As far as non-geek gamers, of course there are some. For non-geek gamers, it'd be a pretty strange balance, though. To play many different games as a hobby, but not load up on factoids or start to be pulled into a particular set of games' universes, not amass a big games collection, etc.. I would say the most common non-geek gamers are those who can't afford games or don't want to get that far into it, and thus only play games with their friends but happen to be pretty adept at it and enjoy their time. Basically, they're fetal geeks. :-P

I would agree that if you can speak English well, you're pre-labeled as a geek. And I have no idea why, either. I think it's because the mass media portrays oversimplifications as appropriate and desirable.

I'm not sure if there are many "sports gamers." There are people who play exclusively sports games, sure. But to me, a gamer is a person who plays a game regularly as a hobby and explores it. Most people who only play sports games pick up the same series every year, or only the big ones. A hypothetical "sports gamer" would play sports games on a regular basis, but would also be interested in trying out other sports games they've never played before. Tecmo Bowl for the DS, for instance. But even if there were people like that, the industry is so afraid of confronting the licensed sports games that there really aren't THAT many non-licensed sports games for people to explore.

I think SOMETIMES, people who play sports games fund larger umbrella publishers like EA. Since EA spends most of their money on Madden in licenses, but they take in tons of money on in in-game advertisements in addition to massive sales and consumable DLCs, their profits really outweigh what they spend. This money can then be used by the rest of EA to fund projects like Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, and developers like BioWare. However, this tends to only occur when the environment in the company is right.

Otherwise, I honestly think that most sports games are modular from the rest of the gaming industry. In fact, I think that a few years could go by without ANY sports releases without any significant impact on all other genres. In the past, it might have been that someone would pick up Madden for the Sega Genesis and get into games that way. But nowadays, people who play sports games either do so in combination with other games or almost exclusively; they don't tend to cross over that frequently. But then again, I could be wrong. My attitude might also come from the fact that I don't like most of the more near-mainstream games, like Halo/CoD/Gears. Of course there are some exceptions, like Mario Bros games.

In what I have seen, those who play sports games play a lot of sports games and first person shooters (although the amount of first person shooting does typically isn't an indication of whether or not the person is a sports gamer). For me personally, the only sports games I've ever played was Wii Sports, as I abhor sports. (Last night's Super Bowl game was the first sports game I have ever watched, ever.)

I believe that sports gaming is very much a big part of the video game industry and the gaming community.

This is from a guy whose friends all play sports games and are all gamers, so my perseption may be warped, but it seems to me that most hard core, and mainstreem gamers play sports games. 

I guess it deepends on the type of gaming community you're in how much effects you.

The sports gamer is the most bizarre mix of ultra hardcore and casual gamer all in one.

I know plenty of people that buy a ps1, ps2 and ps3 exclusively to play their sports game of choice. Madden, NBA live or Fifa. 

If that makes them happy I'm cool with it but it is a very weird phenomenon in gaming culture.

Knightcrawler you stole my first thought away

The role of sports gamers? Funding companies like EA so they can keep up games for the rest of the gamers.

Seriously though, I think there are many Non-geek gamers. In my experience the people who strictly play sports and fps, are typically less geek, or outright non geek, but just straight 'gamers'. With the (what I consider to be) over abundance of FPS on the market in the past few years this has made it much easier for the nuckle dragging 'i wanna kill summthin'  person to get into gaming.

As for the english thing... I blame texting. My own theory is that the younger generations have become so used to seeing nothing spelled out properly, and blatant disregard to grammer and structured english, that someone who takes the time to speak, or spell properly must be a geek.

Now onto a more in depth thoughts of the wringer.

Sports gamers... A bunch I've never understood personally. Yes there have been some sports games I enjoyed in the past (Blades of Steel ftw) but generally I think the exclusive sports gamer falls into one of only a few categories. 

1) The Sports Nut - Truly the geeks of the sporting world, where nothing is too much when it comes to their sport of choice.

2) The non geek gamers - As I mentioned earlier, I know many people who play basically 2 types of games: Sports and FPS's. Truly gamers in the video sense of the word, I would never deny them that. Certainly not geeks however.

I'd count the casual gamer as well, since sports play very well into a casual category. But, I'd consider them to kind of be a sub category of the above two.  Most hard core geeks I know avoid traditional sports games, but may try the fantasy, or sci-fi type sports games (Blitzball, Quiddich, Pyramid, Parrises Squares? Yeah sign me up!). Though it may seem like a joke, I gotta say, funding poublishers like EA is probably the most accurate 'role' of a Sports gamer.

Here you have a demographic that will buy the same game EVERY YEAR, sometimes more than once in a year. If you have a market that you KNOW will buy something. Make it.

I believe that there are different types of gamers such as the  shooter fans, sports gamers, casuals, action gamers, (RPG shall i say people).

But in regards to sports gamers I think they're in a niche because only a small portion of the "gamers" i know (people who play video games in general) play sports games(Madden, NBA series, etc...) and they happen to then play the sport in real life which would show that a usually different part of the social structure enjoys a certain type of  games.

