"The End of Gamers"? OH NOES!!!1!1!

"When we acknowledge videogames as a medium, the notion of a monolithic games industry, which creates a few kinds of games for a few kinds of players, stops making any sense. As does the idea of a demographic category called “gamers” who are the ones who play these games."

That was the second to last paragraph of the article "The End of Gamers", and there is enough wrong in that one paragraph, in my opinion, to cast a shadow on what was otherwise a well thought out and well written analysis of the concept of the "gamer". The article seems to assume that anyone of plays a game is a "gamer", whereas most people will say that while they do play some games, they would not consider themselves a "gamer". The act of playing games does not make you a "gamer", rather joining the culture of games is the essence of becoming a "gamer". When a person self identifies as a "gamer", this distinction is easy to make; however, it is not something that can be quantified by an outsider, and not often even by other members of the group.

Therefore, there is a demographic called "gamers", however it is so large and nebulous that it must be looked at economically as separate, mini-demographics, which could be broken down by genre, control style, or even the dreaded "hardcore v. casual" division. The film industry has a similar situation in that a movie has a target audience, just like a game has a target audience.

Also the assertion that the games industry does not just make a few games for a few kinds of gamers is flawed, especially when annual releases are broken down: there are more sports and FPS games released in a year than there are all other games, by the games industry. "Gamers" are far from gone, they are just more specialized than most expect them to be.