Accounting For Taste

[ccesarano]

Shush! Did you hear that? You will in a moment. Just give it time. There, hear it? That’s right, someone uttered the term “casual gamer”. That raucous uproar you’re hearing is the ebb of battle as everyone on a discussion board shouts and cries over what the ridiculous terms of “hardcore” and “casual” actually mean.

It happens all the time, especially when some item of news or topic shifts to discuss Nintendo and their little console beloved by grandparents and girlfriends the world over. Someone inevitably throws out the term “casual gamer”, and Nintendo die-hards cry out to defend their tiny little system. An argument breaks out where allegedly hardcore games for the Wii are listed, and the counter-argument is a slew of edgy M-Rated titles that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are filled to the brim with. In the end no one can agree, and the same old perspectives and stereotypes continue to live on.

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I would like you guys to do me a favor, and share this article with as many of your friends as possible. I came to this conclusion after we were all arguing about the Nintendo Press Conference (and by "we" I mean everyone vs. EarthViper and Panda pretty much), and realized that categorizing gamer types is absolutely retarded and cannot be done. The simple fact of the matter is, you either play games a lot, or you don't, but even if you don't play games a lot that doesn't define the kind of games you play. My sister could be considered a "casual gamer" considering how little she plays them, but the games she plays are role-playing games. I'm pretty sure those aren't considered "casual".

So try and share this all over the intarwebs if you can, not as a cheap form of advertisement (that's an additional boon), but in the hopes that we can actually educate people somehow.

[Panda]

I can agree with a lot of what you have to say, especially in regards to game companies trying to discover the 'girl genre' when, like you said, the whole notion that a genre can define an entire gender is simply preposterous. Sure, showering a PSP with bright lavender/pink or making a game about brushing ponies and riding ponies and feeding ponies and looking at ponies may generally appeal to the pre-puberty female crowd, but many companies think that's all there is to it regardless of how mature a girl may be. There's a difference between being cute and being just downright insulting.

As for casual vs core, I would absolutely love to do away with the terms, but society can't do without labeling things even if they don't know what the labels really mean of how to define them. Anymore, I just accept anyone who says that he/she is 'teh hardkor gamerz' and/or that 'teh casualz r teh tarded' is merely compensating for his or her own lack of maturity or wants to sound like an elitist despite not knowing exactly what he/she is attempting to be an elitist about.

Bottom line is that people need to accept that 1) not everyone plays the same games as they do, and 2) games with content that doesn't appeal to them aren't necessarily crap and may be a lot of fun for other people. Unfortunately, as is the reason why so many other debates in society continue to flourish, people don't like others who live differently than themselves.

Oh, and I think the 'how often one plays games' bit is a little less cut and dry; IMO, it should be something like: doesn't play games, plays few games, plays some games, plays a lot of games. Course, it all depends on how one wants to quantify 'a lot' as opposed to 'few' or 'some' and I don't think I'm in a position to say what the boundaries should be.

[ccesarano]

One of the biggest reasons I want to abandon things like "hardcore" and "casual", though, is because I'm afraid that developers will do things incorrectly. While I love the look of the new Metroid: Other M, what if it proves to have a disasterous story despite great gameplay? Team Ninja have never been geniuses in writing, and just the clip of that one guy saying "Remember me?" with a big grin makes me afraid of how dumb the dialogue may become. What made the previous iterations great in terms of story may be destroyed, even though they didn't have to be.

Then again, some of the dialogue in Corruption is downright abysmal, and I can still play that game.

The point is, Nintendo already tried to please fans by making Twilight Princess dark and gritty, even though it has always dealt with mature themes. It just chose to be colorful, part of its identity until "hardcores" bitched enough. Now Metroid: Other M is taking the series into a new direction, and it may hurt the franchise if Nintendo tries to imitate what other major companies are doing.

I don't want to see any development studio trying to look at what "casual" gamers like and "hardcore" like and try to develop to those norms. I just want them to make games and let the audiences sort themselves out.

[KAGE]

While I believe in the end we are all "gamers" I see nothing wrong with calling someone a hardcore or casual gamer. There is a difference and I see nothing wrong with acknowledging this. With this said, I don't agree with the whole girl genre idea either.

