The you in gaming.

I've been thinking about the manner in which we talk about games.

If I were to describe Mario Galaxy to someone I would say, "You push buttons, move the Wiimote around, and are bored after six minutes." Someone else would perhaps bypass the mechanical description of pushing buttons and moving the wiimote to instead concentrate on what the character does. Another person might use "you" to describe some hybrid of Mario/player so attempting to describe the situation to be such that the player was in some way a part of the game; rather than saying "mario becomes a bee" such a person would say "you become a bee".

Guitar Hero is another great example. What does "you" do in guitar hero? Press buttons? Rock out with their cock out? Employ their sense of rhythm? What is the "you" in Guitar Hero? Is there a way to determine this objectively or is it subjective?

Zero Punctuation reviews tend to use "you" fluidly. "You" can be the player, the character, or the hybrid of the character/player. In the same review "you must escort NPC X" and "you get bored and play with a yo-yo". What does it mean to use "you" in this fluid sense? What does it say about the degree to which one is engaged in the game?

Yesterday a coworker asked, "What do you do in WoW?" My reply was that you run instances to get good gear so that you can run raids to get better gear so that you can run more difficult raids to get even better gear. I described the game in terms of the pursuit of better gear via a knowledge of mob loot tables. "You" was not engaged in an epic battle for the freedom of Azeroth. Rather, "you" was the individual playing the game attempting to find better loot for the character "you" played.

Does it behoove the conversation about gaming to use "you" in this fluid sense? Is there a way to not use "you" in this manner? How would one describe a game if "you" were removed? Would that lead to an emphasis upon the separation between character and player? Does the type of game influence how one uses "you"; is the Tetris "you" different from the RPG "you" or does that depend upon the attitude one has towards the game?

What is the "you" in gaming?