because apparently i can't help myself.

I just have to reply with my own ideas to this stuff.

First, read this blog entry about girl gamers. This is the important part, so actually read it. (Also: I don't give a flying fuck how famous she is/thinks she is.)

A note: this blogger needs a serious... something. She thinks Alan Wake is the scariest goddamn thing to come out of a human brain, and while, yes, I did play it at 4 in the morning, and yes, there were odd noises in the house timed almost perfectly to make me panic, it wasn't all the game. Not only was it not all the game, but it's not like I hadn't seen most of this crap before/expected most of the "twists" from the second the game started. The freaky shadow-speak was scary the first three hundred times, but once the Taken decided collectively gang-raping me it was just annoying the fourth or fifth time through the same fucking scene. The terrifying rape-gang that would come out of every possible exit when you picked up a box of bullets in a house in the forest was terrifying the first time, but once the game decided to bumrush you every time you found three more bullets, I just stopped picking stuff up. Cmon. I'm no stranger to scary shit (I fangirl over it, for god's sake, and in this blog even), and Alan Wake...? Really? (Not to mention she apparently doesn't know how to fight the trolls in Fable II, as I thought they were damn near the easiest boss battles. They don't move. How do- okay, never mind, back on track.)

So, assume everything here is AFTER a grain (er, shaker) of salt. I'm looking more at ideas than follow-through, as the latter is something she needs serious help with when it comes to arguments, a dangerous combination with her flawed ideas.

"Flawed" is used here not as an insult but as an apt description. She puts forth the thought that a "gamer", a legit gamer, is someone who's put in the work, someone who's passionate, someone who's got a legit claim to their little piece of video game fame. Except, she can't just say this, and her argument ends up like sounding like "you're not a real gamer unless you know a shitton of pointless gaming trivia".

Which, okay.

Yes, I can name a hundred different facts about developers, publishers, gaming hubs, etc etc. Yes, I do have half of the Drunken Moogle's drinks committed to memory. Yes, I can quote Yahtzee on the spot. Yes, my favourite game is one no one has ever heard of. Yes, I can tell you a bunch of ridiculously pointless facts about how this developer went down and this game was originally this game and etc etc no one cares. But that's not why I think I'm a gamer, nor does that interest most people, NOR does it elevate me from "person who plays games" to "gamer", by her definition. That's just overall accumulation from veritable years of my life spent gaming.

That, quite frankly, means not even a grain of shit.

I agree that a gamer is someone who's passionate about video games, puts in the work and has fun. There are, of course, "levels", because human beings are stupid and petty (and don't think I'm not including myself in there, because I can shittalk like no one's business even if I haven't played the game in question) and have to out-do everyone around them. There are professional gamers, gamers who are paid to game; there are "professional" gamers, gamers who think they're hot shit just because they can snipe you from any angle on a map; there are "underground" gamers, casual gamers, pokegamers, and on and on and on. There are people (as loathe as I am to admit it) who've never heard of the game Vexx, who've never played it, who still play games.

I'll agree that there are people who play games and people who are gamers, but that's not a definition anyone should try shoving down anyone else's throat. Everyone'll have their own opinion on it, as is the human way. Just accept that some people are hardcore and other people are going to mock them for it.