it.

The short and sweet of it is that the label itself is completely meaningless. Almost no one fits neatly into any one label so trying to define them in one word is a mistake and a waste of breath. Don't really know why it matters in the first place...

The only time I've ever found labels useful is to distinguish the personality types that view labels as important. Specifically the one's that want you to believe they don't care what you think of them, so 'proudly' label themselves as something they think society deems as derogatory.

Call people what you will, it doesn't change what they are. Labels mean whatever you want them to mean.

...Still kinda long...