
Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports - Gamermeme
https://nintendosmash.com/over-three-billion-people-worldwide-now-play-video-games-study-reports/
======
ArtWomb
_Ghosts of Tsushima_ may be the best Playstation game I have played EVER. It's
a testament to how late in the console release cycle, developers are just now
mastering internals. It's the ideal video game: open world, 13-century feudal
Japan, Age of the Samurai. High contrast "Kurosawa" mode, 4K HDR is
cinematically photoreal. I really hope it remains a Major IP for many years to
come ;)

[https://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2020-shading-
cours...](https://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2020-shading-course/)

~~~
compscistd
I just finished playing through Horizon Zero Dawn which had been untouched,
collecting dust on the shelf for a couple years. Found more time in the
pandemic and I'm wondering what else I've missed out on! The only other titles
I've played with great acclaim are God of War and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

From a brief wiki search, it seems outside of Nintendo, studios only tend to
have one-hit wonders. I never played the Infamous games, but will take you on
your word on Ghosts of Tsushima.

~~~
the_duke
Since you liked Horizon Zero Dawn:

\- Witcher 3 brought me back to gaming after a 10+ year hiatus. While not
perfect, it's the best/most immersive game I have ever played. Thanks to truly
incredible writing, an interesting, engaging world where small side quests are
some of the best content, good graphics that still hold up very well
(especially with mods on PC, but just fine on console). All built on a
foundation of very solid combat and gameplay.

\- "Nier Automata" is an unusual experience that smoothly blends very
different combat styles and has a mind-boggling, thought-provoking story.

~~~
wuunderbar
Do you need to play Witcher 1 & 2?

~~~
stevenwoo
I watched the TV series first, and Witcher 3 has a much better and coherent
story than the TV show even though the game picks up after the events of
Witcher 1/2\. I finished the game mostly for the stories.

~~~
rcpt
tbf the TV show was pretty convoluted with time jumping all over the place

~~~
omega3
That's because it's based on the books which are a collections of shorter
stories (at least the first one iirc).

~~~
hnick
They could've very easily had text on the screen saying what time period the
current scene was in. It seems like they left it out deliberately for artistic
reasons and many people have been confused as a result.

------
klyrs
My great grandmother used to play solitaire. The same way that many of us
while away the night staring at a screen, she'd sit in her apartment wearing
the spots off a pack of cards. Some oldsters will react to this news with
dismay, but as I see it, our lives are richer for the innovation.

~~~
codingdave
I still do play solitaire. I taught a few variations to my kids early on when
the pandemic locked us at home. I don't judge either style of game as better
or worse than the other... just different. Video games are clearly richer
games, but the conversations I had with my family growing up were often while
sitting around a table playing card games.

~~~
reificator
> Video games are clearly richer games

I don't know, if you include Magic the Gathering in the card games pile it's
definitely competitive on the "richness"[0] spectrum against most video games.

Though in the current apocalypse, there's been an uptick in video game forms
of Magic, and even a sharp rise in people playing over the internet by
pointing a webcam at their table.

[0]: Pun not intended, but it's undeniably also expensive...

~~~
Retric
Several versions of traditional solitaire are extremely deep games when you
try and maximize your odds of winning. Video games can be mindless or mind
bending puzzles.

Which is why I think lumping all video games into a single category is
meaningless. Beat Saber and Minecraft have little in common.

~~~
reificator
> _Beat Saber and Minecraft have little in common._

They're both high profile VR games.

~~~
spicybright
Missing the point. Minecraft started as a creative style game that hit massive
popularity in all age groups, and encouraged players to build to their heart's
content without much of a goal. It didn't start in VR as well.

Beat Sabor is one of the first "killer app" VR games, with a clear goal with
emphasis on reaction time and immersion using the VR tech behind it.

