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A gamer is, in a general sense, one who plays games. The term "Gamers" used to apply primarily to roleplaying gamers, and board and war gamers - but has more recently been adopted to describe video gamers as well. An often self-assigned term, "Gamers" are members of a group whose primary hobby involves playing video games. Gamers may also spend time reading game news and reviews websites for information about games, engaging in discussions about games with other video game players, collecting, and participating in other video game related media. There are many communities of gamers around the world. Many of these exist in web rings, forums and other virtual communities, as well as college clubs. Stores specializing in games often serve as a meeting place to organize groups of players. Prior to the emergence of the Internet, many play-by-mail games developed communities similar to those that can be found among today's online games. Gaming for long hours is associated with the phenomena of gamer widows and widowers.
Types of video gamers Video and computer gamers are stereotypically adolescent males. However, research has shown that females comprise more than 40% of the video game market, and females are playing more games than they have in the past. Hardcore gamers are gamers who have video gaming as one of their top priorities. There is a lot of controversy regarding the ambiguity of this term. Some of the different generally accepted types of gamers are as follows: An old school gamer or retrogamer is a hardcore video game player who believes that older (pre-32-bit era) video games can be just as entertaining as today's video games. Old school gamers 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). A competitive gamer primarily plays games in a certain genre for the enjoyment of competition with other gamers, and possibly simply for money or other extrinsic rewards. These types of gamers may not particularly like a particular game within a genre but play it because others do or because there is a strong competitive support at that specific game. This type of gamer is most often found playing games of the fighting game, real-time strategy and first person shooter genres. Competitive gamers often join teams known as clans. Import gamers, as the name implies, purchase video games from countries overseas. The most common imports are from Japan, although some European 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. In contrast, casual gamers are occasional video game players who might not even identify themselves as a gamer. What this group lacks in enthusiasm for the latest and greatest hardware and engrossing gameplay, they make up in sheer numbers. Some companies that specialize in casual games have become very successful just by making games that are easy to play, such as PopCap Games (makers of Bejeweled, Bookworm and Zuma). Several of the all-time bestselling computer games attracted the attention of casual gamers, such as Myst and The Sims. Please note that there is no guideline or "standard" for anyone to be labelled as a specific type of gamer. The terms hardcore gamer and casual gamer, used at the same time the most, really have no basis in a firm definition. For example, the majority of gamers would consider a person liking or interested in odd, quirky or lesser known titles such as Katamari Damacy a hardcore gamer and playing games for long durations a hardcore gamer as well - though he may not play the game as long as a gamer who plays a mainstream and popular game like Grand Theft Auto 3 (which a fan of would by considered, by popular usage of the term, casual). Therefore the actual meaning of the terms are conflicted, at times contradictory and have no meaningful basis. It is not known who coined these terms, as their application varies from person to person - but everything considered the terms continue to be used in the gaming community. A cyber athelete is a gamer that only plays sports games, such as football or basketball games. This genre of game even goes so far as to include hunting and fishing. Celebrities Some celebrities who are admitted gamers include Curt Schilling, Todd Pratt, Doug "Bingbong" Glanville, Vin Diesel (who outted himself and performed his half-orc voice on Late Night with Conan O'Brien), Lexa Doig, Robin Williams, Wil Wheaton, Elijah Wood, Dave Chappelle, Redman, Matt Palmer, Mike Myers (who named his SNL character, Lothar of the Hill People, after one of his Dungeons And Dragons characters), Dan Shipley, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb (who are co-hosts of the popular television show dedicated to videogames, X-play), Henry Thomas, Ben Affleck (who appeared on Xplay), Terry Pratchett, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor (Lover of the Quake series, also created the soundtrack for the first game), Jasper Hartono, Glenn Danzig, Asia Carrera (She is an avid player of Unreal Tournament and she has designed her own game skins, and was featured in the show Players on the G4 games cable channel, where she revealed that her screen name is "Megabitchgoddess." Asia hosted her own Unreal Tournament server that featured custom maps designed by fans that frequented her chatroom that she has hosted on her site since 1997), James Woods, Jon Stewart, and Utada Hikaru (An avid player of Tetris and singer of major songs for the Kingdom Hearts series). See also Other types of Gamers | ||||||||
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