But if you look at fighting games which could be considered a sport which are more main stream with most people then it may not be as much as a niche.

But you could say that they're not part of a niche because most of the people i know can get into a sports game such as hotshots golf or Wii sports no mater what type gamer they are just based on whether or not its fun.

To me their role is that they for the most part are a differnt part of the gaming community as a whole based on what they play.

Well, it's pretty much been said, If companies like EA didn't make truck loads of money from Madden we wouldn't have games like Mass Effect 2.

With out the 2ksports series, where would Borderlands find it's funding?

Sports games are easy to program, they take minimal work to tweak for an annual release. The big cost of these games comes mostly from licensing. There also pretty safe bets in regards to a return in profit, (except MLB the Show which has to give away a million dollars to make people buy it and play it).

BTW; only sports game worth playing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Bowl_%282009_video_game%29

Same thoughts as Aestolia said about English, except that it's not just the younger generation but also people around 25 are also part of it.

What role do sport games play within video games in general? I was going to say easy money for a company but the people above said it better. I have nothing more to add.

MWM, dont' remind me, I'm not terribly much older than that, and a part of me dies every time I think about someone approaching 30 and using text speech.

Oh Sports gaming....  Before I get started, let me make it clear that I'm a pretty casual sports fan. I don't watch a lot, I've never played any in a league of any kind, and I rarely play pick-up games of any kind with my friends, but still enjoy them and have favorite teams/players.

Well, there's no doubt that Sports games are just as important to gaming as any other game, after all, the first "video game" and first commercial video game were Sports games (Tennis for Two and Pong)! There have been plenty of excellent Sports games like Super Techmo Bowl and NBA Jam that embrace the arcadey side of sports games, but then there's EA Sports and 2K's rosters, which try to more properly emulate the original game. I played and owned these games as a kid, and though I don't particuarily find them to be my favorite titles, I do believe that they not only have a place in gaming, but have had a strong influence (good and bad) on the entire community.

For example, I dobut that we'd have the animations we do if it weren't for sports developers embracing motion capture early on to try to get their players to look real. Also, there's something appealing about taking a concept from reality and maxing it out to over-the-top levels, as Jam  and the NBA Street series did successfully. BUT on the flip side, Sports games are the reason that anualized sequels exist. Every new season means a new roster, and people kept buying what is essentially a recoat of last years game with a few tiny tweaks. This is what drove Guitar Hero into the ground, and what is happening to Call of Duty. Both series had a new entry every year, but never brought anything truly new to the table. Yet somehow, no one that buys these games seem to mind it. While it disappoints me, it's no skin off my back, as I didn't care for the core game to begin with.

So to get back to the original question: Do Sports games serve a role in gaming as a whole? Absolutely. What is the role? A testing grounds for developers to find new technologies and apply them to something that we can use a meter stick with. If something looks off, it'll be more noticible in a sports title than in a fantasy title. It also allows companies to see how consumers will react to certain types of changes. And it's painfully obvious that sports titles are right behind FPS in the minds of semi-casual gamers (that is, the "non-geek" gamers that Aestolia speaks of), so they have a huge influence on the direction that comapnies take their games.

Pffffffff Giants >_>

Anyway in my opinion sports gamers are a special niche, they really only play the latest addition to that series I.E. (Madden, Fifa, NBA, Etc.) I consider myself to be a all around gamer, so i buy RPG's, Shooters, Puzzle, Fighting, but they only want one thing, they only contribute to that part of the gaming World, i contribute it everywhere (not saying either one is good or bad). They seem to not really be Geeks at all (bringing in last weeks topic in) so i tend not to hangout with people who just play sports games, they are mainly populated by the casual players.

I really don't play Sports games, they just don't seem fun to me, the only sports game i played and enjoyed was

Neo-Geo Cup '98: The Road to the Victory

other then that a Madden title from the early 2000's but that's it

Now if we are talking about only  just traditional sports games that EA and 2K produces then i don't like those really, but if  you count Hydro Thunder in there then it changes it

i'll assume it's traditional sports 

They just take up space being populated by frat boys, BUT 

It also does cater to the Sports enthusiast, which who i don't mind at all, I like them more then the Frat  boys, but to someone know a whole bunch of stats and history it will play on there drive to manage a team and players to there whim (provided that game has it)

A niche and nothing  more is my short answer

Hmmm... I could go into a lot of detail on my views here, but I feel it would just get lost in amongst all of this. So, I'll keep it brief:

I'd class myself as a casual sports gamer, I play sports games (mainly football (or soccer as u yanks would say)) occasionally in amongst my other games. I do know people though, that I'd class as hardcore sports gamers who only buy sports games (again mainly football in the UK) and only play sports games. Then of course there are those that scoff at sports games and the closest they'd come to a football game would be Brutal Sports Football or more modernly Mario Soccer, or Wii Sports.

That's all I'll comment for now.

I see it as a mix bag some have probably been playing sports titles since the first ones, and I see the other half as causal gamers which is pretty much my stance on people who play FPS.

I was going to say that the sports game genre gives gamers and non-gamers a middle ground to enjoy together, but after seeing some of the above posts, I got nothin'.