YMMV / The Gamer

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Some wonder if, deep down, Jee-Han is actually a sociopath that truly enjoys killing others, and uses the Gaming ability as an excuse for having such murderous thoughts, or whether he really was just your run-of-the-mill game addict until the world forced an ability on him that forces his mind to work the way it does, and his resulting views and thoughts on violence and death are merely the byproduct. To his credit, he does at least seem disturbed by the fact that he's not disturbed by it.
  • Confronted head-on when Shi-Yun talks to him about Sung-Ah's fate. His immediate reaction is that he wants to kill the bastards who would do those things to her, followed by shock and more than a little sadness that he can think of killing so easily. Notably, he refuses to kill any of the human enemies after that, even the ones after Sung-Ah. The Gamer ability could make him a sociopath, or give him the perfect excuse, but he refuses to let it.
  • He comes dangerously close to going over the edge in Chapter 119.
• Arc Fatigue: Seems to be a recurring issue readers have with this series.
  • After The Gamer reached around 40 chapters, some readers began to get tired of all the world-building, and basic-training chapters, revolving around Jee-Han powering up his Gamer abilities, and just wish for some sort of plot, or Story Arc, to start up to truly get the web-toon moving. This has started to die down by around chapter 60 due to the introduction of the first noteworthy enemy of the series, the "Black Rock" magician faction. Finally, after the end of what can be called the "Black Rock" arc (which is just a few chapters long, mind you, in comparison to the 40+ chapters of grinding), the fandom feared the series would go back to more mindless grinding before the plot advanced for real, but fortunately, it's currently building to what seems to be the climax of the whole arc which started with Sung-Gong's appearance.
  • What can be described as the "Company" arc suffers from this for a lot of people. After a series of chapters of conflict escalation that got more and more ridiculous on the power levels, in which Jee-Han had little participation, mind you, the readers finally tired of this "climax" arc since it just kept on introducing more characters only to kill them off after a few chapters, or suddenly introducing new world elements into the story. At this point, the readers are just waiting for Jee-Han to finally step in which finally happens in chapter 83 since it'll mean the arc should be coming to a close soon.
  • Afterward, the series went straight back into world-building and level grinding mode with what can be summed up as the "Age of the Great Labyrinth" arc, much to the displeasure of those looking for a more coherent plot, leading to massive walls of comments about how stupid the author is and the seeming lack of logic behind Jee-Han's decisions. This is, once again in spite of the fact that Jee-Han's level-grinding was designated as the focal point of the series from the start!
• Broken Base:
  • Readers can't seem to decide what they want more of; watching the main character powering up his Gamer abilities, or expand the story to be on a much grander scale. At first, people were getting sick of all the basic training chapters surrounding Jee-Han, but when the series finally started to develop its Expanded Universe with the "Company" arc, people instead complain that they only want to read this manhwa for Jee-Han's gamer abilities.
  • Gets worse when Kim Yoo Jin joins Jee Han's Unwanted Harem. Despite many, many fans hating Jee Han for having a Gamer's Mind skill, and the sheer popularity of fan-fiction showing how he'd act if he didn't have one, when Kim Yoo Jin gains the Gamer ability, or something close to it, but lacks the Gamer's Mind skill to go with it, the fanbase predominantly does not like her, at all, even considering the fact that she's actually more competent than Jee Han was when he was at the same level of experience, and is almost universally liked, in universe.
• Die for Our Ship: While Kim Yoo Jin literally Took Several Levels In Badass in chapter 137, and surprisingly holds up better in battle than Jee Han when he was at a similar level of experience, and this is without an obvious "Gamer's Mind" ability that forcefully makes her analyze her surroundings in a calm and rational manner, most fans are not happy with her and want her to go away so the story can focus more on the other ladies in Jee Han's life, such as Kwon Shin-Yun, Hwan Sung-Ah, Lolikano, or even Poon Sae Young, despite the fact that Kim Yoo Jin has no problems sharing him with them, and for the most part, all of Jee Han's other female friends, at worst, are perfectly willing to tolerate her affections.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: One that lends itself specifically to Fusion Fics. X Character from Y Series gets the Gamer powers, Go.
