The Casual Gamer.

In my pervious post I ranted a bit about how we become scapegoats for the faults of society. I would like to address this issue in this post. The gaming community, though a vibrant group composed of the most mixed and diverse people out there, is a very closed off community. We do not tolerate incompetence, we get passionate about our hobby, and lastly we shun change like Rick Santorum wages war on porn. Let us compare the real world to the video game world. In the real world, a newborn is cared for, and considered sacred until independence. In the game world, a newb is free fun, exp and the opportunity to vent out our frustrations with our selves for being incompetent. Do you ever see a baby getting kicked out of a family for not being able to feed itself? Yet, I've gotten kicked numerous times because I didn't know how to heal as a paladin. So i quit wow.

By Ostracizing everyone else, and being afraid that they will overtake the market, we make ourselves the easiest target to blame for everything. Breivik was a mass murderer who played games, watched movies, ate food and did a lot of things. While blaming the movies and food would mean also criticizing themselves, the media found that by blaming videogames, less people would take offense and would make it easier to "understand". In the end, we get painted as these mentally unstable, unhappy, addicted people who are a hazard to society. While I do woo the ladies a lot, I don't think that me playing Shenmue has made me any more dangerous. Though I do know that if you come at me, and I do back back B, you will get hurt. The point I am trying to make is that we don't let people into our world, therefore, if an enemy is someone you do not know well enough, we easily become enemies of society. How many people of the senate have played video games? Yet many are able to formulate highly respected opinions on them.

After having pondered a lot about this, I came to a very simple conclusion. The Casual game industry is our messiah. We need to dominate it, and get on it like Pamela Anderson on a drowned victim in Baywatch. Gamers tend to dismiss casual games too quickly without looking at what entails a casual game. To me, a game like Journey is a casual game, for one reason and one reason only. It's accessibility. Casual doesn't have to mean bad, or oversimplified. It has to mean accessible. Games like mario party and angry birds shouldn't be put together. Yet they are, due to their goalless and simplistic format. A casual game CAN have a plot, and CAN be emotionally involving. A hardcore game can be dumb, and without direction. Casual isn't dumb fun. Casual should be accessible. That in no way means easy. But varying levels of difficulty do tend to help. The Copter Game is harder than dark souls in my opinion, yet it is casual! If we could find a way to blend casual mechanics with the direction of hardcore we would get great games.

Though many consider EvE online a hardcore only game, I disagree completely. It is a very demanding casual game. If you read the directions, which are not that hard, just time consuming, you end up with a simple, yet deep point and click game. The community has always been nice to me during my free trial, and you end up feeling like you are part of something. Many girls don't play games today because they haven't grown up with them. By making it accessible we convert them into gamers.

I have to clarify that I do not want to eradicate hardcore games, but want hardcore gamers to stop being afraid of casual and to own it. A good example of this is Motorstorm and Gran Turismo. They both exist while one can be considered casual. If anything, one might discover a passion for racing games and go hardcore, but this water-oil separation should stop immediately if we want to move forward as a community. That and try to be understanding of new players. Remember that you used to suck on your moms tit too back then.

What can you do? As of now, I would say not much, as games are still not as natural as they should be, but make your parents play Cloud, or Journey. Take baby steps. Make them try easier games. And help developpers understand that though their is a lot to be had in the older player base in the casual market. So make kinnectimals might be fun and all, but if you're a fifty year old man, you might not want to play that too much. Make Casual to older audiences. Make a Dragon Age dialog heavy and cutscene heavy fighting game, which is easier to play. Make games with the Narrative Depth of Mass Effect have an optional on rail mode for older Science Fiction fans like my mom who lost interest after she saw gameplay, despite having been hooked to the Dialogue. Adults hate to be treated like big babies, so WII bowling tolerance has a limit.

Corn