Both are played very differently, the former a game you come back to to refine
your work over and over in a creative way, the other using reaction time to
score better.

~~~
conductr
> using reaction time to score better

Having never heard of Beat Sabor, this made me think it sounds like Guitar
Hero. YouTube confirms. I really did not ever get the appeal of GH, but BS
looks pretty fun.

------
bjo590
> Analysts point out that almost half of the accounted three billion are those
> who play only on smartphones or mobile devices. This segment is also ahead
> of all others in terms of growth.

This segment is incredibly lucrative for the winners. Niantic has an estimated
revenue of 800 million dollars. Supercell's highest reported revenue was just
over 2 billion euros. King sold to Activision Blizzard for 5.9 billion dollars
in 2016. Epic is going to war with Google and Apple over Fornite money.
There's Asian players that are also impressive, but I'm not familiar enough to
speak on that market. These revenues and valuations are happening in a high
growth market.

~~~
abraxas
It is so very depressing. Nearly every game released by those companies is an
ad riddled garbage fire.

It's an affront to what makes gaming fun. They are "games" in the same sense
that slot machines are "games". They aren't games in the sense that non-mobile
gamers talk about.

~~~
watwut
At least those games don't take over your complete life the way big online
games. And don't lead to those playing often overnight, am addicted, am sleep
deprived raging gamer situations.

~~~
belorn
Have you seen the hours some people put into farmville and farmville-like
games?

Overnight play? Checked.

Addicted? Checked.

Sleep deprived? Checked.

Physical pain from holding the phone and looking at a small screen? Checked.

Raging behavior? Mood is definitively effected, especially when the social
aspect has a negative turn.

~~~
watwut
I know farmville, candy crush and the like playing people. I also know AAA
online pubg, world of warcraft etc games playing people. The worst behavior I
have seen definitely did not came from farmville candy crush crowd.

Also, overall, steam sales seems to cost way more money I have ever seen being
spent on games. And not just that, spending a lot of money on steam sales is
point of pride for gamers - who ten turn around and act all superior over
causual player ... spending less money (or no money) overall.

> Raging behavior? Mood is definitively effected, especially when the social
> aspect has a negative turn.

Rage and affected mood are two different things. But again, the level of anger
or irritability in relation with farmville are super mild compared to what I
have seen in pc/console gamers.

\------------------------------

The most irritable to me is the level of hypocrisy pc/console gamers display
when they complain about causual games.

~~~
belorn
Personally I have observed a person with worse farmville addiction than any pc
related addiction I have personally seen. Two accounts on farmville, one on a
farmville-clone, each three played at the same time competitive for top
ranking, with guilds and guild drama, and candy-crush games on the side.

If we are talking about spending, thankfully the above person did at least
restrict themselves to <$100 per months on boosters (or at least that what
they told me), but you should be aware that in-store revenue outnumber sales
revenue in basically ever game regardless if its on phone or pc (not sure
about console but my guess is that the same is true). There is a reason why
almost every game company has shifted focus away from game sales and into in-
game item sales.

> Rage and affected mood are two different things.

No. Mood swings because of a game is the same regardless if its short bursts
or long and moody. If a person allow a game (and the social groups in it) to
have lasting negative effect on their mood then that is a problem regardless
what kind of game it is.

~~~
watwut
Rage as in yelling, hitting table with fist, swearing, throwing cell phone
accross the room because someone called and he lost match on pc. It is
absolutely different then "mood swing" which is used for range of things
including mild irritability.

The people I had observed having issues basically played to the point of
failing school classes due to chronic sleep deprivation, had atrocious
performance in work post gaming session (he talked about playi by game till
morning openly) or basically checked out of family life entirely making
partner basically single. Let's say that formely gaming friendly wife build up
huge aversion toward games.

I knew multiple of these and none of them played farmvile nor anything like
that.

I believe people like your friend exist, the farmville top cant be composed of
people having healthy relationships and jobs. But they are not around me.
Around me the worst were among pc/console players, usually people who self
identified as gamers and took it as point of pride.

