In gaming, like everything in life, there’s a huge range of different approaches. These go from the fanatical to the casual and dictate exactly what role gaming plays in your life – and even if it dominates every aspect of your life. It’s been identified that there are four main categories of gamers and within these categories there are as many variations as there are people who play games. So which box do you think you fit into?
Cool and casual
The cool and casual player is someone who sees gaming as a way to pass the time, maybe when they’re on the bus or waiting for a train. They don’t really mind what game they play as long as it’s easy and quick to learn. Their all-round casual approach also means that they’re far more likely to be playing on their smart phone than settling down on the sofa for a lengthy session of gaming.
In with the in crowd
This kind of gamer takes part because it’s a way to be sociable and connect with both existing friends as well as making new online friends in multi-player games.
The types of games that the social gamer players enjoy are exceptionally wide ranging from shoot-em-ups like Call of Duty to more creative and collaborative ones like Minecraft. There’s an added benefit for social players of more strategic games because one research project has found that this may even increase cognitive ability.
This is probably the group with the largest number of members and it also taps into the very human desire to be included in a group and to avoid being classed as an outsider.
Nearly nerdy
There’s more than a little obsessiveness to this category of player so they’re likely to shut themselves in a darkened room for hours on end with their preferred game of choice.
The aim will not just be to play it, it will be to get to know every twist and turn of the plot or the action so well that they would virtually be able to play it in their sleep. So these would be the types of player that you’d find queuing up through the night to be one of the very first to get their hands on a new game as soon as it’s released.
In some cases they aren’t just passionate about a particular game or genre – they even closely follow the work of a preferred developer or game designer.
The Olympic Gamer
The Olympic Gamer is at the very pinnacle of gaming aficionados. Always open to new gaming experiences they may also take a more intellectual interest in gaming theories (written by Andy Bloch) that can tip the odds in their favour.
As well as being obsessive gamers they probably also devour all the information they can find online and in specialist magazines about games and gaming.
Their taste in games is likely to be wide and include some of the most competitive games there are. They’ll also probably have made quite an investment in the technology to play the games themselves – so don’t expect them to be plugged into a 14” portable TV as they attempt to conquer the world!
