So i read this article today about how the term gamer is losing its value. My aim of this topic is to ask you guys what you think about this statement. Please start by reading the following article whereafter i give my view on it. The article can be found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/gaming-is-leaving-gamers-behind
So the baseline is that the term gamer is fading away as gaming is now for everyone and not a select group. I beg to differ. To me the term gamer is only gaining a stronger definition as it defines people who take gaming seriously. The article basicly says that if you play candy crush you are a gamer. If it would work like that then yes the word has no value as people like that take the value away from the word. But because the definition of the word gamer is not someone who 'just games' but takes gaming more seriously like us in a clan, the word does not lose its value. Yes it is available for everyone but not everything can be defined as a game. To me candy crush or flappy bird is not a game but a stupid app people play to kill time whilst waiting. People who take such an app seriously are not automaticly gamers. They are just people who spend way too much time on something that is not worth it. Gamers as in my definition of serious gaming take a game to a new level and spend a considerate amount of their time playing on a gaming aimed console: either Playstation, Xbox, or PC (<- Master Race).
Tl;dr: The term 'Gamer is not losing its value, its rather gaining value of defining the true serious gamer which spends a considerate amount of his time on more advanced games, rather than on simple lifeless apps.
So now that you have read the article and my perspective, what do you think? Is gamer losing its value, or is this article just written by somone who advertises a washingmachine for a haiedryer (that has no idea what hes talking about).
Thanks for reading!
Ps: on my phone so please forgive me for any grammar mistakes or typos 
Does it really matter? No im not trying to deminish your point or discussion. But doesnt our opinion matter more than somebody's opinion about us. To me saying that the term is no longer applicable is weird because it is a personal definition/opinion.
We humans always seek a group to relate to and hang out with. It is part of our nature. We will automaticly seek these groups no matter what anybody says, so someone stating this clearly isnt a "gamer" but rather a attention seeking reporter who doesnt know what hes talking about.
The long story short, If you think you are a game and you seek out other people who are gaming, chances are that you are a gamer. no matter what anyone says
Audio is love, audio is life.
Courage isn't the absence of fear, It's doing what must be done despite the fear.
"An apology is worthless if you do not learn from your mistake." - Me
I'm sorry, Exhi, but if being a faggy tryhard is a requisite of being a 'gamer' then I'm certainly not a sweaty, neckbearded 'gamer'.
Schwarzflug
А ну чики брики и в дамки!
@schwarz, i might have used the wrong words to describe it. The autor is generalizing people who play on apps on their phone also as gamers, whilst i think that this is a wrong way of thinking. Also i see faggy tryhards as the wrong way of taking its seriously.
@dyn, good view, interesting thought.
As a 0day wolfenstein gamer, tattood on my beanbag, phone gamers are like japanese cosplayers: funny to watch, but not as awesome as my super saiyan superpowers
PC Clan Officer
I don't agree fully on this:
I am not saying your opinion is wrong in that sense, but hear me out. I think that it's the behaviours and not the "game" or plattform that is important in the term gamer. No matter what type of game it is, it's more about how you act around it. Tho I think every type of gamer has their own view of the term depending on their current affiliation with games. Hence why we probably will and have seen strong opinions of this term. This is one of those terms that everyone has a opinion about, where everyone is wrong and right at the same time and there will be no final answer.
Tho instead I think it would be good for us to steer the conversation in another direction, and instead of discussing what it is, rather answer these two questions:
"Fail fast, keep failing, fast success, die trying."Nutty 2020
In my opinion a gamer is not always a person who takes gaming serious, but who just plays serious games
(kinda lik what you said). So someone playing Candy Crush would not be a gamer in my eyes (never heard someone using this term for those people), but my friends who occasionally play a game like Battlefield, LoL etc. I would call a gamer. Although I do doubt if I would call someone who occasionally plays games like GTA or Goat Simulator a gamer.
"MICHAEL! Zuig m'n nepel... Ehrrr... Tipple!" - Exhibition (2017)
Where is Nintendo?
i agree with walnuts here.