~~~
belorn
Maybe rage is a symptom of poorly management of stress and negative emotions?
Cars do not cause road rage. People who throw childish temper tantrums is not
controlled by the activity, be that driving, gameing, cooking, gambling,
fishing, cleaning, sports, constructing, knitting, (so far all places where I
have seen rage) or what have you. Childish temper tantrums occurs in all
places where people are, and especially places where people who struggle
emotionally may go to, and where they might be stressed or be impacted by a
negative event.

------
cgrealy
That 3 billion people play some sort of games (particularly on mobile) is not
at all surprising to me.

I would guess that number correlates to “90% of people under a certain age
(50??) who have access to a device”.

That 1.5 billion play games on PC is shocking to me.

~~~
as1mov
I think's that number is reasonable considering any PC can be used for gaming
with a small investment. Just adding a $100-$150 GPU can make any old PC from
the last decade capable of playing games. That's how gaming has usually worked
in third world countries at least.

~~~
fendy3002
And people usually already have pc for activities outside of gaming. And it's
very easy to play any games on pc, and some are free such as open source games
and abandonwares (CMIIW).

~~~
cgrealy
A quick google says there are 1.5 billion pcs in the world (in 2015). I’m
guessing they’re pretty much assuming most people who have a PC have played
some form of game on it.

------
bitxbit
This is a trend that will continue to accelerate. And I think we grossly
underestimated how much time and money people are willing to spend on video
games. Although, I think production has somewhat plateau’d in the past five
years. There’s VR, but I believe there will be a new category introduced
within the next five years that will change the gaming landscape.

~~~
neixidbeksoxyd
> There’s VR, but I believe there will be a new category introduced within the
> next five years that will change the gaming landscape.

I have been dreaming of better interfaces (controllers) for games for decades.
The Wii, despite it's limited power, was a huge leap forward in how we played
games. Unfortunately Nintendo is the only gaming company taking risks while
Microsoft and Sony keep doubling down on graphics with the same controllers
from 30 years ago. If someone made a non-VR console with VR-style controllers
it would be a huge leap. Instead we keep getting the same old immersion-
killing 4-button-mashing consoles and games with upgraded graphics cards.

~~~
maroonblazer
Keep in mind that 1/3 of the population suffer from motion sickness, so for
them (I'm in this group) VR isn't an option for the most part.

Of course if this is a solvable problem - those who otherwise suffer from
motion sickness are symptom-free in any VR application - then I agree VR could
have a bright future.

~~~
danielheath
I get quite motion-sick. Boat rides are - at best - mildly unpleasant.

After trying the oculus dk1 roller coaster demo, I was incapable of doing
anything for 4-5 hours and still felt sick days later.

I play beat saber regularly; taking off the vive after an hour I feel mildly
disoriented for about half a minute and then I am fine. The tech has
progressed tremendously and no longer gives me any trouble (which may not hold
true for everyone but it’s definitely been fine for me)!

~~~
squeaky-clean
A big part of it is does your ingame motion match your real world motion. In
games like Beat Saber the only movements are from you physically moving. I've
had a VR headset for maybe 4 years now and can still only play racing games
for about an hour before motion sickness starts to settle in. I bet the roller
coaster demo would be much less disorienting if one sat in a motion simulator.
I'd love to own one eventually for my sim-racing setup.

------
Dumblydorr
Everyone I know plays something: DoTA, candy crush, Codenames, Jackbox, online
cards, Skyrim, Zelda, Witcher, DnD on Foundry, even my old relatives play
various games on mobile and iPad. Whereas, the younger, especially male,
people I know almost all have a gaming system of one kind or another.

I am very into Starcraft myself. It is a wonderful combination of speed,
strategy, economics, deception, and accuracy.

~~~
mudita
Most of the friends I have don't play video games. There are both bubbles
where everybody plays as well as bubbles where playing video games as an adult
is a very foreign concept.

