The types of gamers you meet—part 3

Crackhead

I derive the name of this one from the reference to World of Warcraft as World of Warcrakc. The Crackhead is a special, often disturbing breed. Like the elitist, the addict is committed to just one game. However, their play style is somewhat different.

The most common example of a crackhead gamer is one that plays World of Warcraft at least 40 hours a week. A raid takes priority over any type of social function. Work and family functions are scheduled around the game.

A crackhead isn’t considered addicted to video games—he is addicted to World of Warcraft. Or Everquest. Whatever it is he happens to play. He doesn’t necessarily consider himself a gamer. He considers himself a guildmate. He considers himself a teammate. He is emotionally and psychologically invested in the game he plays. Occasionally there is some crossover—elitists who are in fact crackheads, but rarely.

Those who are truly crackhead gamers are the ones that even elitists or renaissance gamers feel uncomfortable around. This guy plays games so often that even other gamers who play 30 hours a week and consider video games their top passion feel like the person likes video games too much. Sometimes other gamers are even intimidated by or feel pity for the crackhead, because the passion is shared but it is affected the crackhead’s live negatively (in the opinion of anyone who is not a crackhead).

Where they hang out: Azeroth, Norrath, Team server, Ventrilo, their rooms.

Examples of Games played: World of Warcraft, Everquest, other MMOs, and occasionally Counter Strike

What they talk about: stuff they’ve seen while playing games, people they play games with, something that happened while playing games, World of Warcraft videos they watched while flying on flight paths, guild politics, future patches, arguing about race, class, factions, bugs in the game they play, equipment they’ve recently picked up.

Domestic

Your domestic gamer is the kind that most people don’t consider a “gamer”, but plays games a good deal nonetheless.

Domestic gamers have little to no interaction with any of the above groups. For them, a video game is a solitary thing, not something that needs to be talked about or even done with other people. Like assembling difficult puzzles, perhaps.

Domestic gamers include moms, grandmothers and other seniors, and parents. Places of play include senior citizen centers, libraries, work, and home. These are people who play family friendly, low-budget, high-replay value games. They constitute a significant minority of the buying power in the video game market.

Whenever they talk about some supposedly impressive number about how many females or people over the age of 35 play video games, they’re talking about domestic gamers. To all the other groups above except Mr. DI, who doesn’t care, domestic gamers are not gamers.

Where they hang out: church, playgrounds, schools, bridge club, bingo, libraries, family amusement centers, and especially home.

Examples of Games played: anything on Yahoo!, Solitaire and other card games, Freecell, Minesweeper, Bejeweled 1 and 2, Chess, online games, whatever their kids are playing that is rated T and under (even WoW, sometimes).
What they talk about: kids, grandkids, work, school and PTA-type stuff, neighborhood and family gossip, politics, and whatever they are interested in.