[EarthViper]

There is a difference, but the terms are thrown around very liberally and often times games and gamers are mislabeled. That's to say nothing of the gray area that exists between and the games and gamers of said gray area being either claimed or shunned by one side or the other. Finally, 'casual' in particular has become more of a derogatory term than a 'category' and I think that's really where Chris is coming from with the whole childish angle. In a society that's supposedly trying to remove prejudice based on the things that individualize, gaming has gone the opposite direction and adopted a relatively new stereotype to slander people/objects that differentiate from the 'norm'.

[KAGE]

Hey I'm not arguing that there are issues with said labels, I just don't think it's realistic to expect them to go away entirely or if we even really need them to go away. I just think people need to be better educated is all.

I see nothing wrong with casual games and I don't see anything wrong with casual gamers, but I think where most of the hate from the hardcore side comes from is the fear that this casual audience effects their hardcore space. I don't agree with the hate or slander but I can understand where it comes from

[ccesarano]

While I believe in the end we are all "gamers" I see nothing wrong with calling someone a hardcore or casual gamer. There is a difference and I see nothing wrong with acknowledging this. With this said, I don't agree with the whole girl genre idea either.

I'm going to put it this way.

My sister doesn't play video games frequently. She only plays them on occasion, and might get sucked into a title in particular. She pays absolutely no attention to the industry, and has no idea what really makes up the difference between the different systems or what is coming out. She is, by definition, a casual gamer.

She plays JRPG's, Zelda and, after watching me play Fable years ago, has been wanting to play that for a while. None of these games are "casual", but in fact are "hardcore", if definitions are to be believed.

So she's...a casual that plays hardcore games?

In addition, she has no interest in the Hannah Montana PSP. Granted, that was an extreme approach, but that is generally the angle most game developers go at when they are trying to get girls to play games in particular. The demographic becomes "girl", which isn't a demographic. It is a starting point.

Now, there are some developers that are smart, and they build games like, say, The Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon, but that's because they have people like Will Wright in charge (or originally in charge, at least), that are focusing on creating a different kind of fun experience. Not "what will girls like?"

Then again, those sorts of games will get referred to as "casuals" as well simply because they aren't bloody or rated M.

That's what I'm arguing, and even if it isn't the only attitude in the industry, it is the primary attitude in the industry at the moment. It needs to change.

[KAGE]

I wouldn't consider your sister a casual gamer just like I don't consider games like the SIMS and Roller Coaster Tycoon casual. They are all part of that gray area that EV mentioned where they share characteristics of both core and casual gamers/games.

There are PLENTY of people who play CoD, Halo, or Madden that I wouldn't consider core gamers. I like to call them mainstream gamers who will buy/play maybe 3 or 4 games a year but they don't visit sites, don't keep up on the industry, and don't really care about any differences between these systems as long as they can play their Madden.

[MadeManG74]

I think you seem to go on a bit of a tangent here

It’s no wonder outsiders to the industry continue to look at gamers as a bunch of children. The best selling titles are often bloody, violent, sexual and completely devoid of any sort of plot with writing poor enough to make the original Street Fighter movie look like Shakespeare. We scratch our heads trying to figure out why girls supposedly don’t play games, and when they do we ask for nude pictures and harass them off our servers. We endlessly bicker and debate over silly terms such as casual or hardcore, claiming anything rated for everyone is for grandmothers and wimps.

What does the quality of writing have to do with the Hardcore vs Casual thing? Don't forget its considerably harder to make a good story for a game where the player can affects things and the sheer length of games compared to movies, all the while making sure they don't just bog the player down in cutscenes for ages. Even so, there are plenty of games with good, mature stories out there, some of them very good sellers too (Mass Effect for example). Thats probably an argument for another time though.

Anyway, as for Casual vs Hardcore, I'm a member of a few other forums and I see this kind of BS thrown about all the time. I remember at one point someone saying 'Mario is a hardcore title' and a few people just responded with eye rolls or 'Sure it is buddy...'. I had to laugh at that sort of response, because what makes Mario any less hardcore than Halo?

