Are casual gamers ruining gaming?

[The Great JT]

Ruining gaming? Oh heavens no.

I do think they should stop buying games like Peggle and Bejeweled, though, because all they're really buying is flash games you can find for free on the internet.

 

[scaledriver]

...WHAT?!

Are casual wine drinkers ruining sommeliers? Are recreational baseball players ruining pros? Are everyday internet users ruining web development? Are sports fans who don't watch every game ruining their team? Are daily drivers ruining the collectible car auctions?

I fail to see how having casual fans of a hobby/activity/profession/business can ruin it. If anything, it helps because it brings new ideas and different ways of thinking into the fold. When one asks if such a thing is "ruined" it merely shows one has no ability/desire to expand one's horizons. The old favorites aren't going anywhere, what reason does anyone have to fear new innovations?

You're right I guess "ruin" is too strong a word. Perhaps "shape the games of the future" should be more appropriate.

Think of it like this, movies get made based on how many people the studio thinks will buy it. There are a ton of terrible movies being made because people have very low standards of the movies they want to see. It's all supply and demand and the casual gamers are a large slice of demand, so they are changing the games being made.

 

[Trivun]

Just ask Gabe Newell or Tim Schafer. Or Hideo Kojima. I doubt any of those guys are pandering to the casual market, do you?

 

[scaledriver]

I really don't care about graphics. I just want my games to be deeper than Halo/COD/Wii Sports.

First off, Wii sports is a casual game.

Second off, Both Halo and CoD are pretty shallow in the first place.

That's why I used them all as examples of "casual" games. Mass market appeal with very little depth.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Ruining gaming? Oh heavens no.

I do think they should stop buying games like Peggle and Bejeweled, though, because all they're really buying is flash games you can find for free on the internet.

don't you badmouth popcap!

there there plants vs zombies, it's ok...

 

[Woodsey]

Only if you own a Wii to be honest. It's the only thing "casuals" seem to be interested in. And Nintendo are pandering to them like nothing I've ever seen.

And sadly, I got the Wii instead of the PS3 or XBox.

I had one for a while from launch for about 8 months or so. I must of used it for about 2.

Luckily I'm a PC gamer first anyway, so there was plenty to actually play in my case.

 

[The Great JT]

Ruining gaming? Oh heavens no.

I do think they should stop buying games like Peggle and Bejeweled, though, because all they're really buying is flash games you can find for free on the internet.

don't you badmouth popcap!

You look me straight in the text box and tell me Peggle, Bejeweled, Zuma and other such PopCap titles aren't just glorified flash games.

 

[Mr Wednesday]

No.

Let us move on.

 

[whattheblub]

IMHO a balance will be reached at some point. At the moment the Wii introduced a vast number of people to gaming who haven't been confronted with the medium yet and most company will try to cash in on the new market. But in the end most companies will be aware of their core group and cater for their needs. Devil may cry 4 is one example for this with the european version featuring more difficult playmodes than the japanese version. It comes down to companies producing what they can sell

 

[HentMas]

We've all seen the influx of developers changing games to make them easier to play, sacrificing depth so that the majority of gamers don't get lost or confused.

Is this trend to make games so easy they cease to be fun? I keep thinking of older games that made you figure out where to go rather than just showing you the path (Fable 2). This hobby is getting more mainstream, that's fine, but what happened to actually having a challenge?

Many games this year could have been great but they were just way to easy without any way to make them more difficult (Borderlands).

Am I just nostalgic for games that used to have real challenge? Is this an antiquated view to have about the hobby?

Fable 2- you can switch off the golden trail, didn´t you knew?

but i do see your point, never the less, a game is supposed to be about having fun, and you can do that even if the game is easy, challenge in a game is obviously not that great to have new people trying your games so I see the point in the companies by making things easyer.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Ruining gaming? Oh heavens no.

I do think they should stop buying games like Peggle and Bejeweled, though, because all they're really buying is flash games you can find for free on the internet.

don't you badmouth popcap!

You look me straight in the text box and tell me Peggle, Bejeweled, Zuma and other such PopCap titles aren't just glorified flash games.

more like glorious

but you're right, of course. not that that changes anything. a great game is still great, flash or not.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Let me see if I understand the question: Is the influx of new players, thus adding more money and visibility to the industry, ruining gaming?

Uh, no.

There are still plenty of games out there with more than enough challenge for the super hardcore. Making games accessible to a wider variety of players is not a bad thing. The more people playing, the better.

 

[Bediz]

You're right I guess "ruin" is too strong a word. Perhaps "shape the games of the future" should be more appropriate.

Think of it like this, movies get made based on how many people the studio thinks will buy it. There are a ton of terrible movies being made because people have very low standards of the movies they want to see. It's all supply and demand and the casual gamers are a large slice of demand, so they are changing the games being made.

I see your point. The Wii and it's "casual gaming" label have really brought light on the shovelware issue. The problem with the "casual=shovelware" argument is that those games have always been there. We're just more aware of them now. The classic pillars (games like Half Life, Super Mario 3 and Final Fantasy 7) stick and the shovelware gets... well... shoveled into the bargain bins.

In a way, it's similar to the US auto market. The crappily run companies took stimulus money and then started asking for even more. Ford denied stimulus money, buckled down and made more headway out of the economic swamp than any of the rest. The gold standard remains the standard and everything else, no matter how brightly it shines for how long, will eventually fall off. Take heart, no matter how plentiful the "casual" teat's milk may be, it won't last forever and in the meantime, there's still fine examples of gaming being thrown into the marketplace.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Nah, there are still plenty of great hardcore games out there. Just not if you own a Wii.

The thing that does annoy me is when non-gamers act like they've been part of this world forever and know everything, for me it doesn't take long to knock these bastards of their non-existent pedastal with the stick of knowledge (and challenging them to rock hard old NES games).

Once gaming was a reclusive hobby and back then I always wondered "I wish more people could play these games" now that it's happened and starting to think it was reclusive for a reason.

It's not killing gaming, it's pissing off the gamers!

 

[Blimey]

So whats a "casual" gamer? I play games every now and then, but not every night. Does that make a a "casual" gamer? When I do play a game, its usually things like Oblivion, Modern Warfare, Battlefield...pretty much anything with action/adventure. Does that make me hardcore? I just don't really understand what a "casual gamer" is. Is it one who doesn't play video games often, or is it the type of games they play?

 

[Viking Incognito]

YES! I know I'm the hundredth person to say this but we made gaming serious! We spent hours of our lives avoiding human contact in order to save the princess/ conquer the world/ kill everyone in the city, and we take this SERIOUSLY! This was our pride! These were our accomplishments! It is like you and your friends having a secret joke that stays between you, then one day you go to school and everyone in school is telling it! This was our special thing that we took pride in and now there are old people and casual gamers acting like they are serious gamers! They are POSERS! I know what I am and they are ruining it.

 

[TheTygerfire]

No. They're putting out some shitty shitty games, but it's not ruing the industry.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

So whats a "casual" gamer? I play games every now and then, but not every night. Does that make a a "casual" gamer? When I do play a game, its usually things like Oblivion, Modern Warfare, Battlefield...pretty much anything with action/adventure. Does that make me hardcore? I just don't really understand what a "casual gamer" is. Is it one who doesn't play video games often, or is it the type of games they play?

Don't get sucked in to this division! You're just a gamer, nothing more, nothing less. The labels "casual" and "hardcore" are just labels created by the disenfranchised gaming majority who feel that the industry isn't catering to them anymore!

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

No. There are still good games, you just gotta look past the minigame collections in the Wii and DS sections.