Types of Gamers -

I wrote this article about 6 years ago when I was really into RPG Maker 2000 for the PC. Right now they have RPG Maker XP, which is way, way better. It let's you make your own RPG games (it's not online though, by the way). I was a member of this site called GamingW and I posted this article. I wanted to make this into a poll, but we only have up to 4 choices. Mind you that I wrote this back in 2002 and may be outdated. However, the information is still relevant to this day. So here it is:

Types of Gamers

There has been a lot of debate about what makes you a hardcore gamer. The thing is, there are many types of gamers. This article will help sort out the confusion between what makes a "hardcore gamer" and an "old school gamer". These are various interpretations of gamers and are debated a lot in various videogame forums. The info in this article is 50/50 split between gamers, editorials written over time from magazines and online sites around the world and my observations. Mind you that not everyone is categorized as one or the other. Anyone can be categorized as two or more types of gamers. Some are even freaky with having most of them (which is probably not good for your health). I will list them in alphabetical order.

Updates

Maspan gave me an idea for another type of gamer. Interestingly enough, this guy would end up being the first guy on the list based on alphabetical order. However, I'm going to place this new category in to the end of the list.

Table of Contents

1. The Casual Gamer
2. The Competitor
3. The Day Trader
4. The Equal Opportunity Employer
5. The Framerate Junkie
6. The Free Rider
7. The Game Company Fanatic
8. The Genre Freak
9. The Hardcore Gamer
10. The Hype Zombie
11. The Old Schooler
12. The Power Tripper
13. The Relic
14. The Sick Puppy
15. The Slot Jockey
16. The System Bigot
17. The Title Disciple

Additional Uncategorized Type(s) of Gamer(s)

The Anti-Gamer

1. The Casual Gamer

Perhaps the easiest to define, and often the people who have the least trouble defining themselves. These are people who enjoy videogames for moderate and occasional enjoyment. In the same way that many people watch TV now and then or take in a movie once a month, the Casual Gamer probably has the game system in his or her house (most likely not the next-gen console) and a few games, all of which may be collecting dust. They often purchase games months after their release, when it's on sale. They have Quake or Unreal Tournament for their PC because, well, doesn't everybody?

"OoOMag3OoO" said: "Man what if we play once in a while?"

Casual Gamers play games once in a while. They play just for the heck of it for fun and don't take anything too seriously.

2. The Competitor

(This is a summary of another article I wrote dedicated to The Competitive Gamer. It lists the types of competitive gamers out. I will find the time to post it later.)

The Competitor is…. well, a competitor. Probably one of the general type, since most gamers are competitors. The biggest difference is that these guys are scary. These gamers are the ones who don’t lose any sleep mastering the Tekken series, Soul Edge series, and the granddaddy of fighting games…. the Street Fighter series. These guys go to forums and talk about ways to beat another guy’s character to a pulp or game glitches that hinder opponents unable to connect a single attack. There are two types of these gamers: trash talkers and those who are full of themselves. Trash talkers usually belong in the loser category in tournaments. Those who are full of themselves are basically just full of themselves. Getting beat by trash talkers is not a let down for them because that doesn’t equate to being really good, which they have a point.

"some gamer" said: "Yeah. You beat me. That makes you really good, right?"

These guys are so full of it that they justify losing when they are playing to the fullest of their character’s ability and still lose. They choke it up to NOT playing to their fullest. In a way, they are trash talkers, but not the loser kind. After winning, they talk about how they won and what they did. When these gamers get beat and start playing for real and still get beat, they just stop talking. If they own the game, they either make excuses of going home or work or somewhere else. Not all gamers are like this, though the most common.

The competitor is not limited to fighting games, however. In recent years, game tournaments have been held worldwide using other games like Dance Dance Revolution and Pump it Up. The competition in these games comes in two parts: Perfect Attack and Freestyle.

Perfect Attack is getting the most perfects of a song you compete with another person. This is the most unoriginal aspect of DDR and PIU and the most boring to watch. The first few minutes are alright: watching the guy perfect everything in a song at the hardest setting and… that’s it. The competition comes to life in Freestyle.

