So the gist of 1000 posts is that there are quite badly written articles out there?

So which do you think it is? Back yourself on this one.

Do you think they are using the "regular" definition, the "custom-made" definition or both blending into one?

Oh, FFS...
They made a strawman 'gamer', then set it on fire. Then they told everyone to watch him burn. Then they declared the gamer dead, showed everyone who the new gamer is, then told them that the new gamer isn't a 'gamer'.
If that doesn't make sense to, then you've just understood the articles. If it does make sense to just and makes you hate this old 'gamer', then you came to it biased.

Here's one take on the issue. It's just a theory that I've build upon previous observations:
You need a banner to group under to have a movement. You need something to give people a sense of unity in multiplicity. That banner here is "being a gamer" (or, more broadly, supporting gamers and their rights). People won't group in the name of something they consider vile. The articles attempted to make the "gamer" seem vile. The articles have failed. Instead of dissolving into an amorphous blob of disconnected individuals, the gamers united. They awoke from their long slumber, witnessed themselves as an actual social class, and they raised their fists. They crafted a hashtag as their weapon, they crushed the shield of their enemies, they struck back with all the pent up force of scorn that has accumulated in them over the years. They play to win, and they know how to play. They play fair but don't hold back. They will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender.
That's my dramatized version of what is going on. You may disagree with it, but you can hardly disagree with reality.

Hahahaha. That's absolute gold. This whole time I thought we were arguing about whether the articles were referring to a different definition of gamer and here you are agreeing that they were. That's hilarious. I can't believe it took this long to get here.

Anyway, I have very much enjoyed this discussion. Thank you for your insights. I do feel like I have learnt some things and I appreciate your patience. I do enjoy your writing style but I find it just a little too obtuse. I much prefer it when people are able to get to the point with a little less verbosity. It does have a certain dramatic style to it which is nice.

You are not right here, but are also not wrong...
When black swans were discovered, do you think that it changed the definition of a swan drastically? Do you think that thus swans were "dead" or "over"?
But that's too drastic, since it used to be assumed that black swans didn't exist at all and couldn't exist. Have a different example. If most flowers you'd seen were blue, you may coin a fair definition that encompasses all flowers... but you have a connotation that it's most likely that thing with blue petals. When you suddenly find a field of purple flowers, what will that change? The definition remains the same. The same it has always been. One might argue that no flowers need to exist for it to be a valid definition of a flower. We can define a dodo bird, can't we? Well - they're extinct. Dodo birds are DEAD. All of them. Literally. Should we thus abandon the definition? Should some other group of birds take over and claim the name of "dodo"? Hell no.
Do we have a definition of "liver" and of "LIVER", with the second word referring to some arbitrarily defined part of a liver? Damn right we don't. Homonyms exist, but they refer to wildly different things. There's a reason for it - you're supposed to be able to easily tell through context alone what the person is talking about.

To claim that there USED to be a definition of "gamer" that went beyond what I've quoted (basically - one who plays games) is to LIE. It's simply NOT TRUE. The was no such definition. It's bullshit. Am I clear enough?
As long as we're using public language, trying to be understood by people with a decent command of it, we use the definitions that are commonly known. Some group of people may have certain connotations. They may commonly have emotional values clearly attached to certain words. While that is fine and dandy in principle, to do what they did in those articles is repulsive. They tried to say something about gamers under the guise of speaking about gamers, therefore insulting gamers while they only, allegedly, meant gamers. Then they claimed that there are no gamers, since there are so many gamers. See - we can do things with a language that go beyond logical arguments. We can use ambiguity to saw confusion. It can be fairly fun when used in jokes; it's absolutely unacceptable when used to manipulate people's emotions by writing articles meant to exploit language.

Now is your turn to give something back - what do you believe the purpose of these articles was? Do you think they were neutral, meant to convey information, or...?
I want your take on the matter, and I hope it won't be "I have no idea, I couldn't possibly say".

I was reading and suspecting you guys were mostly talking cross each other, and about to ask you to synthetize what the heck point you were making to confirm if you weren't agreeing more than disagreeing...

