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Forums - Gaming Discussion - are you a true gamer?

vivster said:
Shadow1980 said:

You are correct:

The launch prices of new software in inflation-adjusted terms peaked in the 16-bit era. Disc-based games were initially expensive as well, though later on some PS1 games got to be pretty affordable. But in general, the cost of software has been trending downward over time.

While technically true, this narrative just serves publishers to increase their ingame costs. Games might have become cheaper on their initial price but at the same time they lost content that has to be purchased separately. On top of that we have online subscription costs on consoles.

I'd say things have not really changed much as games can be cheap but they can also be pretty expensive, which is the same as in the earlier gaming years.

While bold is true, it's up to you to decide whether you want to spend money on additional content. I never buy DLC or microtransactions but instead wait for complete editions (e.g. The Witcher 3 and Horizon: Zero Dawn) or simply just ignore the DLC. So far, I haven't felt like I'm missing out on anything. I don't care about some fancy skin for my character that's exclusive to e.g. the game's $100 Special Edition. I'd most likely just choose the standard skin anyway.

You're right about online subscription cost. At the moment though, I'm not subscribing as Apex Legends doesn't require PS Plus which seems to be the case with many of the most popular online games (Fortnite, Paladins, H1Z1, Warframe, Smite, Crossout, Brawlhalla, Neverwinter, Warface, Dauntless, etc). So if you don't care about skins and similar DLC, gaming is in a lot of cases cheaper than ever.



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Replicant said:
vivster said:

While technically true, this narrative just serves publishers to increase their ingame costs. Games might have become cheaper on their initial price but at the same time they lost content that has to be purchased separately. On top of that we have online subscription costs on consoles.

I'd say things have not really changed much as games can be cheap but they can also be pretty expensive, which is the same as in the earlier gaming years.

While bold is true, it's up to you to decide whether you want to spend money on additional content. I never buy DLC or microtransactions but instead wait for complete editions (e.g. The Witcher 3 and Horizon: Zero Dawn) or simply just ignore the DLC. So far, I haven't felt like I'm missing out on anything. I don't care about some fancy skin for my character that's exclusive to e.g. the game's $100 Special Edition. I'd most likely just choose the standard skin anyway.

You're right about online subscription cost. At the moment though, I'm not subscribing as Apex Legends doesn't require PS Plus which seems to be the case with many of the most popular online games (Fortnite, Paladins, H1Z1, Warframe, Smite, Crossout, Brawlhalla, Neverwinter, Warface, Dauntless, etc). So if you don't care about skins and similar DLC, gaming is in a lot of cases cheaper than ever.

Good for you. Doesn't change the fact that we're getting less for the same money.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

Watched the video, here's my thoughts:

-The term "true gamer" just seems silly, especially in 2019 where gaming is more mainstream nowadays. Sure, there's obviously people more passionate about video games than others, and there are a few cases of people who take gaming too far, but I feel like being a "true gamer" just cause your preferences fall under what is considered correct to be gaming "optimally" or whatever comes off as silly. Are you someone who studies frame data to be the best at fighting games? Cool. Do you prefer just playing old SNES games on your perfectly functioning old CRT TV? Cool. Do you spend hundreds of dollars on powerful graphic cards and a 4K monitor to get the best resolution and performance out of your games? Cool. Do you prefer games on portables cause they're more convenient for your life? Cool.

-Obviously, gameplay is more important than graphics, but I feel it's not a simple case. I don't think just using Blaster Master Zero is a good example cause you seem to imply using 2D sprites automatically means bad. If anything it's easier to make a modern 3D game look worse than a 2D game cause there's much more that goes into things like lighting, colors, model quality, and texture quality that are important in making a 3D game look as best as it can be; I know a lot of people who will say that SNES games aged better than N64 games overall in terms of looks for example, cause SNES perfected how 2D games look, while N64 represents an early phase of 3D gaming. Even retro games can look bad if the sprite quality and color usage is off; Ghost N. Goblins looks uglier than Super Mario Bros. Graphics is also important in games like action games and fighting games, as they are able to help express they archetype and playstyle of certain characters using looks alone, and extra animations and visual effects are very helpful for giving cues that more technical players can utilize for optimizing gameplay. Obviously not every player has to use these cues, and are generally not required for just beating a single player game, but the fact they're present helps.

-Frame rate is generally genre dependent I feel. 60 FPS is most crucial in fighting games and action games in order to ensure gameplay that feels responsive and flows well, otherwise I'm not too sensitive about it, especially in turn based RPGs.

-Eh, just cause you own a Nintendo system, doesn't automatically mean anything. Nintendo obviously has top tier games, and 99% people who buy a Nintendo system buy it for the great exclusives, but consoles like PS4 has great exclusives as well, and PC has a plethora of games, and even though those systems have better specs, not everyone cares about great graphics, to use your own example, Blaster Master Zero is on PC and PS4, among a plethora of great indie games, which I know are popular such as Hollow Knight.

-I agree with the last point fully, idc what platform the game is on, as long as it's good I'll play and enjoy it; I primarily play games on Switch nowadays, but my favorite game of all time is Persona 5, which is a PS4 exclusive, so ye.

I probably said something stupid or refutable but das my stance.



"Just for comparison Uncharted 4 was 20x bigger than Splatoon 2. This shows the huge difference between Sony's first-party games and Nintendo's first-party games."

