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Post-Wii Commericalized Gaming


DJMetal
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Hey kids, long time no see! So, I've been chewing on this idea for a little while now, and I'm sure it's already been covered here on the forums since people here are normally quicker on the draw than I am, but here it is: I feel like the Wii, with it's draw to the masses of "Casual Gamers" and other systems with their attempts to become more user friendly, has changed gaming forever. And right now, it doesn't look like it's a good change. And I'm not putting credit entirely on the Wii. I mean, it's just good business to want more customers, increase sales, and make more money, but I think that the Wii is the first to do it right.

I might just be riding my nostalgia a bit here, but despite the impressive capacity that games have for visuals and interactivity nowadays, there have been very few games that really "wow" me. And I like to think of myself as a fairly easy to please guy. Sure, a lot of games are okay or even good, but I think that with wider appeal video games now have, the "Great Game" may be a thing of the past. Thoughts and opinions? And yes, I know Yahtzee has talked about this subject before in some of his reviews, and no, I don't care.

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I might just be riding my nostalgia a bit here, but...

It is your nostalgia. It has this magical ability to completely blind and bias everything you remember.

Shitty games existed back in the Atari days, they existed in every generation since then, and they will exist in every generation to come after this one. It's not just the market, it's the entire industry.

Nothing to worry about, it's just natural in this world of ours. Get over it, and go find stuff that isn't crap instead.

And as for your "concern" about casual gaming ruining anything... god, that's a whole other rant. Short version: no, it isn't ruining anything, and there really is no such thing as "casual" gamers.

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And as for your "concern" about casual gaming ruining anything... god, that's a whole other rant. Short version: no, it isn't ruining anything, and there really is no such thing as "casual" gamers.

Well, I agree with you insofar as there aren't really casual gamers (I use it for lack of a better term), but my fear is that people trying to appeal to "casual gamers" are drawing resources away from what *COULD* be good games. In reality, you're right, crappy games are probably just drawing resources away from other crappy games. Still...the face of gaming is changing.

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There have always been more lousy games than good games. Time just makes us forget the bad ones, and in fifteen years we'll be saying, "Why don't they make good games like Portal and SSB Brawl anymore?"

This...plus more.

From my perspective, the real problem is more that it takes *forever* to make a great game anymore. Back in the NES/SNES days, good games could be made in a fraction of the time it now takes with all the 3D and particle effects and large physics engines and huge amounts of content and...you get my point.

Games before? There were 5000000 titles for you to pick from. It was overwhelming...but you could always find the good ones, and there were generally a fair amount of them simply because there were so many games.

Games now? There's maybe 100-200 new releases (if that?) per year per system, and VERY few of them are *good* games.

I, honestly and truly, see nothing as having been changed by the Wii or casuals at all. What's changed, is that it takes a significant amount of time to make games at all these days (and I'm not counting the smaller, downloadable content games like WiiWare and XBox Live stuff, just for the sake of equal comparison). The proportion of good games to bad is still the same, but now there's less games so it seems more pronounced.

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Well, I agree with you insofar as there aren't really casual gamers (I use it for lack of a better term), but my fear is that people trying to appeal to "casual gamers" are drawing resources away from what *COULD* be good games.

Yeah because all games aimed at "casual gamers" must suck right?

Really as far as games go either it's not really a game, it's a bad game, it's a game, or it's a game that can be fairly deep and challenging. Whether the game is aimed at your "casual" gamer or not it can fall into any of those groups.

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Yeah because all games aimed at "casual gamers" must suck right?

I think that is what I'm getting at, yeah.

Really as far as games go either it's not really a game, it's a bad game, it's a game, or it's a game that can be fairly deep and challenging. Whether the game is aimed at your "casual" gamer or not it can fall into any of those groups.

I guess before we go any further, we have to define what a good game is. Feel free to disagree with me, but I'd call a game good if it's deep OR challenging, and I'd call a game great if it was both. By and large, I'd say that most games aimed at your "casual gamer" aren't all that deep. Yes, they can be very challenging, and some can have certain level of depth or complexity, but by virtue of being designed for the "casual gamer" they won't ever be great. I'd say a lot of casual games are pretty good, but they lack that something that can make a game truly astounding. And since there are more and more casual games being produced and less overall games hitting the market, well, hence my first post.

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I think that is what I'm getting at, yeah.

I guess before we go any further, we have to define what a good game is. Feel free to disagree with me, but I'd call a game good if it's deep OR challenging, and I'd call a game great if it was both. By and large, I'd say that most games aimed at your "casual gamer" aren't all that deep. Yes, they can be very challenging, and some can have certain level of depth or complexity, but by virtue of being designed for the "casual gamer" they won't ever be great. I'd say a lot of casual games are pretty good, but they lack that something that can make a game truly astounding. And since there are more and more casual games being produced and less overall games hitting the market, well, hence my first post.

So in other words.

"I don't like this sort of game for whatever reason, so I think it's inherently bad or not as good and resources shouldn't be devoted to it"

Unfortunately the world doesn't cater to a single persons tastes, and that's isn't a bad thing.