To me a gamer is more about being mature when it comes to winning or losing, a person with vision in the gaming industry (although not all need to have that characteristic) and studies games' mechanism and looking for innovation and creativity in a game and also the gaming industry direction.
Nowadays, games are almost similar to each other and there are not much creativity in them, they just add new atmosphere and different weapons (ie, FPS games), but to this day there hasn't been any changes to them except when the game "Black" started introducing the destruction of the environment alongside "Battlefield Bad Company" and games like "Split/Second", a car racing game which uses the environment's help by destroying them to pass the other and "Watch Dogs" for using electronic devices as its weapons. Alongside Nintendo Games always bringing us innovation and competitive games
a gamer is being in touch with the gaming industry and shows their commitment to it.
EDIT: adding to my previous comment, i think i can't call a person a gamer if he/she is playing a game that is the same as other games as mentioned above about similarities unless they show their gamer side in them such as:
1- Mature
2- Understands what's going on in the gaming industry
3- knows much about a game's mechanism
4- looks for innovation in a game
games like goat simulator, or grass simulator are kind of crappy in my opinion that shouldn't be called games or a simulator if that matters. they are more like softwares to waste time or rather a mockery in the gaming industry.
I think any elitism used in the term 'gamer' is dangerous and will create factionalism in a community where we're already witness to fanboyism in many guises. To me, a gamer is someone playing a game at a given time or someone who spends much of their time doing so. A competitive gamer is someone who takes it to that next level whereby the get into a more organised structure around a given game.
Word.
To me, gaming means something a little different to the majority of the posts here. To me, gaming is losing yourself completely in an immersive, believable world.
To me, gaming is crawling through the ducts of the USG Ishimura hoping that there isn't a mutated walking corpse, with a big shiv ready to stick you, lurking round the next corner; gaming is shuddering as you're tricked by a rogue A.I. into thinking the head scientist of the Von Braun is still alive and, as a result, obliviously aiding the main antagonist; gaming is trudging through the Mojave hoping that you have enough .308 rounds to take out that raider camp in the distance; gaming is the cold sweat on the back of your neck as you creep through Sukharevskaya-Turgenevskaya, listening to the sounds of eerie children's laughter eminating from the pipes; it's the feeling you get when you gib the Patriarch on Hell on Earth; it's the feeling of a heavy heart as you look at Rapture's state of disrepair; the way you chop the residents of Banoi into little bits.
Gaming, to me, is when the real world dissipates into nothingness around you, leaving only you and the intoxicating ambience of a virtual realm. When people ask me what great games I have played, it doesn't matter how action-packed the storyline was, or how scary the game was or how many tears I shed during it; the great games - the ones that stuck with me - have always been the ones which made me feel that I was there.
And that's what being a gamer means to me.
Schwarzflug
А ну чики брики и в дамки!
Wow. I hadn't looked at it that way. That is a beautiful way of describing it Schwarz. I'm touched. *wipes a tear from his cheek*
I'd vote Schwarz' description was the best
Can we give Schwarz some sort of reward for that?
You're going to carry that weight.
dat deadspace/bioshock fanboyism though, its too stronk
Audio is love, audio is life.
Courage isn't the absence of fear, It's doing what must be done despite the fear.
"An apology is worthless if you do not learn from your mistake." - Me
While I agree with him mostly, the only thing is that you can be a gamer without playing RPG games, which is essentially what Schwarz described (minus the Killing Floor reference :P).
I'm just a sucker for a good RPG
Schwarzflug
А ну чики брики и в дамки!
Let's put it this way, a person who practice and competes in sports are referred to as a -insert sport-player.
That would sound pretty retarded for someone who is gaming (gameplayer) hence the word gamer.
That's my definition of gaming, a person who picks up his or her controller with some kind of goal.
May it be improving your aim in a multiplayer shooter, beating Diablo 3 on nightmare difficulty, or simply to beat a game in single player.
Competing, setting up goals and practicing is what define sportsmen, and that's what a gamer is to me.