------
gingerlime
As someone who doesn't play any games _at all_ and looking for a new hobby,
would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would
you recommend? (something light/fun)

some background:

I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets
my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much
adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and then later
played games on my Apple IIc and then PC, up to around year 2000 or so. Now I
own an iPhone SE and Macbook air 2015, so nothing too powerful. I don't have a
TV (but a decent computer screen).

EDIT: so many great suggestions for things I didn't know existed. Thank you so
much!

~~~
TotempaaltJ
There are tons of non-intense video games! It's not all shooters, thankfully.
Especially building/management style games, turn-based games, and role-playing
games can be calm.

Personal favorites: FTL: Faster Than Light. Not turn-based, so can get a
little heated every now and then but generally pretty calm ime.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Li...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Light/)

The Civilization series is all turn based and as long as you play against the
computer you get to take as long as you like for each turn.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/Sid_Meiers_Civiliz...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_VI/)

Cities: Skylines! Love trying my hand at infrastructure design.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/255710](https://store.steampowered.com/app/255710)

Prison Architect
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/233450](https://store.steampowered.com/app/233450)

I've heard good things about Factorio. If you want to dip your toes into first
person games you should try the Portal series, which has a bit more action but
not too much imo.

These all will work fine on your Macbook Air!

~~~
fendy3002
I don't think Factorio is good recommendation here. It's kinda intense with
biter on, and trains.

Stardew Valley should be the alternative.

~~~
TotempaaltJ
Ohh how could I forget Stardew Valley! That game is great.

------
seekinggamer
There is always this disconnect when I read stuff like this

3 billion people is 30% or of 3 people. Ok, we go on OkCupid, we find the
question "Do you enjoy playing video games" and we set that as a criteria for
matches. Your matches will drop to > 1% of the population, at least as a male
looking for female.

Checking another dating site that has things people like. The site claims 10
million users, only 200k have selected "like games" or 2%, vastly different
than the article's claimed 30%

I get some of the reasons for the difference like not considering yourself a
gamer yet plays Covet Fashion an hour a day.

Still, in daily life the number of people I meet who would claim to like games
in any form doesn't match that 30% number.

~~~
bcassedy
Likely because they count mobile games in these figures but people don't count
them when talking about gaming on a dating profile.

Virtually everyone you know probably tried Candy Crush, Pokemon Go, or flappy
bird. Most of them probably have at least one game like that installed on
their phone today that they play on the toilet or whatever. But they don't
consider themselves gamers.

~~~
ido
My 75 years old mother plays bubble shooters, dots & other games of that sort
probably as much or more than I play _any_ games - and I'm a game developer.

~~~
edanm
So out of curiosity, given the above discussion, would she consider herself a
gamer? Would you consider her a gamer?

~~~
chillwaves
She is clearly a gamer if words have meaning.

~~~
bcassedy
Words only have meaning because of the way people use them. See how the
meaning of "literally" has changed in the last decade for an example.

To most people the term gamer does not precisely mean "one who plays games."
The type of games and immersion in gaming culture are factors that people
consider when labeling themselves and others "gamers."

------
alexashka
The bit many people are not realizing is that e-sports will overtake current
sports within the next few decades.

For now, e-sports is at that sweet spot of good production value and a
reasonable amount of advertising. I predict we'll be back to sitting through
3-5 minutes of commercials for every 15 minutes of gameplay within the next
decade as advertisers realize how willing gamers are to spend money on virtual
stuff.

~~~
Buttons840
There will be too much competition from "casts". While the top 1% can be seen
between commercials, the top 5% are cast on Twitch, commercial free, by a sole
caster surviving on Twitch and Patreon. The level of competition will be very
similar, possibly with more variety in the top 5%.

------
arvinsim
Even so, society still stereotype video games and video gamers as juvenile and
waste of time.

This is apparent especially in dating circles, where more often than not,
listing video games as hobby for a males is a negative signal to the opposite
sex.

~~~
jherdman
Gaming IS a waste of time, as are a number of hobbies. The question is really
if you care that you're wasting your time.

~~~
shafyy
According to your definition, when is time not wasted?

