Are you an MMO hobbiest or an MMO gamer?

Deep thoughts for the weekend.

I've never been a hardcore gamer. I grew up on Apple computers, which had lots of games, but then went into design, and therefore Macs, which really didn't. I played what I could get my hands on, but never to the degree self-proclaimed "hardcore" gamers did.

My first MMORPG was UO, and that sorta changed things for me. Basically I went to it because I had been playing Ultima titles since the early 80s. Once I got over the idea of the monthly fee, it was an easy transition, and totally unlike anything I had played, including the Ultimas.

I didn't consider it a game per se, but rather, a virtual world with game play components. It was an interesting place in which thousands of people were doing their own thing. That fascinated me like no other experience prior, whether Warcraft II, Diablo II, or back further into things like Marathon, Ascent, and earlier.

All these years later, I still don't consider MMOs games in the traditional sense. Sure, they can be played as one, with a start, middle, and logical end. They're just not really designed that way though, in my opinion.

I consider them hobbies.

I have for a long time, but I've never known what other people here felt about them. I call them a hobby because players can get really deeply into them on many different levels, from just experiencing them to joining ongoing discussions about them to doing so with the people who create them. We drop familiar names around our favorite haunts like a serious photographer or Football fan would. We watch the ins and outs, the wheeling and dealing, the comings and goings to a degree that normally gaming doesn't usually inspire. And we do this while the games themselves, and the people who make them, continually change in response to what the people who play their service experience.

Maybe it's just the dedication to the genre itself, like photographers who stick with one brand of film over another yet come together with other photogs who think differently. It's probably the same in other genres, with as dedicated folks in FPS and RTS and RPG titles.

At what point does a gamer turn into a hobbiest?

And what do you consider yourself?