Casual to the Core
Nov. 13th, 2013 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
colt_steeleI've had mixed feelings on this debate for awhile, but after finally viewing this and this I have to weigh in. The old guard is getting increasingly bitter in their attitudes towards the non-committal gamer. I myself actually refused to play Modern Warfare 2 for the longest time because I detested what the once-a-year blockbuster from publishers like Activision were doing to the industry. I liked the game quite a bit after finally giving it a go, basically proving myself in the wrong, at least insofar as dismissing a game because it was too popular.
It's the same kind of behavior I denounce when it comes to the music and film industries, and it has no place in the way a rational, independent thinker conducts him or herself. After considering where all the bile and contempt comes from, I took a trip through time back to when I started gaming. I was more or less a lifelong gamer by the time I was five, and the next fifteen years or so were rough ones when it came to peers discovering my hobby. Gaming, as it had yet to be coined, was something that nerds did. Nerds, geeks, dorks, losers or whatever other term the cool kids used to separate themselves from the likes of me. It was something you kept to yourself depending on the company you were keeping, or you likely faced social ostracization if you hadn't already fulfilled some requirement that made you one of "those kids" in school. A couple of generations later, gaming is something all social circles engage in, in some form or other, and it's now totally socially acceptable to spend your free time plugged into a console regardless of sex, race or class distinction.
As older gamers have watched this development over the past decade and a half, some natural resentment has crept to the surface. The old guard took some pretty nasty abuse as we were paving the way for today's generation to play their games in peace, and many of us very likely resent the everyday jock/prep/celebrity types who now tout their engaging of our hobby with no shame or concession that they're doing what only losers did twenty years ago. It stings even more when we perceive that games of a lower quality are being produced which cater to those of a lesser gaming pedigree who can't figure out anything without a twenty minute in-game tutorial. But that's a consequence of our perseverance in making the industry a real success in this country, because like anything else before it, now that games make money the assholes wearing suits in office buildings now control what gets marketed, and who it gets marketed to.
I don't think games have become as poor as the person making the initial argument believes, but I don't quite agree with the dissenter's retort that games are better than ever either. It's somewhere in the middle, and games twenty years out will probably bear little resemblance to what we're playing now. As gamers, we have watched our beloved pastime grow, mature and change and now it belongs to the world. We have to accept on some level that we can't go back again and we might not even want to if we could.
It's the same kind of behavior I denounce when it comes to the music and film industries, and it has no place in the way a rational, independent thinker conducts him or herself. After considering where all the bile and contempt comes from, I took a trip through time back to when I started gaming. I was more or less a lifelong gamer by the time I was five, and the next fifteen years or so were rough ones when it came to peers discovering my hobby. Gaming, as it had yet to be coined, was something that nerds did. Nerds, geeks, dorks, losers or whatever other term the cool kids used to separate themselves from the likes of me. It was something you kept to yourself depending on the company you were keeping, or you likely faced social ostracization if you hadn't already fulfilled some requirement that made you one of "those kids" in school. A couple of generations later, gaming is something all social circles engage in, in some form or other, and it's now totally socially acceptable to spend your free time plugged into a console regardless of sex, race or class distinction.
As older gamers have watched this development over the past decade and a half, some natural resentment has crept to the surface. The old guard took some pretty nasty abuse as we were paving the way for today's generation to play their games in peace, and many of us very likely resent the everyday jock/prep/celebrity types who now tout their engaging of our hobby with no shame or concession that they're doing what only losers did twenty years ago. It stings even more when we perceive that games of a lower quality are being produced which cater to those of a lesser gaming pedigree who can't figure out anything without a twenty minute in-game tutorial. But that's a consequence of our perseverance in making the industry a real success in this country, because like anything else before it, now that games make money the assholes wearing suits in office buildings now control what gets marketed, and who it gets marketed to.
I don't think games have become as poor as the person making the initial argument believes, but I don't quite agree with the dissenter's retort that games are better than ever either. It's somewhere in the middle, and games twenty years out will probably bear little resemblance to what we're playing now. As gamers, we have watched our beloved pastime grow, mature and change and now it belongs to the world. We have to accept on some level that we can't go back again and we might not even want to if we could.