Despite its name, freestyle in a tournament is not freestyle at all. After all, making up dance routines without practice right off the bat in a competition that awards an arcade machine to the first place winner(s) is just not gonna cut it. Basically, the contestant, or group, does a dance routine for a song with hand plants, knee drops, jumping, dance moves, pop locking, etc. The judges rate the routines for difficulty, style, and audience reactions. These gamers are on a separate league. Trash talking only comes in the form of a joke to tease the other contestants and anything else coming from the mouth of spectators are addressed as ignorance. The competition in these tournament boils down to whoever has to most unique dance routine and the most reaction from the audience.

The most hardcore competitors of all are the ones who find ways to make the most unnecessary aspect of a game as the base for competing. These guys level up their characters, collect every item, spends the most number of hours and do every side quest in RPGs or other games. They use these achievements to compare with other gamers.

"Gamer A" said: "I played the most hours in the game!"

"Gamer B" said: "Oh yeah, well, I played a lot of hours, did every side quest, and collected every item. Beat that, punk!"

They feed off on failures of other gamers. That makes them feel better for reasons I don’t know. I think it’s compensation of some sort. If you get to compete with one of these guys, there’s only one thing you should do when you beat them: WALK AWAY FROM THE VISCINITY OF THE PLAYER AND DON’T LOOK BACK. You don’t wanna know what they’ll do after losing, but I’ll give generalized examples for future references.

• Beat the gamer; gamer cries.
• Beat the gamer; gamer beat controller.
• Beat the gamer; gamer beat game.
• Beat the gamer; gamer beat wall.
• Beat the gamer; gamer beat you.
• Beat the gamer; gamer beat gamer.

3. The Day Trader

The Day Trader follows the industry to a moderate or serious degree, knows the rumors, the projected release dates, and who's working on what project. Press releases and announcements affect their opinions about games or a system. They might know the cache speed of a next-gen console without knowing what that even means, but will take it under consideration when choosing between systems. These are the guys who look for flaws in a game showcased at TGS or E3 (Tokyo Game Show or Electronic Entertainment Expo) by a game company, of their liking or not, for a system or console they hate. These are the people who are really proud to tell the world that the latest screenshot for a new game was ‘photoshopped’ by the game company to make it presentable. They will use the newly found discovery to their advantage to bash a system or console (for system bashing, see The System Bigot, no. 16).

4. The Equal Opportunity Employer

This is the gamer that owns every system, and has a massive library of games, some of which they rarely play and some of which they've never played or only played once. Whether it's because they grow tired of games too quickly, have too much money, have a CD burner and a Blockbuster card so they can burn Dreamcast games, have the game just so they have it, or can blaze through games without stopping to smell the roses, this gamer has more games than he/she can handle, and rarely gives those games their deserved time in the sun. On the positive side, EOEs have proper games, not systems mentality and are great to have as friends to borrow games off of.

5. The Framerate Junkie

This type of gamer is truly the antithesis of the Hardcore Gamer. These are people who cannot get past the jaggies, the occasional slowdown, or the eyeballs in the next-gen post Madden games. Their unbridled focus on a game's technical quirks supercedes their ability to derive enjoyment out of the game. These gamers are usually the people who grew up in the 90's in the sixth-gen videogame market (no offense *_*) who had Saturns, Stations, or Sixty-fours for Christmas. These are the kids with snot on their noses in Electronics Boutique talking about which version of a game is better while dragging their mothers:

"Junkie A" said: "which game is better: Madden for XBOX or Madden for PS2?"

"Junkie B" said: "I’d say the XBOX because it has better graphics."

Hey, kid? Wanna know something else with more graphics than the XBOX can handle? Nose + natural glue = YOUR CLOGGED UP NOSE.

6. The Free Rider

This is another opposing force to hardcore gaming. My opinion is the same as the next guy, "I don't care what you say." These are people who use codes, gamesharks, walkthroughs, and others almost immediately upon owning the game. They do not struggle through anything, and defeat and resistance in a game is more likely to provide frustration than an enjoyable challenge. They prefer NOT to be surprised by the boss monsters and the placement of special items, and the first code they look for is usually the infinite health. I hate to say this, but THESE are the same people who used the 30 lives code from Contra in the NES. If I struggled my whole entire childhood beating the game without knowing the universal KONAMI code, then why shouldn’t they.

