Gamer

Historically, the term "gamer" usually referred to someone who played role-playing games or wargames. More recently, however, the term has grown to include players of video games. While the term nominally includes those who do not necessarily consider themselves to be gamers (i.e., casual gamers)^[1], it is commonly used to identify those who spend much of their leisure time playing or learning about different games.

There are many gamer communities around the world. Many of these take the form of web rings, discussion forums and other virtual communities, as well as college or university social clubs. Stores specializing in games often serve as a meeting place to organize groups of players^{[citation needed]}. Prior to the emergence of the Internet, there were many play-by-mail games developed communities resembling those found surrounding today's online games^{[citation needed]}.

In October 2006, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) was established as the first non-profit membership organization formed to represent American game consumers. A similarly-named entity, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), was formed in 1994 to represent the entertainment software industry. The ECA was formed, in part, in response to the seemingly imbalanced representation (e.g., the ESA, IGDA and others) of gaming in the United States Congress.^[1]

Types of gamers

• Video gamer: A type of gamer who enjoys playing video games.
• Table gamer: A type of gamer who enjoys playing tabletop games. This term is often used for gamers who play miniature wargames but it could also refer to players of board games, card games, or roleplaying games.

Types of video gamers

• Casual gamer: The casual gamer is a person who plays games designed for ease of gameplay (think of Tetris, Snake, etc.) and that doesn't spend too much time playing computer games. The genres that casual gamers play vary, since they might not have a specific video game console to play their games. (See: Casual game).
• Hardcore gamer: A person who spends much of their leisure time playing games, and as a consequence of the large time spent, often on the hardest difficult level, these types of gamers become very proficient at playing games. There are many subtypes of hardcore gamers based on the style of game, gameplay preference, hardware platform, and other preferences.
• Retrogamer: A gamer who enjoys playing or collecting vintage video games from earlier eras. Retrogamers are partly responsible for the popularity of console emulation. Some collect old video games and prototypes, or are in the business of refurbishing old games, particularly arcade cabinets. Some even make their own arcade cabinets (see MAME arcade).
• Import gamers: A gamer who enjoys playing or collecting video games produced internationally. The most common imports are from Japan, although some European and Japanese gamers purchase games from North America. Depending on the gaming platform involved, these gamers may use devices such as modchips, boot disks, and/or Gamesharks to bypass regional lockout protection on the software, though some prefer to purchase imported consoles. A number of these gamers import games that fall in to genres that are generally not releases outside of Japan, such as dating sims or anime/manga-based licensed games.
• Cyberathlete: A professional gamer (often abbreviated "pro gamer" or just "pro") that plays games for money.^[2] (The term, electronic sports, is used to describe the play of video games as a professional sport.) Whether a cyber athlete is a subtype of the hardcore gamer largely depends on the degree to which a cyber athlete is financially dependent upon the income derived from gaming. So far, as a cyber athlete is financially dependent upon gaming, the time spent playing is no longer "leisure" time.
• Regular Gamer: The regular gamer is a "normal" gamer, that of the average connotation, intermediary. To fall in the categorization of gamer, the regular gamer is that person who have more than a passive interest in video games, and spends around 11 hours a week playing video games ^[3]. The regular gamer is composed by many other sub-genres of gamers, and therefore have interest in what is the average in the industry (FPS, sports, rpg, action games, etc.).

Game name

A game name, username, gamer tag, or handle is a name (usually a pseudonym) adopted by a gamer, of console or computer preference, used as a main preferred identification to an entire gaming community. Usage among people is most prevalent in games with online multiplayer support, or at electronic sport conventions.

Clan or team tag

A clan tag is a prefix or suffix added to a name to identify that the gamer is in a clan. Clans are groups of gamers brought together by a common interest, perhaps by all being fans of the same game, or merely gamers who have close personal ties to each other.

A team tag is a prefix or suffix added to a name to identify that the gamer is in a team. These gamers are usually in a ladder of some sort and are trying to increase their skill. These kinds of people are more serious.^{[citation needed]}

Rationale

The reasons for a player using a game name are similar to those for actors using stage names.^{[citation needed]} As the usual form of address in multiplayer games is not by a person's real name, some are prompted to think up a creative and unique alias that they wish to be universally known as.^{[citation needed]}

Screen names differ from game names in that they're primarily used to identify a user account in a computer system, rather than provide an alternate name for a player. The only exception to this is if a player chooses to make both the same.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Consumer
• List of gaming topics
• Gamers Outreach Foundation
• The ECA

References

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