Gamer or Video Gamer

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Hi all. I know this is a stupid question but I am having a debate with one of my neighbours who dislikes me, about whether I am a Gamer or not. He says that someone who plays just gaming consoles such as xbox, ps3, ps2 and the nintendo wii are Video gamers and not technically classed as the traditional Gamer. I play PC games as well. I also play PC games online. Im also into the retro gaming consoles such as sega, the old nintendo 64 and the gameboy.

Console video games are better than PC games especially on a good HDTV.

Uh....PC games are still video games...as opposed to traditional games, like board games, card games, tabletop games, dice, gambling, marbles, jacks, billiards, darts, etc.

If you're playing a game that's moderated by an electronic processor, and displays on a video screen, you're a videogamer.

Tell your neighbor that an old-school gamer uses pencil, paper, graph paper (for maps), and lots of oddly-shaped dice (although only barbarians and Steve Jackson use 12-sided dice!). Unless he knows what a d20 is, and what it can be used for, he's a video gamer. :p

I would use gamer to describe both. I wouldn't usually say video gamer, even as a pejorative for console gamers.

@Venger - Any half decent PC gaming rig easily outclasses a current gen. console's graphics.

PC is the King system to play video games on.

...If you have the right PC.

Although consoles and games are cheaper and easier to control and access.

Yeah I'm not sure if I'm even on the same subject as everyone else, but hey, that's my input.

Yes I'm well aware the technical specs are better. PCs don't have the first party published games like ones by Nintendo and Sony. And a lot of the popular games made by other companies are on both PC and video game consoles except the screen is usually smaller on a PC.

right on.

nothing better than a good campaign of alternity (or most other tabletop rpg's)

as for the pc vs. console debate, pc's will always deliver better graphics and resolution, they have been full hd for a couple of decades now.
i am running some 20% higher resolution than hd, up close screen size really doesnt matter that much.

that being said nothing beats local multiplayer for fun and for that consoles are perfect
they are also low maintenance by any stretch of the definition.

I think part of the reason the PS4 and next Xbox aren't coming out for a few more years is that the graphics would still look very similar to higher end PS3 games if the new systems came out soon. That's with significantly improved technical specs too.

It depends on your point of view and where your interests lie.

I am definitely what would be called a "hardcore" gamer, and I use my PC *way* more than the consoles lately. In all honesty, most console releases this year have been..... extremely uninteresting to me. It's all either stuff with way too many boring cutscenes and story crap, or games that are simply way too easy for me; I need a challenge to hold my attention.

As consoles go, on PS3 I'm only awaiting Dark Souls, and as for the 360, well.... I only have a Japanese unit, and that's there to play all of my import shmups. The main lineup of retail games for the thing (that we get here in the states) is mostly crap I dont care about.


The PC though.... EVERY genre, and I do mean *all* of them, are well-represented on the PC. The trouble is, you have to know where to look in order to find them, and it definitely helps if your machine is actually decent.

In my case, I'm running on a super-high-end powerhouse gaming rig, so it's dramatically superior to any of the consoles.... but that of course isnt the case for everyone.

PC gamers have a 24" screen instead of a 42" screen because you sit closer. This means PC gamers have more of their vision taken up with picture and at a much higher resolution (you can harp on about "HD" consoles but that is low resolution in comparison.) keyboard and mouse set up for games is far superior in accuracy. and i hope you are kidding about the amount of games released for PC vs console. There are a lot more PC games than all the consoles games combined.

in answer to the original question, i personally would say somebody who games 51%+ of the time on a console is a video gamer and somebody who games 51%+ on a PC is just a gamer. That is the vocabulary I would use, that being said of course they are technically both video games but only noobs and old people call PC games video games.

I actually sit quite close to my Sony 36" CRT-HDTV when playing video games. My eyes are about 4 ft. from the screen.

I never said more games were released for video game consoles. I meant a lot of PC games are multi-platform for game consoles too. Another thing I like better about video game consoles is that the developers know the exact hardware they are working with(unlike PCs), so the games run more smoothly most of the time especially the frame-rate.

Last edited by Venger on 23 Aug 2011, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't care about the console vs. PC mindset. A gamer is someone who plays games and enjoys it, no matter what the platform.

I sadly lack money to purchase a dedicated gaming rig and am using a jury-rigged PC that would've been top of the range five years ago. I use an Xbox 360 as my primary gaming platform now which is damn good.

Anyone who uses 'console player' as an insult is a bit narrow minded in my opinion. Sometimes things go mainstream because they're good. The Game Boy Advance and the Mega Drive were consoles so yeah.

I don't get the deal with people that pride themselves in this stuff.

I play video games a lot, all 360 and on a 22 inch hand-me-down tv

people talking about playing PC games on bigger screens than that? That's awesome on some level but also kind of ridiculous

I wish I had a monster 50+ inch HDTV for my 360 but I don't and I have better ways to spend money than that

it's not 100% but the vast majority that would s**t talk about something like this have too much money that they did not earn themselves and not much else going in life

OP feel free to see what the chucklehead in question has to say about that if you feel inclined

fuckem

LED LCD 24" is about $190. It really doesn't take up much desk space. I had a 21" CRT computer monitor, now that was ridiculous! PC gamers feel the need to separate themselves from console gamers because they are the ones who know how different it is. If you don't think there is a difference between PC gamer and console gamer then you are a console gamer. I don't really see it as an insult, I just see them as different things that should never be put in the same category and they aren't by people who know what they are talking about.

I state categorically that anyone who insists on trying to separate "PC gamer" from "console gamer" is being elitist. If they're jerks about it, they're being elitist jerks. It's all video games, folks - that is to say, games with which you interact primarily through visual media.

There's also tabletop gaming, which subdivides further into board/card games and RPGs. (No, those video games you play with a character that changes over time aren't RPGs - you aren't playing a role, you're following a prewritten script. BioWare does video games with more RPG content than normal, but until the day comes that I can play a version of Mass Effect in which Shepard decides that the Council, which never believes him anyway, can go to Sheol, and throws his lot in with the Reapers, it's still not really an RPG.)

Then there's gambling and pool-type games of skill, which are what you're usually going to find under the heading of "gaming" in the Yellow Pages.

It's all games, and they can all be fun - but trying to insist that one type of video game is better than another is silly.