Do some gamers want to exclude others from gaming?

[Keoul]

But isn't this an issue of developers and producers not adequately splitting up their demographics? I mean, target audiences changing with any sort of entertainment is inevitable. You only have to study film or literary history to see that. It cannot be avoided, so acting like it "shouldn't" happen to games is like saying books for young adults and teenagers "shouldn't" be written just because that demographic didn't appear until very recently.

So is it really the casual gamer's fault for coming on the scene and developers dealing with them by dumbing everything down rather than only casual titles? Hell, these people probably don't know what developers and producers are. They don't know Pop Cap from Bethesda. How is any of this their fault?

I don't blame casual gamer's at all, or the developers.
The reason I blame (For lack of better term I'm going with kids) kids is that it doesn't matter who the developers or producers aim their game towards. Kids will get their hands on the game (cue 13 year olds on Call of Duty) and the developer/producer will get in trouble. There are already games being made for them, such as plants vs zombies, Bastion, etc. All great games but still they just aren't playing those games that are made for them.
This shouldn't be a problem, trying something new should be encouraged, but when they start playing games that are not specified for them and then start causing problems. It's not the kids that get in trouble but the developers for making it so easy for kids to get their hands on.

Point being they're not mature enough and we're being blamed for their immaturity.

 

[clippen05]

I don't want people to be excluded from gaming, however, I don't believe that every game should be made accessible for the larger audience. Games like RO2 lost their charm when they were meant to attract the COD crowd. RPGs like Skyrim and DA2 were dumbed down (from what I hear, I'm not entirely sure on this one) and sure, they sold a lot better, but the core audience from the earlier games felt betrayed. Mom and Pop, or just nongamers in general can have their Angry Birds, their Wii Sports, and their Wii Fit. If they want to move on to more "hardcore' (not the right term :\) games then so be it, but the games should not have to change to attract them.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I think certain games should not cater to others. dark souls being a perfect example. you can do whatever you want to cooking mama though....lol snicker.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Of course there is still a huge market for so called core games and it is foolish to think that casual games, or motion games, or social games, are going to kill core gaming or even hurt it in anyway.

A huge market for core games? Where? Only in action games. Puzzles in games have been dumbed down gradually over the last two decades because it is feared casual gamers won't buy something they can't play. Which is true.

 

[malestrithe]

Yeah they are all on handhelds . I was talking about consoles . I'm not saying they are non-existant , but they are considerably less than in previous generation . Their popularity have dwindled a lot . Which means that my prefered genre is becoming niche , while dozens of shooters are gettig made . What i said might be mean , and i understand publishers are making A LOT more money on genre i am not interested in . I am just bitter that's all . And i admit i'm very bitter about that . The problem lies with me not the industry , but i'll man up and admit it .

As for handhelds , yes there are tons of them , but these are low budget games ( that doesn't mean it's bad ) i would just love some more AAA Jrpgs . But the cost to make them is huge , and the profit from them are tiny . I guess i just haven't moved on with the times .

There are less games this generation period. Playstation 2 had 2016 games in its catalog.

If you count wii as part of the console generation, it has at best 1400 titles.

If you don't, then 360 has 1000 titles if we are generous. The PS3 has 800. This does not include any game on the virtual console.

As for JRPGs, well they have always been a niche genre, even on the PS2. There are at best 200 JRPGS for ps2, that's 10 percent of the total games on the system.

Currently, there are 50 JRPGS on the PS3. All things considered, that's still 5 percent of the total games on the system.

 

[Joccaren]

Yes and no.

I do want to exclude some people from gaming. Namely the twats who can't shut their mouths, and keep telling you how the f***ed your mum last night, who can't act maturely ever, and enter games only to remove other people's fun. These belong to every group of gaming, and they should not be allowed to play games unless they can respect other people whilst doing so. I don't care if you find team killing, doing stupid stuff in PvP that loses the game, or insulting everybody fun - just do it on your own private server. As soon as you put yourself infront of everybody around you, you no longer belong. If I want to play seriously, and I'm on a goofing around server, I won't shout at everyone to stop being idiots and to start playing properly. I'll leave and find a serious server. Likewise if you're on a serious server and goofing around, you should leave and find a goofing around server. If you don't, you're an a****le, and one of the people who should be excluded from playing games.

In terms of dumbing down... Not so much. This is more a "I want games I can play and enjoy" then "I don't want people playing games".
Imagine you're at university. The university you're in calls all its students in for a meeting. At that meeting they told you they'd be lowering the educational standards so that they can get more people into the university. Would you be happy?
Is you wanting to get an education that you payed for and were getting up until now you wanting others to not be allowed into university?
What do you do?
Try another university you say?
Well, that university, seeing how many extra people the first university attracted by lowering its entrance requirements and dropping the level of education, has done the same thing. Soon, you find it impossible to get a good education and the qualifications you need to get a job without hiring a private tutor, or becoming an apprentice.

This is what its like with dumbing down. The product is changed - dumbed down - to allow more people to enjoy it. In doing so, you are no longer able to get what you wanted out of it and cease to enjoy it. You look for other games, but only a few small groups of people are making the games you enjoy, whilst everyone else copies each other dumbing down for more profits.
Its not that we want the audience who enjoys the dumbed down games to be excluded from gaming, but we want some games to not be dumbed down so that we are not excluded from gaming either.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I would prefer to play games with likeminded people and wouldn't exactly be pleased if I go to PAX only to see 90% of the crowd is there for Farmville. Also we should seriously get rid of people who use Rotom-W in competitive pokemon. But that is for another day.