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Surely it's just the definition? I'm pretty sure someone who plays games "casually" is a 'casual' gamer.

(Wow, casual loses all meaning if you read it over and over)

Define casual gaming.

Go ahead. In fact, everyone go post your definition. I bet that we'll get a bunch of different ones, ranging from ones based upon number of games played or owned, hours per week played, knowledge of series and/or history, systems owned, and so on and so on.

Casual gaming is a buzzword made up by marketing and analyst people. It's a trendy phrase to throw around at meetings and on press releases. It's been used as both a sales pitch, and by the so called "hardcore" as a derogatory term. It's the modern game-centric version of a slur.

Honestly, what makes you any more or less of a "gamer" because of what you play or how you play it?

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My definition of casual gaming is someone that very rarely finds time to play games, takes little or no pride in their gaming skill, and lacks knowledge of gaming in general. The guy who plays Mario every now and then, just because it's fun.

I think the Wii itself was built for the casual gamer. On top of that, I think pretty much every system 5th gen and down were built for casual gaming, save for maybe a few titles.

I don't see casual games as a bad thing. I think the worst thing that's happening to the industry is developers are taking certain games/genres and dropping the difficulty so the casual gamer can feel pro. I think one of the best examples of this would be the Halo series and the FPS genre. Before Halo, we had UT. And Before that, we had Quake. I never played a Quake game, but I played a lot of UT, and it was always apparent who was good; Who had the faster reflexes, the best aim, and an all-around good knowledge of the game. Fast-forward to Halo 2, where kids are thinking they're "ub3r-1337" because they can swipe snipe and get a headshot, even though the bullet missed by 3+ feet. The skill gap between the newbie and the experienced is all but completely absent in those kinds of games.

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Even WoW can be played casually.

casual gamers are what jealous nerds like to call people who are too busy being not terrible people to play world of warcraft OR people who do play world of warcraft but don't take it ridiculously seriously

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Define casual gaming.

Go ahead. In fact, everyone go post your definition. I bet that we'll get a bunch of different ones, ranging from ones based upon number of games played or owned, hours per week played, knowledge of series and/or history, systems owned, and so on and so on.

Casual gaming is a buzzword made up by marketing and analyst people. It's a trendy phrase to throw around at meetings and on press releases. It's been used as both a sales pitch, and by the so called "hardcore" as a derogatory term. It's the modern game-centric version of a slur.

Honestly, what makes you any more or less of a "gamer" because of what you play or how you play it?

This entire post makes me fucking love you, but the bolded part especially.

I honestly don't understand the driving desire to divide people into "Hardcore" and "Casual" camps, much less the inane desire by the self-proclaimed former to somehow think that they're better for the reasons you mentioned.

Christ, we (gamers) spend years trying to convince people that it's a worthwhile industry, and not some murder simulator/rape thing/gigantic waste of time that all the old farts say it is...and the first thing the crowd does when they go "Hey..maybe it's not, pass me that controller" is scream NO. MINE. GO AWAY, YOU'rE NOT A GAMER, YOU DON'T GET TO PLAY IT

I feel old now.

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Honestly, what makes you any more or less of a "gamer" because of what you play or how you play it?

I never implied that with my post, I think that's the misconception in the popular definition. You're right, it's just another form of elitism used to say why certain gamers are 'better' than others. I don't think there's no such thing as 'casual gamers', but I certainly think the attitude towards them is wrong.

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I'd have to agree that 'casual gamer' is sort of an arbitrary term. I think it's a concept that was somewhat more 'relevant' 5-10 years ago, when video gaming wasn't as mainstream as it is today.

I remember growing up, people would call me a nerd for playing video games at least a couple of hours a day. And now even 'popular' people, who 'have lives' play games as well, whether it be on Wii, or something else that is mainstream and 'casual', like Halo 3.

I almost find my self in the same boat as the OP, but it's primarily due to time restraints. I like to play in-depth or 'hardcore' games, but I just don't have enough time to find one, figure out how it works, or even play it. Honestly the only games I've played in the last two months are WC3 (best $40 I ever spent) and Pokemon Diamond, and I still feel great games are out there, you just have to look.

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I'm gonna go out on a limb here and just toss out my idea that casual gaming is, much like The Damned put it, marketing and PR in action. Also, there is no such thing as a casual game due to the fact that there is no such thing as a hardcore game either. There is only the game. There are definitely casual and hardcore players, but this moniker has more to do with how familiar a person is with a game or how much time they put into gaming in general.

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*skips majority of thread* :-P

I strongly believe that there really are no casual or hardcore "games", but will acknowledge that some games are marketed towards audiences we may not have been used to. Case in point, a person can play Cooking Mama in a hardcore way, even if it is classified by some as a "casual" game.

However, I feel there are "casual" and "hardcore" gamers. As in casual gamers play simple, quick, games that can be played on the way to work on a cell phone or on a quick bus ride or something. Hardcore gamers actually buy games and play them for an extensive time.

I'm waiting for Sephire to chime in though. He seems to have some good ideas on this subject :-)

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