Analogy: (In the suburban U.S. environment) When young, everyone plays soccer. Moving into middle-school, some kids begin to play soccer of their own volition. In high-school there are kids that keep playing soccer, and kids that start to define themselves by playing soccer. In college, some of that latter group will play for fun, some will play for club teams, and a scant few will play for the school team. After school most of these people will play an occasional game with a club, maybe a match at a company picnic, but they will, for the most part, not be playing much soccer through their mid-to-late twenties, and even less in their 30s. A minuscule fraction of them will actually play soccer professionally. NB: you don't ask a kid what they do (they are students), you ask them about their interests and hobbies. These are the things that differentiate them. People have a desire for identity (particularly the uniqueness thereof). As an adult, the first thing you've got going for you in this respect is your job, as even the most common professions are not that common. When you are in middle-/high- school (and everyone 'does' the same thing) you differentiate via hobbies. Conclusion: So, taken all together, the point is that the notion of a gamer as "one willing to dedicate substantial time and resources to improving their performance" is probably limited to that 13-24 age group. Those are the kids that define themselves as soccer players in high-school and play for the school team in college. For those younger, the word 'gamer' doesn't mean anything because everyone plays and they take it as seriously as kids take anything else. After that, as one heads towards their 30s (and Beyond!) there are professionals (those that play games for a living, work as gaming journalists, etc. etc.) and there are those that still play games at all. Side Note: Younger people might find it hard to believe, but there will probably come a time when you no longer even own a console (or you go a season without going surfing, skiing, biking, playing basketball, etc. etc.). When young you can have a million hobbies, but there stops being time for everything (sometimes thanks to jobs, but really it's the family that takes the hours away), so you no longer get to spend a couple of hours playing a sport after work and then going home to play games for 3 or 4 more; you finish work, maybe get a drink with co-workers (don't count on it though), pick up the kids, get the kids to their activities, get the kids working on their homework, get dinner prepped/served/cleaned up, get the kids to bed and then you have a bit of time for yourself (JUST KIDDING! it's "yourselves," not "yourself," because you're in it together). So maybe you're playing a game together, maybe you watch a movie, or one of dozens of options, but you can only do 1 End Side Note. In short, for those in their 30s, a 'gamer' is, someone that gets and hour a week in. A serious gamer might get 3. So yeah, that kind of ran on a bit, but the point is that "true gamer" is probably an age-dependent terms with the "hardcore" crowd being the same group that's "hardcore" about anything else: 13-24 year olds that can immerse themselves into something other than work/family/friends. What happens when older people try to be "hardcore?" Well, the police generally get involved: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-couple-world-of-warcraft-prison-child-neglect-20140812-story.html