Being a gamer has not changed. People confuse being a gamer with playing games. A gamer is someone who min/max characters, and not just for one game. They play many types of games and can go from destiny to fortnite to assassins creed and be good in all of them. A gamer is someone who makes playing games his hobby, that what they do. Not a thing they do with friends or with one game or even for only half an hour a day. This also means it sometimes turns into a sense of elitism where they think they are better than “casuals”. What you are talking about isn’t being done by gamers. It is being done by people. One thing you have to realize is that games are no longer the legend of Zelda oot or goldeneye days when it was seen as a children’s activity. All those kids grew up and kept playing games and it became more and more acceptable to be an adult you likes games. With that came more and more popularity. So yes, more people are taking shortcuts because they don’t have time or want to expend the effort, however the number of people doing so are still much smaller than you’d think. TLDR: When you have 100 million of a thing (players) then 1 million might seem like a lot but it’s still only 1 percent. Edit: Side note, you can also notice that those who go for the generic and frankly lazy insults of the 90’s like “mothers basement” or “fat slob” to describe gamers usually end up being ignored or ridiculed themselves these days. Those stereotypes are fading away now that gaming is becoming more mainstream.