~~~
nicofcurti
I think he means waste as in "doing something that carries no real benefit to
yourself", and if that's the case then you're probably grinding instead of
actually enjoying a game.

FF VII teaches you real values. LoL teaches you absolutely nothing besides
resilience when getting bashed for going 0/1

------
hoorayimhelping
I remember being a college freshman in 2001 and playing PC games, namely Rogue
Spear and Counter-Strike online with friends in my dorm room. I talked with
them on a headset with a microphone using Roger Wilco and Battlecom. A lot of
the guys I lived with in the dorm thought it was really weird that I talked to
people online playing video games. Some would make fun of me.

Then Halo came out in November, and in the spring semester, when everyone
returned to school after the holidays, and a lot of people had new XBoxes with
Halo, nobody thought it was weird anymore. Almost overnight, online video
games became normalized, at least to college age dudes.

------
archibaldJ
I think the greatest video game to be played is life. Unfortunately not many
people can afford to play it the fun way and things start to get boring and
time start to fly by and people get drawn into simulations of some subset of
it, which begs the question, shouldn’t life simply be a “simulation” of some
subset of something?

What is interesting is that an affirmative to this question often makes life
more “game-like” and in terms more open to the notion of it capable of being
“fun to play” (and vice versa). Though once again not many people would
wholeheartedly appreciate this Insight. Very unfortunately life is often
filled with suffering and miseries and most (including myself) would often get
blinded and overlook the nice things, as well as its game-like nature.

Perhaps getting into one of these man-made simulators is not that bad of a
thing, especially if it engages the social module and in some way enriches the
overall gameplay of life.

I think many progresses in science & technologies are often hindered by our
tendencies to not appreciate games. As a (post)modern civilisation we often
take things too seriously. Probably a feature not a bug! But on a more
individual level I think taking things more lightly (while still being a
responsible human being) would improve the overall quality of life. That is
something I’m still trying to learn.

~~~
chillwaves
Liked this comment more than an upvote could say.

I am trying to be less serious as well. It's easy to fall into the trap of be
highly critical, highly methodical and just overall taking everything at
serious face value, but where is the joy in that?

------
catsarebetter
This doesn't surprise me at all, I spend 5x times more money on video games
per year than dev education and I don't even game that much, maybe once a
month. Video game markets just gonna keep getting bigger.

------
catsarebetter
I talked to an executive at Skillz a few years ago and she told me that one of
their main growth strategies was actually to target prospective women that
could be gamers. The way it worked was that a few of Skillz executives were in
this market, women who loved video gaming but businesses at the time refused
to recognize it.

Imagine a woman who plays mobile games just to kill time at the bus stop, etc.
Exec told me that she had friends like this and she has really easily gotten
them to adopt all sorts of gaming and knew how easy it was to do this.

So when they looked at it like that, the market for people who were ignored
was massive and that's one of the reasons why they grew so fast.

I think another underserved video game niche is our elderly... but maybe
that's a separate discussion

~~~
disgruntledphd2
So, back in the day I worked with a lot of gaming companies on their
advertising. They would point blank refuse to target women because "women
don't play games". Even when we demonstrated that women made up a really
sizable proportion of their audience, they wouldn't budge.

Really brought it home to me that so much bias is reproduced through the
biases of advertisers, rather than the platforms.

~~~
catsarebetter
They'll pay for it when more startups catch on and grow like mad and compete
with them

~~~
disgruntledphd2
In my experience, the startups were the worst for it.

------
tumidpandora
My PS4 pro has been a trusted companion through the pandemic.. I have
cherished playing Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us 2

~~~
catsarebetter
I see we have similar taste, might I recommend assasin's creed? Amazing
graphics and the story mode is pretty phenomenal, kind of a greek mythology
nerd so that's why I'm so drawn to it.

