James Meeks
Staff Writer
What makes a person a gamer? Well according to Infinity Ward, makers of the recently released Call of Duty: Ghosts, if you play nothing but their game and nothing else you are not a gamer at all.
When I first read the article from IGN my mind immediately thought how much backlash it would have from the developers’ comments. I began to peruse the viewer comments afterwards to see what the IGN community thought and, needless to say, the reaction was quite varied.
My favorite comment had to be from user ‘tyboingram.’ Judging from the comment, it was obvious this person was in favor of Infinity Ward’s statement. In their comment they cited the example of ‘Does cooking bacon and eggs every day make you a chef?’ They also stated that to qualify for the label of ‘gamer’ you have to play many different titles, not just Call of Duty (COD).
I am not much of a fan of COD, I do play it on occasion, but I don’t go out of my way to get the latest installment. Every now and then I will play it. I also love many other titles such as Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear, Halo and Assassin’s Creed, just to name a few. So by tyboingram’s definition I am what they would call a gamer.
As far as the whole label goes, I do consider myself a gamer. But also if all a person does is play COD, then that’s his or her taste and that is what he or she enjoys playing.
COD players are, in their own right, gamers. If they don’t play other video games, why should it matter? They spend just about the same amount of time as other gamers do on their favorite titles.
In fact COD has had such a big impact that it’s even beginning to make its way to the Major League Gaming (MLG) circuits.
With the increase in popularity of this series, there is no denying that it is making an impact on the gaming community in some form.
So to Infinity Ward, I say that I don’t think a game developer company should label the people who play their title as “non-gamers.” There is no denying that they are gamers of some sort.
Some of these players may not necessarily play other titles, thus leading some people to consider them “non-gamers,” but nevertheless, the people who play COD show some gamer and even hardcore gamer traits.
These players spend many hours on the game and some of them even enter gaming tournaments to compete for prizes.
So can we call people that only play COD “non-gamers”? I for one believe that they are possibly a unique sub-group of gamer all on their own. Besides, some of these COD players do play other titles. Some of them do not branch further out to many other titles, but nonetheless there is no denying that some of these players are diving into other titles.
And what of the players who stick to only Final Fantasy or just stick to old Atari and Nintendo games and don’t try the new games? Does that mean these groups are not gamers because they don’t branch out to other titles? They are playing video games, and although they may not be diversifying their gaming pallet they are still labeled as gamers.
There are many sub-groups of gamers already, so what is one more to add to the mix? If these players love playing the shooter series, then I say leave them be and let them enjoy their game. We all have different interests; you have yours and they have theirs.