7. The Game Company Fanatic

These people are the ones who stick with a videogame company whom they think are the best. These guys are the most dedicated gamers in a sense that they spend too much time arguing which company makes the best games or which company has the best system instead of playing games. Game Company Fanatics are the saddest bunch (it's true, no offense). Talking to them is like talking to a dog that can’t really talk and can’t really hear because it’s deaf on one ear and really deaf on the other from hearing these gamers talk. Any bad rep they hear from their company, they usually get pissed off and counterattack you with a thousand-word essay on chatrooms, forums, or in person. Not in a way that they want to be heard because they are right, but in a way that they just got pissed off their company was dissed. We're talking Nintendo fanatics here my friends. Best game company ever. Perfect games, perfect software, perfect everything. Well, guess what? Nobody will want that in the long run. Remember Macs with its better non-crashing hardware, not a lot of people have them. Schools have them, but not lots and lots of households. It's not perfection that sells, it's what is there to offer for that benefits both the gamer and the maker.

8. The Genre Freak

These are the people who ONLY play sports games or RPG's (No offense to some of you ^_^) or racing, or FPS. Their knowledge of games is based on the type they play. Genre Freaks are the most diverse type of gamers except when it comes to the sports gamers. I mean, how Madden games does it take for your fat ass to get off the couch and start playing the game with friends. After 10 years of Madden, they should know the rules of the game?

Anyway, This title sometimes overlaps with other titles in this list, but a Genre Freak might well base his or her system choice on which one has the most enjoyable wrestling game. For example: RPG's for PS2, ARCADE type HARDCORE games for X-BOX, and REALLY OLD FRANCHISES for GAMECUBE. I mean, COME ON! HOW MANY TIMES DOES MARIO HAVE TO SAVE PRINCESS PEACH? AND THE SAME GOES FOR YOU TOO, LINK.

9. The Hardcore Gamer

Here it is. The ultimate title. Requiring far more research than other categories in this list. Some sites have said something similar, but nothing compares to Evan Muzar's winning essay contest on the Hardcore Gamer.

A Hardcore Gamer is someone who does whatever it takes to get the most enjoyment from their gaming experiences. This can be done despite (or, in some cases, as a result of) technical or logistical problems in the game. This doing what it takes can be hauling a PS One and a copy of Bomberman Party to a friend's house after school everyday, rigging up an in-house Ethernet network for a LAN party, or just developing the aesthetic sense necessary to appreciate a game's story, music, gameplay, graphics, and controller configuration all at the same time.
Unfortunately, this definition is no more likely to justify any given person's claims to hardcore than before. But, as the other definitions show, a hardcore gamer is partially defined by what he or she is not, and a hardcore gamer DOES NOT LET MUCH detract from a good gaming experience, no matter the title, platform, graphics and control scheme.

10. The Hype Zombie

A Hype Zombie is a person whose game purchases are almost solely influenced by media coverage and, to a lesser extent, peer influence (all their friends have it). These are the people who have Chrono Cross without knowing Chrono Trigger. These are people who think Final Fantasy VII is the best of the series without knowing or playing the original Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy VI (Not that I think FFVII is bad, I think the game is one the best). These are people who have Army Men games instead of anything else. These are the Japanese teenagers (and adults for that matter) who bought Xbox so they can play Dead or Alive 3 and Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball. Then again, Some Japanese gamers are perverts... so that doesn’t count. I just felt like mentioning the connection of Hype Zombies with the Sick Puppies (no. 13).

11. The Old Schooler

The Old Schooler is almost as coveted a title as the Hardcore Gamer. It is often used to suggest, under an air of superiority, that I was here before you. Being Old School does not equate to simply having lived through the Atari years and owning one (a Relic). Nor does it equate to merely having an NES and a copy of Mario Bros./ Duck Hunt and a light gun in your home. Being Old School Means having PROPER RESPECT for the history, origins, and development of games overtime. A gamer who could not stoop to playing the original Metal Gear, Zelda, or games like Contra or River City Ransom due to their graphical limitations will never qualify for Old School. Old Schoolers have a special place in their hearts for Space Invaders, Defender, and Pac-Man.