~~~
alchemism
In normal times I would travel to Greece multiple times a year. I acquired a
4k projector so I could fill a wall with the game. It’s been a nice
substitute.

~~~
catsarebetter
Ah man Greece sounds so nice right now... big images are the way to go with
that game, so much granular detail that you can't catch without them

------
ojciecczas
When The AI creates itself, it will control humans by creating video games.

------
op03
Anything good on Linux these days?

~~~
bjo590
[https://store.steampowered.com/linux](https://store.steampowered.com/linux)

If a game is going to support Windows + macOS than it isn't much more work to
also support Linux these days. There are many games released on Linux every
year.

~~~
glouwbug
That's right, Proton is amazing. I've been playing classics like Rome Total
War on my Linux setup

~~~
brundolf
Beyond that, most game devs today use established engines like Unity or
Unreal, which typically have one-click build buttons for all major platforms.
The level of abstraction has been raised, which affects not only game logic
but even things like graphics APIs (DirectX vs Vulkan vs Metal) and packaging
(installer, icons, etc). The bar has never been lower to throw in Linux
support, even if you don't expect a huge market.

~~~
beering
I've seen it argued that releasing a Linux version (even using Unity/Unreal)
is worse than releasing a Windows version that runs on Proton, because the
Windows API is stabler and the Linux version will inevitably bitrot without
continual updates.

~~~
Godel_unicode
There's a serious rumor that this is what actually killed rocket league on
Linux. Why maintain a fork if proton is better anyway?

~~~
axaxs
Proton is good, but in no measure 'better'. Linux isn't as unstable as
everyone makes it out to be. Quite the opposite. Proton still has to work on
linux, afterall. If Linux support bitrots quickly, then so does everyone
dependent on proton.

~~~
oefrha
While Linux might not be as unstable as everyone makes it out to be, your
argument doesn’t support that at all. The point is Valve maintains Proton so
that everyone and their mum doesn’t need to maintain their own Linux fork
that’ll bitrot. Without an entity maintaining Proton it could stop working in
a few months for all we know.

~~~
axaxs
Yes, and nobody knew how to deploy or use Linux applications until Docker came
along and saved us all.

~~~
oefrha
I for one knew how to deploy Linux applications long before Docker but know
nothing about the GPU/graphics stack on Linux which is crucial to game devs,
and FWIW I ran into graphics problems when I tried Ubuntu Desktop (yeah, just
the vanilla Desktop, not gaming) on my Nvidia GPU last year, so again your
snarky response contains no relevant info at all.

------
jariel
My father still does crosswords daily. Much of this amounts to digitised
Soduku, Crosswords, Solitaire etc.. - passing time on light fare.

A new Netflix special on games 'High Score' touches on the gender issues and
how some games for whatever reason have entirely different demographic appeal:
Pac Man and Tetris were (still in the later case) disproportionately popular
among women.

The medium obviously allows for much more, but we can't ignore the social
parallels.

------
choward
> However, only about 250 million people are active console users who
> regularly buy new games for them. Although they represent only 8% of the
> total number of gamers, this is the group with the highest revenue per
> person.

Why is there an "although" at the beginning of that sentence? Why wouldn't
they be generating the highest revenue person?

~~~
HenryKissinger
PCs are more expensive than consoles, so one might be led to think that PC
gamers have more money than console gamers and thus spend more on games than
their console brethrens.

~~~
reificator
PCs are definitely not more expensive than consoles when you compare the TCO
over a year or two, and that gulf keeps getting wider the longer you're on PC.