Hardcore =/= Mature Themes. Hell, House of the Dead Overkill has more blood and guts than an abbatoir, but I would probably say that Zelda Twilight Princess is more 'hardcore' than it. It certainly takes a lot more skill to finish Zelda than it does to finish Overkill, where its just a matter of point and shoot.

Having said that, I love Overkill, but I'm certainly not a 'Casual' gamer. I think if we go to the absolute extremes there might be a case of labelling people as 'Casual' or a game as 'Casual' (Wii music springs to mind, although that probably shouldn't even be considered a game at all), but overall I've always agreed the idea of labelling games as either is just stupid.

[ccesarano]

Writing is one of the reasons a lot of people avoid games. They don't see any significance to the plot, and in the end a lot of developers just kind of handle it to make sure it is taken care of. Then there are cases where it seems like they wanted a good story but failed because the writing talent was lacking. Most shooters I think of could use better writing, as even a sub-par plot with predictable twists could become mildly entertaining.

Mirror's Edge is an example of a game sort of standing in the middle, where it's writing isn't bad but it isn't great either. Turok is a game that tried to have a good story but the writers just weren't good enough. Gears of War has good writing, but since there are so many clashing ideals of what Epic is trying to do a lot of people don't notice it or don't care.

Of course, a game doesn't necessarily need a story to be fun, either. Case in point: Harvest Moon and The Sims.

[EarthViper]

Gears of War has good writing...

*head asplodes*

[glitch]

Gears of War has good writing...

*head asplodes*

I agree with Chris. asplode some more.

[EarthViper]

Oh, I will. Gears 1 wasn't bad what there was of it but I'm assuming he's including Gears 2 in that and I'm sorry, that was not well written.

[Nolan]

Pssh, if you want a well written story you goto Duke Nukem or Serious Sam, those'll put gears to shame.

[ccesarano]

Oh, I will. Gears 1 wasn't bad what there was of it but I'm assuming he's including Gears 2 in that and I'm sorry, that was not well written.

Let's consider the plot and characters that the writer had to handle. I know you were complaining about having to listen to Dizzy when we were playing co-op last night, but for the personality they were going for his dialogue is actually pretty good. I still think the scene where Dom finds his wife is one of the most powerful in video games today. There are just segments that are poorly executed, such as Dom being a whiny bitch (which, let's face it, the writer himself would have been told he needs to include) and trying to create a serious atmosphere while simultaneously having people like Cole Train act as comedic relief.

Note I am certainly differentiating story from writing. A game can have a good story and terrible writing, a bad story and good writing, good of both or bad of both. The writing in Gears 2 is good, even though the story the writer was given caused some...issues.

[EarthViper]

Oh, I will. Gears 1 wasn't bad what there was of it but I'm assuming he's including Gears 2 in that and I'm sorry, that was not well written.

Let's consider the plot and characters that the writer had to handle. I know you were complaining about having to listen to Dizzy when we were playing co-op last night, but for the personality they were going for his dialogue is actually pretty good. I still think the scene where Dom finds his wife is one of the most powerful in video games today. There are just segments that are poorly executed, such as Dom being a whiny bitch (which, let's face it, the writer himself would have been told he needs to include) and trying to create a serious atmosphere while simultaneously having people like Cole Train act as comedic relief.

Note I am certainly differentiating story from writing. A game can have a good story and terrible writing, a bad story and good writing, good of both or bad of both. The writing in Gears 2 is good, even though the story the writer was given caused some...issues.

Yes, it does have it's good parts, but it also has it's very NOT good parts. And when a story be it a book, movie or game has several BAD parts I really can't justify saying it has good writing. I'm not going to piss on the whole game because like you said, certain scenes like Dom finding his wife were quite well done but I can't get certain scenes out of my mind for how poorly executed they were. There were also some just plain cringingly bad one-liners, one in particular that was meant to be a throwback to a scene in Gears 1 where Marcus sarcastically tells Hoffman "I guess we are the support, huh?", ugh I wanted to heave every time I heard that line.

So yeah, I wouldn't say it, as a whole, has bad writing but I most certainly would not say, as a whole, that it has good writing either. I understand writing =/= story and I know that there are limitations given the subject material and pre-existing characters but those excuses only go so far. Parts of Gears 2 and much of Gears 1 showed that the characters and setting weren't counter-intuitive to good writing yet the writer dropped the ball on several occasions in Gears 2.