12. The Power Tripper

The Power Tripper is similar to the Free Rider, except that they use codes, Gamesharks, and created players with hyper abilities in sports games for the purpose of utterly crushing their opposition, or, annoyingly, legit players in online multiplayer games. Most simply call them CHEATERS, but extend the category to anyone who needs to have an edge that they haven't learned or earned. These are people who play games on easy and leave them there forever. (On a side note, if you do this and the game is still challenging for you after a month, maybe you should try a new, easier hobby, like breathing through your nose).

Maspan wanted me to add hackers in this list. Hackers belong in the Power Tripper category. A more general definition of a hacker is a CHEATER.

13. The Relic

The Relic's taste have stopped evolving. They may still bust out games for nostalgic value on their TI-99, 4A, or Commodore, and don’t want anything faster paced than Pitfall or Galaga. Anything else would cause fainting, nosebleeds, high fever, epileptic seizures, and cancer of the eye. They don't need a graphics card on their PC because at best they will merely download DOS emulators. The relic is locked in the land of pinball and Tetris. The Relic term is not intended as disrespect. Several collectors are game relics. One even suggested the title for this type of gamer: NOT-A-GAMER. A very rare type of this gamer is one who spends hours playing Ms. Pac Man or Galaga.

14. The Sick Puppy

For this type of gamer, every game they play is a catharsis of forbidden or sinful, depraved activity. Whether it's fighting games with maximum carnage (blood everywhere ala Twisted Metal: Black with its serial killer overtones) or Dead or Alive for its Barbie-in-zero-G game engine, the games they play primarily are ones that satisfy some baser urge. They’re a big fan of Grand Theft Auto, Carmaggeddon, and Tecmo's Deception games. They also like to play alone. Yes, we know who you are H (ecchi)lovers and your H-Games. These games are these gamers turn-ons. The most common of these gamers are the ones who play their games with their underwear as their only piece of clothing.

15. The Slot Jockey

This is a rare gamer who believes that the home console can never match the social, public aspect of the arcade. They will choose to spend quarters on Crazy Taxi at the mall before buying it for the machine at home. If they have Dance Dance Revolution for Playstation (both versions), it's for practice ONLY(wooo hooo). The bigger and more bizarre the arcade peripheral (light guns, skis, dance pads, boxing pads, Silent Scope sniper rifles, sit-down driver's seats) the better. This is indeed an endangered species who flourished in the 80's when thousands of Pac Man knockoffs where produced in consoles and Pac Man kept making quarters disappear.

16. The System Bigot

Arguably more of a non-Hardcore Gamer than the Framerate Junkie (and often related), the System Bigot has somehow settled on a particular brand's superiority, often for arbitrary reasons (the system they get for Christmas). The Bigots possess a mindset similar to sports fans: "My team is the best because I live…" kind of nature. System Bigots also cannot seem to grasp the connection (or separation) between the machine designers and the game designers. Since Crash Bandicoot was released for the Playstation, for them, that means it is Sony’s mascot. These gamers are the dumbest at most times of the bunch. Their judgement is clouded with system specs, and false advertising. The best examples are…… you guessed it: NINTENDORKS! There are many accounts of system bigotry with these guys, but I’ll only pick one to talk about.

The FINAL FANTASY franchise’s big move to Sony’s wonder box was Squaresoft's riskiest decision on two counts:

• They don’t know if the game will sell under a different system.
• They don’t know if CD-based technology on Playstation will work with the tried and proven cartridge system.

After the game sold for only millions of copies, the rest as they say is history: NINTENDO is crying over their loss, and NINTENDORKS keeps claiming that the previous FF installments were better for the wrong reasons. Six years have passed and Square-Enix has yet to release a new FF title for the Gamecube from their agreement with NINTENDO. Now this got the NINTENDORKS clamoring for updates on the production of the new game. This also got the Playstationites all riled up. First Capcom takes away Resident Evil, now a FF title for the Gamecube? However, this is a battle that’s already won before it even started.

