I am going to state a fairly popular opinion on this sub: don't date a man who identifies as a gamer. In my experience, and the experience of innumerable other women, gamers are not good partners. They are not HVM. They do not contribute equally to the household labour - too busy gaming. They don't plan romantic, interesting dates, because their only interests are gaming-related. They don't excel professionally or academically, because all the time they could invest in leveling up they instead spend on, you guessed it, video games.

All that said, I think there is a STARK difference between a man who occasionally plays video games and a capital-g Gamer. A man who occasionally plays video games may still be HV, or if he is LV, it isn't because of video games. A Gamer is almost always a low-value proposition.

A man who plays video games occasionally will have OTHER hobbies. You'll see evidence of this in his conversation ("this weekend I played in a beach volleyball tournament, then I spent most of Sunday at my friend's cottage and played some Zelda before bed"). When you visit his apartment, you'll see evidence of it in his home (books, models/crafts, woodworking tools, home brewing kit, gardens, sketch books, etc etc). You'll note that when he has a goal that needs to be accomplished in his off-time, he works on it and actually gets something accomplished (ie., "I'm going to apply for my Masters" --> "hey, would you mind looking at my Masters application?" --> "I submitted the application! Can I take you out to dinner to celebrate?"). He probably won't have the latest console, and he almost certainly won't have more than one. He won't know about most new game releases, unless something has a particular nostalgic appeal. If you asked his friends to describe him, "gamer" is NOT the first thing they'd say. He hesitates to spend a lot of money on games, because he knows it could be better used elsewhere.

A Gamer, on the other hand, is a whole different story. He will almost certainly invite you over at some point to "watch him play video games". When you ask him about his weekend, he centers video games and little else ("oh I had a WoW raid and I played the Witcher most of Sunday"). If you see his apartment, he may have an entire gaming rig (fancy PC/chair/headset etc) usually surrounded by accumulated trash (call this a stereotype if you want but I have found it to be 100% true). He will talk excitedly about every new game release. If he doesn't have the latest system, he wants it, and he probably has several systems/consoles and a large library of games, including pricey new releases. If there is something he needs to do in his "off time", he will put it off indefinitely in favour of playing video games. These are the men you meet who are talking about "going back to school" on your first date and are STILL talking about it five years later, and haven't so much as picked a program. If you try to do something fun and novel that takes away from his video game time, he will complain, resist, sulk or all three.

To be clear: I am not saying Gamers are bad people. I've dated MANY, and they were perfectly fine human beings. But for the most part, Gamers want to play video games. Having a girlfriend is nice and often convenient, but their number 1 priority is gaming. Do you want to come second to Bioware for the rest of your life?