The "real' gamers played DAoC, UO, and Everquest. We would play 19 hours just for half a bubble of experience at FINS. And if someone messed up and we died, we lost 4 entire bubbles. Death was hard, dying meant possibly losing all your gear. Actions had real consequences, rewards cost real effort, skill was based on how you played, not what gear you had. I stayed up 19 hours, skipping work the next morning/day just to hold a relic keep the mid's accidently stopped guarding just for 110 precious skill points that were used to buy 3 abilities... THREE... and I was tickled pink that we were able to hold them off. Thats right, you used to manually have to hold pvp gaines, all day and all night, in shifts, for realm bonus', otherwise it could be a one month long campaign to recapture realm gaines. This was the era of gaming, and we were gamers.
And then WoW came along and turned a whole bunch of whiney *****es into "gamers" who whined and *****ed a lot. QQ'ing over dying penalties, QQ'ing over how long it takes to reach max level, QQing cause they wanted everything playing an hour a day 2 or 3 days a week. Gaming went from being "the journey to the top" to "lyke, omg, ur armor is teh suckz" at max level. It became about calculus, spreadsheets, 1 extra percent of damage, and endlessly, mindlessly, doing the same repetitive thing over and over for nothing at "end game".
So, to answer your question, what happened to real gamers? If WoW was your first experience into gaming, you will never, ever know, haha
Disclaimer: No whiney brats were actually harmed in the typing of this post. This post is intended 60% for good natured humor, 30% nostalgia, and 10% ribbing. People offended should put their big boy panties on and get over it