• Fanfic Fuel: Though the series itself has few fics, the "game interface" premise has spawned waves of this type of fic across almost every action-based fandom in some shape or form.
• Fight Scene Failure: One thing maybe readers usually agree on is that the fighting scenes could be illustrated better. Particularly, the close-combat scenes.
• Game-Breaker:
  • In-universe and lampshaded. The Chunbu Spirit Technique (summarized here) passively increases all of Jee-Han's stats, save for luck, by ten percent, and the amount they're amplified by will also increase as he increases his inner ki and MP. Oh, and it lets him increase his maximum MP, permanently, via meditation, separately from his level and skills, which naturally increases his physical stats in the process. Jee-Han immediately takes note of just how exploitable the technique is.
    Jee-Han: This technique is almost as cheaty as my gamer ability! (...) This is a completely broken ability!
    Manga Here Comment: Our MC is seriously op.
    Manga Here Comment: NERF NERF NERF DA SKILL!!!
    Manga Here Comment: Jesus stack these buffs together and add in some level grinding and he will kick ass
  • The Gamer ability itself is broken as hell. It enables Jee-Han to obtain, if he so desires, immediate power boosts by raising his stats by leveling up, allows him to learn and use practically any technique in existence as long as he meets the stat requirements (which he can do quite handily so long as he's got stat points, since he can control his stat distribution), allows him to create his own skills with enough tinkering, allows him to create something out of literally nothing, as shown by the fact that his ability makes monsters drop items, which should be impossible, and so on. His weakness is that he has to work for his skillset and then grind them, but he has basically no limit to how strong or diverse he can become. Given enough time and dedication, the guy could become akin to a god. This of course, is lampshaded.
    Jee-Han: So I really am an OP character!
  • On a less obvious note, the Gamer Mind, which immediately calms him down and lets him think clearly and tactically when faced with a really stressful or dangerous situation. In fact, he would have been killed in his first fight without it.
  • The revelation that Jee-Han is able to get extra skill points by training his body becomes this when it's also discovered how quickly his point total goes up. Exercising for a whole weekend in an illusion barrier is able to get him an absurd amount of points for VIT and STR right away.
  • Consider that an ordinary human being's base stats are more or less ten of each. As of chapter 47, Jee-Han decided to dump all his stat points into INT, giving him an INT stat of 131, with enough mana and mana regen to keep his golem summoned and Mana Shield active 24/7, plus Telekinesis. After that, he grinds his ordinary stats through training. For example, he decided to run for a couple of hours which raised his VIT by 12, effectively doubling it. Makes you wonder why not a single stat increased when he was running away with Hwan Sung-Ah from those hunters...
    • Could be an aspect of his ability. In a game, you run around constantly without affecting your states. But when you make a focused effort on the goal of increasing base states through minigames, you gain benefits from the effort.
  • In chapter 139, Jee Han's ability literally becomes a game-breaker as he outright destroys the Great Labyrinth game.
  • In chapter 184, he raises his intelligence to 440 and wisdom to 104. This doubles his magic damage, reduces cast time by 80%, quadruples mana regeneration, and otherwise greatly increases his already-excessive power.
  • The true game-breaking doesn't begin until Jee-Han learns his power can fuse various skills together. After combining various martial arts, his physical stats quintuple, his upgraded Yeonhon Principle can break various conditions, and he gains various other potent passives.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In the webcomic's country of origin, South Korea, it only enjoys moderate amount of popularity, but in the west you will always see at least one fanfic using webcomic's mechanics in any fandom with sufficient number of fanfics.