Who cares? I don't need a title to feel superior to other people. I play what I like when I want on the system I want...



Vodacixi said:
Who cares? I don't need a title to feel superior to other people. I play what I like when I want on the system I want...

It's not about feeling superior. It about knowing who's in the know. Who can hold a real conversation about games, the game industry, and compare games in an objective manner.



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Only true scotsmen can be true gamers!

You know you have a problem in your argument, if you need the qualifier 'true' without ever really defining it. In this case it means: you are an old-school gamer (as I am by the way) and you have seen yourself as a gamer for years and now your hobby has extended to other groups, but you don't feel familiar. So you say: these may be gamers, but I am a true gamer! In this regard your point 'true gamers play every system' is quite telling: you name gaming consoles, but no flash games, no mobile games, no text-based console games, no MUDs. So, are you yourself according to your own definition not a true gamer? Or does a 'true gamer' only need to play on 'true gaming systems'?

There are better qualifiers than 'true'. Console gamer. PC gamer. Mobile gamer. MOBA-player. Shooter player. And so on. Why not stick to these, as these don't try to classify and give a value judgement (as 'true' has a positive connotation) at the same time.

I am myself an old-school gamer. For a long time I never touched a console. I played on DOS: Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Dynablaster (european name of Bomberman for PC), Micro Machines, XCOM:UFO, Civilization, Colonization, Return to Zork, MUDs, Pinball Dreams/Fantasy, Starcraft, Dune, Baldur's Gate, ... I started to grow away from the gaming in the 2000s, but felt unsettled. Then Nintendo roped me into console gaming with the Wii. So my experience is a complete different one from yours. If I talk about old-school it is something completely different than for you.

As an example: you say a true gamer doesn't care about frame rates. As old-school DOS player I know that many games back then hade a simple code to show the frames. And I saw frames in the hundreds. Not always. But it happened. The discussion over 30fps vs. 60fps feels off for me, as I saw much higher frame rates. That is obviously because the PC platform had wildly differing specs and moved back then pretty fast. Even if you had the game two or three years later your PC usually could show the game with excessive high frame rates. Or the game was designed for VGA or SVGA and you had a Voodoo card or something.

My point is, that gaming is pretty diverse. And a mobile gamer or a player of flash games is as much a 'true' gamer as a console or PC gamer. And in the future the Stadia players will be as well. As long as you play games and have fun with it, you are a 'true' gamer. If you want to group gamers into different buckets, you need more specific definitions.



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Echo_Djinn said:
Vodacixi said:
Who cares? I don't need a title to feel superior to other people. I play what I like when I want on the system I want...

It's not about feeling superior. It about knowing who's in the know. Who can hold a real conversation about games, the game industry, and compare games in an objective manner.

That's not what most people think a gamer is. Most people would say that a gamer is a person who plays games that are not mainstream or that are particularly hard or old school... while at the same time spends his time rambling about why people who only play mobile games are filthy casuals.

The definition you provide would be great, but it is not accurate.

Anyways... nice nickname. Felix/Echo > Isaac/Flint xD



Barkley said:
ipumpmygun said:
Gaming is a hobby or was since I was 6 going 29 years, but with increasing price I may stop playing.

I wouldn't say gaming is becoming more expensive. Especially if you take inflation into account.

N64 games regularly launched at over $60, some up to $80. With inflation that's like $95($60) to $120($80) lol. I guess it's expensive in other ways, but in terms of just game prices it's cheap, because the standard rate of $60 for a new title has been the same since the 360 launched in 2005.a

While there has been a lot of inflation over the years, the fact is that people's perception of game prices isn't going to go away. $80 still looks like $80 even if, in terms of being power, $80 is like $50 30 years ago. Until we get to a point where dollars are spent like Japanese yen, where consumer goods start costing $1000-5000, that's not likely to change.



I devote most of my free time to the world of video games, whether it is playing them, watching videos that talk about them, going to forums like this one, reading the news and opinions regarding video games. So I think I can say I'm a true gamer, Though I would use the words "hard-core gamer" but it doesn't matter what we call it, we are what we are, period.

I have a friend who's very casual and I don't mean that in a bad way, it's his way and that's fine too. Why do I say he's a casual? Cause he mostly only plays one game: FIFA, very rarely touches other games and when he does, he never finishes them or play them for very long.

Also he knows nothing of what's going on in the world of video games. He has no idea who are people like Jim Sterling, Yong Yea, Spawn Wave or Julien Chieze or what those peoples' points of views are and what they stand for.

He has no idea for instance that Activision or EA are scummy companies with their lootboxes and pay to win mechanics designed to prey on weak minds or that Bethesda that used to be an ok company is now one of the worst and so on... Well he knows a little but only cause I sometimes explain this stuff to him but he won't find this info by himself cause he doesn't care. In one word, he's a casual.

Last edited by CrazyGamer2017 - on 02 August 2019

One thing there video touched on (but doesn't detract from if you're a "true gamer" imo) that I hate is people who love companies more than games. Yeah, certain companies are pretty consistent when it comes to enjoyable experiences. I'm a fan of many. I just hate it when people become cheerleaders for certain game/hardware creators and it makes them automatically hate/dismiss another brand entirely.

Everyone has their pros and cons. It's cool to have a preference but I hate a closed mind. And I hate when people can't see shortcomings and flaws to the point where they defend something they'd condemn is someone else did it.