Google motte and bailey fallacy or argument for more than you can stand about the rethorical device you have been describing. Also recently read something which is apropos, it was some critique to the tone of: This work has a lot of original and true insights, unfortunately the original aren't true and the true aren't original.

...
Thank you, man. You've just bestowed upon me a rhetorical sword-breaker. As a bonus - it's extremely satisfying to discover that people "have already been there", and that I was on the right path to something broader and useful.
With this in mind, I can simplify my answer even further: these people mean "gamer" in the ordinary sense whenever they can get away with it and in their make-shift new-speak sense whenever anyone dares question them. This shows trivially why I was right to object to an either-or answer on "which sense do you think they had in mind".
It also helped that there were no real reasonable alternatives to this. Whenever I've considered their intentions to be benign, I had to question the purpose of the articles, their number and timing, and their insistent terminology. The most benign alternative would be "fuck enthusiasts, you can write for casuals", which is not only insulting, but also naive. Casuals don't give enough of a damn to read many articles about games...

It's a philosopher anecdote ^^! Perhaps it's more widespread, but that how I've encountered it.

That's all well and good but the point is, we both agree that in those articles, at least on some occasions, the writers were not just using a definition of gamer that meant "one who plays games".

I'm happy that we can agree on that, the next issue is, why that is insulting.

I am reluctant to attribute motive to a large group of people's actions. I am sure different writers had different purposes.
I haven't read all the gamers are dead articles, I've looked at the ones on kotaku, gamasutra, daily beast, and a few others. In general, I would have thought that the purpose of the articles was:

1. to earn revenue;
2. to opine that, notwithstanding that there have been some disappointing reactions to people like sarkeesian and quinn, the worst of those reactions are from the minority;
3. to note that gamers are no longer teenage boys (as they were when I started gaming in the early 80s) but are now a diverse range of people from all backgrounds, of all ages, genders, hair colours, etc.
4. for some authors, to challenge those people who still believe that gaming is for men only - and they are only a minority, I think there are only 2 people in this forum who I have seen who have expressed this view.

I don't think any article is neutral. I don't believe that is possible. I don't believe this is why you hire a writer. If you want something close to neutral, try reading an encyclopedia.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/emma-watson-speech-nude-photos-threat/index.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cresponsive-mobile%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D534348

For the first time something related has appeared on AOL's main page. Doesn't specifically mention gaming controversy, but says a 4chan user is attacking Emma for the speach & refers to the internet as anti-women anti-feminist. If this is what the introduction to the issue looks like for the wider community I expect Gamergate will quickly be vilified. I hope the threats against Watson have nothing to them.

Most 4chan users who were there last month are gone, they've all been exiled and so has gamergate. Oddly enough 4chan is anti-gamergate with plenty of people there who are willing to accuse others of misogyny. Kinda funny now that you think about it.

Actually, that's now being traced back to a company named "Rantic Marketing." People are doing some major digging right now, but I'll update this as soon as it's verified. I googled them, and it seems very barebones, so it could be a front for something else, but either way, this has zip to do with #GG/NYS.

I can see Polygon drooling over the opportunity here, but it'd be a really hard sell to the general public.

That's a shame. I watched her whole speech (the full 12-minute version) and I really don't think she said anything objectionable (she said she wanted true equality and mentioned some men's rights issues as well as women's rights). It makes no sense why anyone with GamerGate would attack her, so I'm guessing this either has nothing to do with GamerGate or else it was someone else trying to make GamerGate look bad.

That's even weirder that it was a company. I wonder what they do (or who they were working for if this was some sick attempt at manipulating the media on behalf of a client).

Not that weird if you think about it in an abstract way. Viral marketing is one of the hugest tools available to companies right now. PR firms fill popular forums and social media with sock puppet accounts to promote their services and products, deflect naysayers, etc. It's a pretty old PR tactic, and most people are completely unaware that it goes on. If people can figure out who is behind this company, though, it could be pretty huge.

Yeah, but it's usually to sell something. It didn't occur to me that someone would actually hire a company to harass Emma Watson o_O Maybe it's a smaller company and an employee did it on the company computer for personal reasons. I'll be very surprised if someone paid the company to do this, although at this point I guess nothing should surprise me.