• Ho Yay: Jee-Han and Sun-Il have their moments. Just the amount of time they spend interacting with each other is reason enough to get people aboard their bandwagon.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A non-video games example. This has been a constant complain from the fanbase since Chapter 100, because each episode is seemingly far shorter than the previous episodes. There are even comments that ask the author to take a break to be able to make longer episode, as health issues, both mental and physical, has been a bane for a lot of authors of webcomics on Webtoon platform, and a hiatus seems preferable than eventually having an Orphaned Series or an extended hiatus. The three most recent episodes being barred behind a paywall doesn't help, as a lot of fans feel cheated for having spent money for short episodes.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: So far, Jee-Han has been paired with Shi-Yun, Sung-Ah and Sae-Young. Some even go so far to pair him off with the Slaughter Witch, and his best friend, Sun-Il. Did we mention that he has a loli for an Earth summon? Chapter 102 later adds Kim Yoo-Jin to the shipping list.
• Macekre: The WebToon Translation is downright painful to read at times. There are several basic spelling errors such as "strenth" instead of "strength", character names are nearly incomprehensible, the level of translation can vary from 'overly literal' to 'fast and loose'. At one point, the concept of chi is literally translated. Terminology can change from chapter to chapter, which can cause massive confusion; the Existence Eater's title fluctuates between "Temporary Magician" and "Irregular Wizard" (and variations of the two). And this is listed as the official translation!
• Memetic Mutation:
  • As part of an April Fools joke, the scanlation group released a joke chapter that replaced the wolf pelt-wearing Druid warrior with the infamous Doge meme. Now cementers will cover his images with doge meme quotes.
  • During most of the first large scale battle, Jee Han isn't present. We were left with him watching things from within a hole made by Gnome, leading to the "in a hole" meme. Later seemingly acknowledged by the author when Jee Han finally jumps in and says, "What, did you think I was spending all this time in a hole?" after revealing what his plan was.
  • Infinite Spinning Mana Arrow spam! ^note Becomes Jee Han's go to Gamer skill during fights against his enemies. Given that it's infinite, the attack is usually used as the final blow. It also becomes quite an overused attack compared to any other Gamer skill Jee Han has at his disposal that readers joke how he's become someone who just spams one attack.
• Moral Event Horizon: After Jee Han sees Hyung Gin's "collection," he comes dangerously close to jumping over the edge. Fortunately, Sung Il, and a sizable portion of the Chunbunmoon clan is there to stop him. Later, in chapter 165 he is tasked with taking down a mad necromancer, who was kidnapping innocent victims for magical and other purposes. After the fight he seriously considered "finishing the job"(not helped by the fact that the chun-bu-moon doesn't have a strict [Thou Shall Not Kill] policy) but he's stopped by Sae-Young. However she notes that he might be able to kill for real now if he has to.
• Once Original, Now Common: The idea of Ordinary High-School Student suddenly discovering a Sudden Game Interface hovering in front of him might have been somewhat novel when it started in 2013, but since The Gamer a slew of other webcomics and even published Manhwa with the same exact same basic idea have come into being, and to newer readers the comic might have some appeal in being one of the originals, but at the same time also means it doesn't really offer any significant twists on this basic idea, something which its later derivatives have been more willing to experiment with.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Kim Yoo Jin starts to get a following when she's able to hold her own against one of the Dan Ui, an approximately level 100 monster, alone, and escape unscathed, without panicking, highlighting her impressive character growth. Even in-universe characters are impressed.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some consider the first chapter to be this which gives off the vibe that the story is going to be a Slice of Life type of story that ends up with the main-character somehow having the ability to read life like a gamer would. That however, gets thrown out the window completely when the second chapter comes around and becomes a more supernatural setting you would come to expect from role-playing games.
• Values Dissonance: Physical abuse from teachers? Even without all the more supernatural examples of Deliberate Values Dissonance, a western reader might find the casual corporal punishment Jee-Han's teachers employ to be... unmerited.