Don't hate the player, hate the game...

The article "From Gamers to Players and Gameplayer" by Bernard Perron has the author creating new catagories for words that we are already familiar with. He has chosen words that can be recognized in in multiple languages and still retain the same context. In the same way Roger Caillois has defined agôn, alea, mimicry and ilinx, Perron has divided the user into three catagories, the gamer, the player and the game player. Each is defined by specific identities that constitute what makes that particular user fall into a certin class. The way he has defined each class makes sence if you don't care about why he has chosen to classify a semi-related term to a particular action. Consider the "Gamer", granted he gave an explanation of where the word originated from, but how does the catagory, "Gamer", classify a user that likes to identify themselves as the avatar? Likewise for the "Gameplayer" catagory. The Gameplayer supposibly enjoys the act the challenge, the obstacle... The gameplayer will become part of the game just for the sake of conquering it. And I believe the "Player" falls into the catagory of one whose interest is based around the experience of the game as oppose to it's mastery. One could use any combination of gaming terms to classify these types of users...even expand on it. What about the "Fragger"? Someone dedicated to first-person shooters who loves fast paced, respawnable action. How about "Solo", the user who has the ability to play with other users, but tends to want to play alone with no outside intereaction. The "adventurer" could play RPGs, the "Agent" could be interested in the action aspects titles, The "Earnhardt" would be all about the racing simulator.

I believe that the terms he has coined for the purpose of his catagorization are appropriate, but these groups also have the ability to be broken down into many sub-groups.