[glitch]

I like action movies with big dudes being big dumb bad asses. I liked Arnold and Bruce and Sly and JCVD in the 80's. These games feel like a throwback to that time and the voice acting was pretty decent all the way around. The story in both games gave you some information, and left questions for the next to answer. Overall, I thought they were good. I expect to be provoked or moved by something like an Aronofsky movie. But when I'm playing a game where I get to chainsaw aliens in half and blow them apart with a shotty, I'm not expecting Oscar material. Gears is great for what it is.

P.S. Did you guys ever finish Blood Harvest the other night of did KAGE jump off the roof and die again?

[KAGE]

P.S. Did you guys ever finish Blood Harvest the other night of did KAGE jump off the roof and die again?

I didn't jump, EV's game hate pushed me, it's just so strong.

[EarthViper]

I like action movies with big dudes being big dumb bad asses. I liked Arnold and Bruce and Sly and JCVD in the 80's. These games feel like a throwback to that time and the voice acting was pretty decent all the way around. The story in both games gave you some information, and left questions for the next to answer. Overall, I thought they were good. I expect to be provoked or moved by something like an Aronofsky movie. But when I'm playing a game where I get to chainsaw aliens in half and blow them apart with a shotty, I'm not expecting Oscar material. Gears is great for what it is.

P.S. Did you guys ever finish Blood Harvest the other night of did KAGE jump off the roof and die again?

I'm not expecting classic literature from Gears either, but as I said before the source material is an excuse for only so long. When the game tries to take itself seriously and get the viewer to do the same, it should be well written; if it doesn't want to be taken seriously it shouldn't try to be. Scenes like Dom finding his wife proved the games script and setting had the capability to be moving and generally well written in spite of all the swearing, muscles and guns but scenes like the finale of Act 1 when whats-her-face is telling Dom he lost the lead on his wife do the exact opposite and fall flat on their face.

I'm just disappointed by the consistency, because IMO when a game proves it CAN be touching and serious in one scene the 'B Action movie' excuse no longer flies when it fails in another scene.

I didn't jump, EV's game hate pushed me, it's just so strong.

I know you're saying that tongue in cheek but I'll respond anyways. I don't 'hate' these games, I just have very high, yet I feel very attainable, expectations but alas that's an off-topic discussion for another time.

[KAGE]

I'm not expecting classic literature from Gears either, but as I said before the source material is an excuse for only so long. When the game tries to take itself seriously and get the viewer to do the same, it should be well written; if it doesn't want to be taken seriously it shouldn't try to be. Scenes like Dom finding his wife proved the games script and setting had the capability to be moving and generally well written in spite of all the swearing, muscles and guns but scenes like the finale of Act 1 when whats-her-face is telling Dom he lost the lead on his wife do the exact opposite and fall flat on their face.

I'm just disappointed by the consistency, because IMO when a game proves it CAN be touching and serious in one scene the 'B Action movie' excuse no longer flies when it fails in another scene.

If you're talking about the part where Dom has his little hissy fit and bangs on the car before crying, then I agree. It was one of the most eye rolling moments I've seen in a long time. However, I know it's been a while since I've played the game all the way through, but I don't remember any other moments of the story being that bad. I'm not saying they don't exist, maybe they do or maybe they dont', but that one scene was so retarded that it has burned a bad image in my brain. I'm with the rest of the guys saying that the Gears' story wasn't that bad, it had it's moment of cheese, but I enjoyed the ride.

They did hire a professional writer for Gears 2, so we can't say they didn't try.

I know you're saying that tongue in cheek but I'll respond anyways. I don't 'hate' these games, I just have very high, yet I feel very attainable, expectations but alas that's an off-topic discussion for another time.

I know it's off topic but I'll reply anyways. It's fine to have high expectations, but it seems as though sometimes you let these issues or flaws in games linger or weigh down your opinion too much IMO. No game is going to be perfect and as long as the experience is an enjoyable one, then I try not to harp on plot holes or minor bugs as long as it doesn't ruin my enjoyment or if I have a choice to avoid them entirely. Just me though.