This was true even before Steam sales and Humble Bundle and free games on the
Epic Store and and and...

~~~
BbzzbB
Notwithstanding PCs are not locked down platforms, which can make gaming much
cheaper for.. reasons.

------
Razengan
I wish there was a better way to preserve the history of video games, as
operating systems become incompatible, emulators become obsolete, and some
things just can't be emulated accurately or faithfully anyway (like the 3DS).

Ironically, YouTube is probably the best archive of video games that we have.

------
commonturtle
I’ve become a big player of board games online, mostly terraforming Mars.
Given how fast this is spreading I wouldn’t be surprised if we found that
gaming overtakes every entertainment option around.

------
m3kw9
The a only significant when you factor in time played and frequency.

------
mensetmanusman
I was just going through the entire mame archive for hours.

Are there any fun games?

------
dep_b
The only thing I play nowadays are mobile versions of board games, to sharpen
my skills for the moment we get together again

------
noisy_boy
I think more will play if quickly trying out games was easy. E.g. I wanted to
try out Doom Eternal yesterday without having to buy it first in case I didn't
like it; couldn't find how to do that and gave up after 20 mins.

~~~
bspammer
Xbox Game Pass is like Netflix for games, you pay a small subscription each
month and get to essentially rent hundreds of games. Sounds like it might be
what you're after.

~~~
noisy_boy
Unfortunately I don't have an xbox (kids at home so worried of addiction) and
play very occasionally. I wouldn't mind for a service that allows to rent a
game short-term e.g. 5 hours for a dollar - cheap and long enough to try a
game without any extra hardware/commitment.

~~~
bspammer
In classic Microsoft terrible-at-naming-things fashion, you can get Xbox Game
Pass for PC. I'm using it to play the new flight sim.

------
monadic2
With so many gamers what does the word even mean anymore?

~~~
lentil_soup
I think that's a very interesting question. "Gamer" has always been a bit of a
niche tag but with games now becoming more and more mainstream it will be like
calling people that watch movies "moviers", which we don't do since we assume
most people enjoy a movie every once in a while.

~~~
hnick
Gamer would be similar to "film buff" in this context, someone who enjoys it
much more than normal or makes it part of their identity.

------
zanecraw
I mean... what else are we supposed to do all day lol

------
thefounder
Looks like an addiction getting out of control.

~~~
chillwaves
What is the difference between video game addiction and other screen related
addiction?

~~~
mumblemumble
One is more fun than the others?

~~~
chillwaves
Maybe they are all the same problem, screens are more compelling than life and
this statement is only becoming more true each day.

------
xvilka
... wasting their lives.

~~~
zelly
A wise man once said, "Don't play games, write them"

~~~
bcassedy
Ah yes. All those game devs with their lofty salaries and excellent working
conditions.

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jpxw
If you count Candy Crush then sure

~~~
rsynnott
This is such a weird attitude. If someone was to say (figures made up) "over
two billion people worldwide now drink beer" then "if you count Budweiser then
sure", would be a bizarre response. Candy Crush is clearly a game; this isn't
really ambiguous. It's a mass market game that game connoisseurs sneer at,
sure, but it's a game.

~~~
fuzxi
I get your point, but I think it's more accurately framed like so:

"Over three billion people are now drinkers"

    
    
        "If you count having a glass of wine once a week then sure"
    

The perceived snobbery is less about whether these people are playing games
and more about whether they can be accurately described as "gamers", a term
which has meaning beyond simply "players of any game(s)" due to its many
(largely negative) connotations.

~~~
throw149102
Adding onto this, imagine how you would feel if someone said

"There are 3 billion Spanish speakers worldwide"

But then you learned that only 500 million were really fluent, and the rest
ranged from broken Spanish that was enough to get by in a Spanish speaking
country to people who were forced to take a Spanish class in highschool and
never used it again.

I think this concept of "fluency" in games is probably a more useful metric.
The question is, if I dump you in front of a game that you've never played
before, but it conforms to the language of video game design, how quickly can
you beat it? I would imagine that someone who only played Candy Crush would
not understand how to move their camera around in a 3D environment, for
example.[1]

You could extend the metaphor further, for example Spanish is spoken in many
different ways around the globe, and therefore some people who speak one
dialect of Spanish can't understand another dialect of Spanish. The same could
be true for games, and we would need to classify and understand these
dialects.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7f3JZJHSw)
Interesting video talking about what games are like for a non-gamer, shows an
example of not understanding how to move the camera and the player at the same
time.

~~~
rsynnott
> I would imagine that someone who only played Candy Crush would not
> understand how to move their camera around in a 3D environment, for example

Now would someone who only played NES games, or Civilization VI, or Papers
Please. Are we defining 'games' as meaning '3D walk-y about-y games', here?

