Sorry but I don't consider someone playing Farmville or Candy Crush on the iphone as a "gamer", even in the loosest sense of the word. And it's not because I'm a purist either. I also think there's a major difference between Youtube videos and professionally made movies as well. The production values, target audience, skills of the director/actor, crew is on a completely different level. Technically speaking, both movies and YT are "videos". So one could compare the two groups of people these attract and put them into the same category. However, I certainly wouldn't place an avid Youtube video watcher in the same category as a movie connoisseur, or somebody who devotes their professional career to watching and rating professionally made films.
In the same way, comparing the group of people who play Facebook or phone apps to the people who play fully fledged and professionally created games is comparing two different categories of people. When we say "gamer", it has a very different connotation than "Farmville player". In the same way that "movie connoisseur" has a different connotation than "Youtube video watcher". To me, such distinctions are quite obvious, especially considering the fact that the whole Gamergate discussion about dishonesty in gaming journalism is not, in any way, referring to the Farmville or Kim Kardashian Big Booty 2015 style games.
This I have to disagree with quite heavily.
Going with the whole Youtube VS actual movies thing: That difference in production values, direction type, actors, blah blah blah.... irrelevant. Utterly and totally irrelevant. Why? Look at some of the crap that comes out in movie form. Shallow, baseless, offensive, boring, badly-written, crude... these words, I use to describe *alot* of movies these days. It's gotten SO common that movies are like that to me... AKA, bloody awful... that I've given them up entirely and forever. Oh, I'll be forced to see one every now and then, by friends that are so damn certain that such-and-such brilliant film will get me wanting to watch movies with them again.... and every single time, without exception, I come out of it thinking "Well that's 2 hours I cant have back" or something. And then I might throw something at them later or just shout alot.
And it's even worse with TV. So much absolute trash on there... uuugh. I'm happy and proud to say, that operating a TV cable/satellite/magical box thing (I dont even know what they're called or even what type of connection it is now!) is now totally a foreign (and completely insane) language to me. Dont know how to do it. Cant work the damn things at all. This fact pleases me. That's how bad I consider it to be. And I know it STAYS this way because people in the house, and every friend I know, is typically watching stuff when I'm around, so if I'm in the kitchen or nearby maybe doing something with the iPad or whatever, I'm gonna see/hear some of what's on the TV, and frankly it's typically so bad that just being in the room with it is depressing.
Youtube though? As much of a glitchy bug-bomb as the damn place is, it gives me the entertainment that fits *my* interests/desires/mindset and whatnot. It gives me what TV and movies simply cannot, in that it actually holds my interest. I particularly like watching LPs. They fit within the realm of my "special interest", which is gaming as a whole, and when I can find an intelligent and amusing commentator that doesnt think that swearing and crude sex jokes make for "entertainment", then I've found someone that can give me the entertainment I actually want. That it doesnt have proper "actors" or any of that doesnt matter worth a crap to me. Those all-important actors fail utterly in entertaining me, so why should I care? I only need bother with whatever/whoever DOES entertain me, and whatever/whoever does contain the values and traits that I'm looking for. Why in the world would I do otherwise? And why would I ever consider it to be anything less than so-called "real" video entertainment?
And so it goes with gaming. Hell, let's think back for a moment to one of the greatest all-time classics: Tetris. Tetris came out a LONG time ago. It was very definitely a REAL game. There's not even the slightest doubt in my mind about this fact. Yet, if that came had been first created NOW, with the exact same rules and the exact same EVERYTHING, not even one tiny change, it would be considered "casual" and not a "real" game. This I am also 100% sure of. Even worse, it would be called this by those that havent tried it, not JUST by those that have.
Wheras I see things the other way around: All them big, "real", AAA games? Boring. Shallow. And worst of all to me, EASY. If anything isnt a "real" game to me, it's very definitely those. Even something like Dark Souls isnt good enough. I've played it. I got bored. I dont get bored if I"m getting enough challenge in a game. And something with as much challenge as THAT, which is to say, not all that much, is a RARITY. Most of the "real" games out there give infinite continues, low difficulties, health regen (argh argh argh) and stuff like that, because heaven forbid someone might not "beat" the game. Note that I put quotes around that word...
Does that ACTUALLY make those games bad though? Of course not. Just as with movies VS Youtube or whatever categories you want to compare along that line, it's purely a matter of perception. And it's the same with the damn labels: If someone is playing a game... they are gaming. If they consider themselves a gamer... that is what they are. Simple as that.
