Keep Gaming For Gamers

[The_Deleted]

There's been an awful lot of talk in the gaming community about gaming becoming more mainstream and open towards non-gamers. I put it to you that we should NOT try and expand or reach out to the mainstream. I posit that we should let those who don't game discover gaming for themselves or just stay away. I say let those who believe we are all GTA psychopaths continue to believe exactly that.

The reason being that the mainstream sucks. It is especially true in this day of Hilton worship and lowest common denominator entertainment that we should keep gaming as the last bastion of 'intelligent' media.
Sure, we still get the crappy games based loosely around some piss poor IP or movie tie-in, and indeed we should keep those if we are to get anything of quality off the back of it.

But imagine how much worse it's going to get. The Wii is churning out some absolute dross that these otherwise non-gamers are buying in bulk. Okami should have been a sure fire hit on that console...

So lets keep gaming to ourselves. Lets be supportive to our community whatever our tastes and keep those who buy Wii music at arms length until they show a genuine interest in something deeper.

 

[Angron]

we should keep gaming as the last bastion of 'intelligent' media.

sorry i cant take that seriouly when i think of the people on Xbox Live xD

but i do no what u mean, and yes the wii, well nintendo as a whole, is stupid, all these crappy Wii and DS 'games' coming out.

unfortunatly this will never happen, as all games companies want as much money as possible, meaning as much sales as possible, meaning makin it mainstream.

shame really, gaming used to be good...

 

[Fire Daemon]

Can I ask you a question. Just a harmless question, what was your first console?

Also:

Gaschambers? Pfft, what we need are some casualchambers!

That was in horrible taste.

 

[Girlysprite]

And here is another 'gaming used to be good' rant.
Who is forcing you to play casual games anyways? Still enough hardcore games to go around. And you think tv became crap? I am inclined to think series really got better last few years. Heroes, battlestar galactica, 24, I love it.

You people make problems where there are none.

 

[poleboy]

I see you've bought into the whole casual vs. hardcore theory as well.

I think you should read this

 

[zen5887]

Gee I wish I was a purist!

 

[The_Deleted]

Thats quite a rant there. When do you start talking about purifying the race and retaking the fatherland?

I thought I'd see how the rant went before extolling the vitues of world run by geeks and WoW players.

In all seriousness, I'm not saying that community shouldn't welcome expansion, I'm just saying we need to be careful that gaming doesn't become the equivalent of TV =
Simple concepts-made as cheaply as possible-for maximum advertising revenue.

Gaming, as it is, seems so be surviving very well, I just worry that as development becomes more expensive that more and more games are going to be dumbed down for a mass market and games like Okami, SotC or even some of the more interesting DS games will be lost to make way for more user friendly titles.

I'm not trying to sound like a Cyber Enoch Powell "rivers of 001100010010100100" rhetoric.

 

[EsotericLB]

The trend towards the mainstream will continue until the profits start falling. Developers need to eat. Mass-appeal gimmicky crap is what fills the bank, which is why we'll never see anything like, oh, I dunno, Grim Fandango or Planescape:Torment again.

 

[aniki21]

The elitist "gaming for gamers!" attitude is a bigger threat to the continued success and quality of the games market than any influx of casual gamers could ever be.

 

[The_Deleted]

It's not an argument against casual or Hardcore. I, myself am not what you could call Hardcore. I play games maybe a few hours a week and sometimes not for weeks on end.

My first console was a Sega MegaDrive and even then I only really got into gaming as serious hobby with the PS1 & Music 2000 (so not even a game).

I'm not saying we should ostrasize (sp?) those who choose not to game, I'm saying we need to be wary of the seeming desperation to get everyone interested.

As for the TV argument, shows like Heroes, The Wire, The Shield et al are few and far between.

 

[EsotericLB]

The trend towards the mainstream will continue until the profits start falling. Developers need to eat. Mass-appeal gimmicky crap is what fills the bank, which is why we'll never see anything like, oh, I dunno, Grim Fandango or Planescape:Torment again.

This argument has been made for every form of media to be expanded to the masses in modern times and for every form of media, the prophesies of artistic end times have never ever been fulfilled.

Good books are still written, good movies are still created, and good music is still made. If you disagree, perhaps it says more about your lack of exploration than the modern state of human creativity.

There are always diamonds amongst the fecal matter, but everyone has their limits on how much of it they'll wade through before giving up. Suddenly, the creators realise they've alienated their original market and will take steps to get them back. It goes in cycles. The gaming industry has (or will) reached it's nadir and will eventually pick back up, just as the music or film or literature industry has however many times before.

 

[The_Deleted]

Naturally, genuine classics are few in any medium, and I'm not saying that gaming will die a death, but games take a lot of effort and money to get made and new IP's can be a huge gamble as costs rise.
As a result less risks are going to be taken and those classics are going to become harder to make. If the advertising revenue is not there to back it up then they will get lost like so many others. It's all very well games like Beyond Good & Evil, ICO or Psychonuats being revered by those in the know in hindsight but if they don't sell at release they will be considered duds.

Let's not forget books and movies are easier to take chances on because they don't cost as much as games, so thats pretty much a moot point.

 

[EsotericLB]

Naturally, genuine classics are few in any medium, and I'm not saying that gaming will die a death, but games take a lot of effort and money to get made and new IP's can be a huge gamble as costs rise.
As a result less risks are going to be taken and those classics are going to become harder to make. If the advertising revenue is not there to back it up then they will get lost like so many others. It's all very well games like Beyond Good & Evil, ICO or Psychonuats being revered by those in the know in hindsight but if they don't sell at release they will be considered duds.

Let's not forget books and movies are easier to take chances on because they don't cost as much as games, so thats pretty much a moot point.

I wouldn't say they're easier. Writing a book may be cheaper but requires a lot of personal time and commitment. Same with music. Movies often have the most noticable difference between extreme success and catastrophic failure, and not always based on the actual merits of the film. It makes me die a little more inside when a great film flops to the tune of tens of millions and disappears into obscurity and/or cult following but somehow Uwe Boll still has a career. But. Yeah. That there's always more garbage than gold is a given, only the ratio of garbage:gold changes.

 

[electric discordian]

Why can't "casuals" join in with our world of fun? Lets face it gamers for years have been seen as shut ins who hate light and have no friends or romantic liasons. We were in a minority and I think we have become Ghettoised.

I think that the gaming community is like any minority group, we have those who want to introduce new blood and open our arms to new entrants, it may be driven by commerce but thats how most of the racial minorities opened out there culture to other people. Indian Food, Chinese food, Mexican Food none of them are exactly like the actual indigenous foods of the country they represent, but they open up the boundaries for people to enter into areas that they would never go.

Casual games are alot like Western versions of Chop Suey, palatable to the wider taste but regarded as poison by some of the wider chinese community. It does not however preclude people from enjoying what they have eaten and seek out MSG free meals i.e. Art games.

I may be taking a metaphor too far here. But I really do think that people who are against casuals are those who have been victimised by the outer world, we have had our little niche where we are kings of out own little universe, now that those we regard as mere mortals can enter into our sacrosanct universe we lose what makes us special.