~~~
setr
Given the notion of "fluency" proposed by the GP, the idea would be that a
"fluent" gamer would not be described with "played only X games". You would be
fluent if you could "communicate" in multiple genres -- having a sufficiently
thorough vocabulary.

~~~
meheleventyone
But this is just weird gatekeeping. You could for example be extremely fluent
in a single genre but uninterested in others. For example I've been playing
games for over 30 years and don't really know the genre conventions of match-3
games beyond the obvious. Similarly I know very little about MOBAs or gacha
style games or visual novels. And I'm a game designer!

IMO one of the worst aspects of modern "gamer" culture is this insistence on
purity tests particularly when they're aimed at games that are extremely
popular with women.

Even in terms of market segmentation I don't think the distinction of "overall
gaming fluency" is very measurable or meaningful.

~~~
setr
No its a question of categorization.

You can't have the same conversation between someone who plays only candy
crush, and someone who plays a wide variety of games. Its like saying that 8
billion people read books -- but 7.9 billion of that only read harry potter.
Suddenly that 8 billion readers is far less notable.

There's a scale to your level of hobbyism -- a lot of people only play games
as long as their friends do, because its simply a social tool (replacing the
mall). The current flavor just happens to fall under video games, but theres
no stickiness -- if the next popular thing is laser tag, they'll shift out and
never think about games again.

The notion of trying to define this scale as a problem is also largely unique
to gaming -- it exists elsewhere without issue. Painting, movies, programming,
literature, music, engineering etc there's no issue saying that someone is
dipping their toes into the subject, or has purely commercial interest in it
(eg I only watch best selling movies, or only marvel) or has an actual
interest in it (a -phile, a hacker, etc)

I think the key difference is the prevailing belief that there is no depth to
this subject, so the only difference between a casual entrant and a hobbyist
and a professional is an arbitrary checklist.

Obviously I disagree -- there is depth, and therefore, there is a difference
between "gamers", as they fall between the ranks in understanding that depth.
Ofc theres no great metric, and you can't define it in detail, but the
difference between a candy-crush-only "gamer" and a genre-agnostic "gamer" and
a genre-loving "gamer" and a read-the-literature (what little exists) "gamer"
in recognizing and communicating about that depth is readily apparent

~~~
meheleventyone
Yes you can create a taxonomy but is it interesting or useful? If 7.9 billion
people only read Harry Potter that’s very very significant. If we say “well
they’re not _real_ readers” that’s just being ignorant and gate keeping.

The problem mostly comes from people who define their hobby as their life. I
play games a lot and make them professionally but wouldn’t call myself a
gamer. I don’t see my wife playing Match-3 games on her phone as lesser than
my wife playing Baldurs Gate. Likewise I can enjoy Sage Solitaire and Escape
from Tarkov.

Gaming is mainstream now and people who feel threatened by that need to grow
up.

------
Havoc
That has to be hella broad in terms of definition.

I'd guess playing a cutting edge PC game at reasonable spec puts you into the
top 1% income wise? (gut feel guess)

So 3 billion is presumably anything that has a screen and a game?

Games are big but near half of humanity is a pretty bold claim.

~~~
chillwaves
This seems more a proxy on how much of humanity is connected by smart phones
now. The implication is similarly staggering.

------
otabdeveloper4
Next in news: over 6.5 trillion cigarettes are sold per year.

 _shrug_

I wonder what the public health perception on videogames will be like in 100
years.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Healthy, fit people will just continue becoming more and more rare and
ascendant in our society.

Though in 100 years we'll have VR that's as seamless as unlocking your phone.
Maybe games will be the healthy jacked guys in school through all the
incidental exercise.