 

[katsabas]

There are some people I would very much like to tie on a rock so they could either never again play again or post on a thread. Be it here, be on steam. Everybody starting with 'Torchlight 2 is sooo boring without argumenting' or 'Nyah, this will be my last post on Fall Of Cybertron cause blah, blah, blah'. And those are my examples in the last few days. I cannot stand online whining. Discussing with presenting logical reasons for your POV is good but...

Trolls or people who post for the sake of posting 'never played this game and I am not gonna' really get on my nerves. I hate it when someone doesn't weigh in on the conversation and simply wants his post meter to go up.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

The thing is... when new people come into a genre, they'll either embrace it, or try and make it more like their favorite genre, which is likely to be totally against the interests of the genre they're going into.

So yeah, all the twitch based FPS addicts can stay out of my RPGs, because I know there are more of them, and if Bioware thought that was their target audience I am horrified to think what they might do... Why they might make some choice-less bland shooter with weak to no RPG elements and a plot that makes no sen-....


Awww... I made myself sad...

 

[Vault101]

I'd say its less about "casual vs hardcore" and more "plying to treind"

dead space 3 becoming more action focused for example...or the fact that XCOM is an RTS being a big deal

snip...

I draw the line at multiplayer....

TBH dont see why you cant have action and RPG together

 

[Pink Gregory]

The thing is... when new people come into a genre, they'll either embrace it, or try and make it more like their favorite genre, which is likely to be totally against the interests of the genre they're going into.

Does the latter actually happen?

It seems so odd, not in any other medium will the consumer do that; I do have to wonder where some publishers/developers get their feedback from.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

XCOM is an RTS

The what now? It's Turn Based not Real Time.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The only people I'd really like to see excluded from gaming are publishing execs.

 

[Nieroshai]

Too much to ask, hoping half the posts wouldn't be misanthropic rants about how everyone sucks, or else justification of exclusivity bias. But meh, this is the Escapist. The reason console gaming is doing better than PC gaming is that, except for MMOs, console gaming has caught up to PC gaming in almost every way, but far more accessible. Sure there are super-cooled over-clocked powerhouses out there that can run Crysis at full, but is that necessary for a game to be good, to have the PC experience? If the biggest complaints are the controls and the lack of a graphics slider, PC gamers need to wake up. Those things barely matter. Do you really use more than 16 keys in most games? Not unless you're playing a MMO, and I'm not counting WASD movement, that's bound to a convenient sensitive analog stick. Graphics still an issue? Most gamers out there, even PC gamers, honestly don't care enough about the TINY boost in appearance to justify the need. You can only budge that slider up to your PC's optimal settings anyway, and consoles are already optimized, AND don't have to worry about background process crashing your game or literally anything short of a software bug grinding performance to a halt.

It's time that PC elitists understood that consoles are the mainstay of gaming. PC was an anomaly, it had a temporary boost because household PCs became commonplace and consoles favored volume over quality. Consoles aren't the mere electronic toys of the Sega era anymore, they've caught up in the tech arms race. They're independent, dedicated gaming PCs. All you're doing when you run a PC game is treating your computer like a console.

 

[Pink Gregory]

^ Interesting views, but I *really* wouldn't poke the hornet's nest. I guess that PC elitism does factor in to the 'exclusion' discussion, but I don't reckon it's that much to do with the hardware, on its own.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

The thing is... when new people come into a genre, they'll either embrace it, or try and make it more like their favorite genre, which is likely to be totally against the interests of the genre they're going into.

Does the latter actually happen?

It seems so odd, not in any other medium will the consumer do that; I do have to wonder where some publishers/developers get their feedback from.

Does that really happen? Really?

Yeah dude, pretty damn often. Let's take a look at a few examples:

Compare the tactical engine on Dragon Age Origins, a call back to KotOR and Baulder's Gate.
Now look at Dragon Age 2, where that engine was thrown away for button mashing bullshit.

Now let's look at Resident Evil:
RE3: Stiff controls and low ammo, limited inventory space, you're alone and scared.
RE4: Tight controls, still low ammo, limited inventory space, you're still alone and scared.
RE5: Tight controls, good amounts of ammo, THE FUCKING D-PAD, YOU HAVE A BUDDY NEXT TO YOU!
RE6: CALL. OF. DUTY. ZOMBIE. OPS.

There are so many more examples, but those are two really solid poignant ones. That you don't know this happens and yet you're using an avatar of the Vault Boy is terribly ironic... I guess one more example is in order:

Fallout 1 & 2: Isometric, tactical, turn based.
Fallout 3: Twitch-based first person shooter.

Now some might claim these are changes of the times, but that's just stupid. These games were set in their genres, and they moved out of them, probably under insistence from the publisher, in order to 'appeal to a larger crowd'.

In other words: Fuck our fans, we want money!!!
A sentiment all too common from today's publishers and designers.

 

[Pink Gregory]

^ That's not what I meant, I was talking about the gamers, not the game makers.

i.e. you seem to imply that the gamers would rather, say, the game be changed than try another game.

I can see why that might happen, seeing as a retail game is a considerable investment, but it seems strange that, considering the choice that consumers have access to, they would rather try to change the game *they* have, rather than try something else that might be more to their tastes.

I wasn't saying it doesn't happen, I was agreeing with you, at least in this context.