I've noticed lately that many gamers don't actually seem to play games that much. They are gamers, through and through but overall most of the time seems to be spent on discussing the games far more than actually playing, to the point that I'm beginning to think that their actual hobby is the discussion rather than the game themselves. In that sense I think gaming is actually two hobbies if not many more:
The first is the actual act of playing games. (Self-explanatory)
The other is "gaming culture", discussing games, arguing on the internet and showing off your games. Basically, the whole sociocultural aspect of it. Some examples from the top of my head.
- The Boardgamegeek guy who has 600 different games and is backing 15 kickstarters.
- The kind of person who tweets for 8 hours straight about Gamergate.
- The NeoGAF poster discussing whether DLC is good or bad.
- The dancing game fan who isn't very good but loves hanging out around the machine.
Most of the examples that come mind are negative but I'm probably a good example of the later, actually, I like "gaming culture" stuff (Criticism, game history, talking about games) more than the games themselves and spend a disproportionate amount of time on it.
I think that the way we see gaming is very monolithic sometimes. I mean, the motivations of a guy restoring a Donkey Kong cab are very different than the motivations of a kid playing Minecraft and even apparently very similar groups are actually very different (For example, HG101, Racketboy and Shmups System 11).
What do you think?