A better explanation is a quote from Chris Slate of PSM Magazine in response to a reader talking about the said topic:

"Chris Slate" said: "Eddie, Gamecube has, like, fifty games total ? cut those guys some slack. Besides, there are still plenty of great PS2 exclusives, more than any other system. I know what you mean, though ? we Playstation gamers build a franchise like Resident Evil, and then it dumps us right before prom night. And then the heartless wench won’t return our calls, or even have the decency to explain herself to us in public, because GOD forbid she should be seen talking to the guy that didn’t make the cut for the varsity football team… But, uh, yeah, back to what you were saying, losing cool games to other systems sucks and all that."

17. The Title Disciple

This gamer is a whole different breed. They have found what to them equates to be the perfect game and play it over, and over, and over again beyond obsession. They mostly play the game as obsessive as they can until one day they set a world records of those games. Everything else pales in comparison, and the closer another game is to it, the more they like it. These are the Trekkies and Star Wars fans of the gaming world. Pokemon is a clear example, but there are also people who haven't taken Warcraft II or Starcraft out of their CD-ROM drives since 1996 either.

The Anti-Gamer

This type of gamer was previously not mentioned in this article. However, Maspan gave me the idea of this type of gamer. I've thought about this before when I wrote the article 6 years ago, but I didn't really considered it a type of gamer since this guy epitomizes someone who is NOT A GAMER. Right now, I only have Maspan, other people from forums I looked at, and my own opinion (brutal at best... possibly) to talk about this gamer. So bear with me and give me constructive criticism. Scouring through the Internet, I found one site and its creator that prides himself as this type of gamer.

The Anti-Gamer is a gamer who does not fit into any of the categories previously mentioned before. The anti-gamer might have some underlying qualities that would make this gamer fit into any of the categories, but there is just something off about the gamer. You see, they don't like gamers....period.

The creator of Antigamer.com (who doesn't know how to separate two words by putting a dash in between) had this to say and his own definition of what a gamer is (I edited the bad words and put what the creator meant in parenthesis):

"Antigamer.com creator" said: "
What is a gamer?

Gamer - gay-mer
A person who plays video games excessively each and every day, frequently allowing all their free time to be consumed by video games. These individuals frequently think they are smart, but are not as they spend all their time rotting their minds with video games rather than learning new skills. They are frequently quick to anger when losing on a video game because they have lost the ability to fully differentiate between games and reality. Most gamers are socially deficient and have "geek" or "nerd" qualities. Gamers are frequently virgins and rarely have any contact with the opposite (gender). In the extremely rare case that a gamer somehow acquires a girlfriend, she usually leaves him within a few weeks after she learns that he is doomed to be a loser for the rest of his life because of his attachment to video games. - UrbanDictionary.com

If you play video games excessively every day, you're a gamer. If you don't maybe you're not a gamer. If you don't agree with this definition, you can go (f###) yourself."

THIS IS MADNESS! The hostility on that was unbearable! Boo-hoo! /end sarcasm

Here is the site creator's definition of the anti-gamer:

"Antigamer.com creator" said: "
What is an antigamer?

An antigamer is a person who recognizes how truly pathetic gamers are. Antigamers don't hate gamers because they are jealous of gamers in any way, but because they are disgusted with the way gamers choose to live their lives. Most antigamers don't hate videogames. Some play videogames occasionally, but don't let videogames take priority over anything in their life. Rather than selfishly wasting all their free time playing videogames, they choose other activities which are beneficial to themselves or others."

The site creator's reason for creating this site is that "because gamers suck."

Pulling out various words and phrases from the definitions and adding what I think is what the creator is actually thinking subconsciously, we get to see how lonely this person is. I'll italicize the words or phrases that the site creator of Antigamer.com wanted for us to see how he sees about gamers and anti-gamers and I'll bold the words or phrases that I added which is actually what the site creator is thinking subconsciously about himself and gamers.

An antigamer is a person who recognizes how truly pathetic gamers are is a poser. Antigamers don't hate gamers themselves because they are jealous of gamers in any way, and but because they are disgusted with the way gamers they choose to live their lives. Most antigamers don't hate videogames. Some play videogames occasionally, but don't let videogames take priority over anything in their life. Rather than selfishly wasting all their free time playing videogames, they choose other activities which are beneficial to themselves or others. They just act like they don't care, but they care enough to complain about it.

So there you have it. I managed to offend almost everyone. /end sarcasm

Which one(s) are you? Take your pick(s)!

I'm a competitor, genre freak, and a bit of an old schooler.