Echo Chamber
May 6th, 2009I spent a whlie trying to find some intriguing thing to write about today and discovered that there was very little that wasn’t a rehash of arguments we’ve been having for some time. In fact, as much as I know I have my own pet issues, it’s a little disheartening to see that we’re basically passive creatures, sitting around to await the latest press clippings and re-litigate the same battles.
Is this because we have no meaningful input to contribute, or because we lack a way to communicate it effectively so that it impacts publishers, developers, and other gamers? I’m not really sure. But I’d like to see a conscious effort on the part of all of us to try to pick some new topic of interest and raise it up (whether on our own sites or via comments elsewhere). Any takers?
Posted in Etc, Geoff |
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
I haven’t read every post, so I can’t be 100% certain that this has been covered:
Why do we play videogames?
I’m not talking personal anecdotes here - I’m asking why viedogames appeal to some and not to others. Perhaps this question isn’t even applicable anymore, with the pervasiveness of gaming in our society. I’m thinking back to the “old days” when only a few of us played, I guess (showing my age).
The topic occurred to me because over the weekend, watching a friend’s son play “world of Goo,” his wife commented that she couldn’t understand how we enjoyed all the little things moving around the screen and didn’t understand how to play. But thinking back to the conversation, a few minutes later her husband commented that he’d downloaded a new vampire game for her. (I didn’t find out what, though.)
So then I thought it’s a genre issue, or perhaps casual gaming vs. serious gaming, a far cry from the beginning when it was gamer vs non-gamer. Thinking back, at the beginning, all we had were casual games - there was no plot to Pac-Man or Pong, certainly. And even the games with “plot” weren’t immersive, like Castle Wolfenstein.
It’s interesting to me that the ascendancy of games has kind of gone full circle from casual to in-depth to casual again. While I haven’t been a true gamer for a while, and so have not played many recent titles ( i last invested in a PS2, OK?) I still follow the scene.
I ahve to agree with Yatzee of zero punctuation on this one - it seems that the ranks of hard-core gamers are thinning, and it’s all about casual gaming anymore. When you think about it, games like Halo, being played online, in many ways translate to casual gaming - not a lot of thought (after you’ve learned your strategies) and lots of social interactioN.
Are the ranks thinning because the games aren’t there, or are the games disappearing/getting crappy because demand is dwindling? (and costs are astronomical). As an anime fan, I’m reminded of the whole subs-vs-dubs arguement in VHS tapes, and subs cost more because there is LESS demand and the old rule of cost-effectiveness in mass production came into play. Is the cost-effectiveness of casual gaming part of what is changing the face of the videogame industry?
Wow, I rambled on. Hopefully I’ve added something of value that you folks with greater knowledge can build on.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I don’t think the hardcore market is thinning — I think the overall pool of gamers has expanded to include a much more casual audience, so their numbers are smaller as a percentage of the audience.
I don’t think games have ever really been as casual as they are now. Pong was hardly more than a proof-of-concept. Pac-Man was simple to play, sure, but that’s because it was among the first. Its main following was the high-score obsessed. Wolfenstein 3D had a story; it was poorly handled, but the medium was maturing. It was the first breath of something new in the medium. This is the first era in which I’ve seen a truly mass-market following for games.