The need for branding. Most of society requires some form of separating groups from one another. You have your Mods and Rockers, your Hippies and Skinheads, your Skaters and Townies and even in a work environment I experience unnecessary branding and division.
An individual's constant craving to measure themselves against a yard stick; that no matter how far up said stick they go there is always a yard further to travel.
With branding comes competition, and from competition comes rivalry. This brings me to the groups presented in gaming: "Hardcores" and "Casuals". For the longest time there was no such division within the gaming community. Gaming was a niche interest, surrounded by misinformation (of course this hasn't changed but switched to different topics) and doubt. "Nerds" they were labelled as a whole.
Then the community grew larger, and with a larger group came the mass need to differentiate from one another. Now today we have our "Hardcores" and "Casuals", and once more another once unified group has divided into sub sets.
"If you don't play everyday you're not a real gamer", "If you can?t complete the hardest difficulty you're not a real gamer", "If you don't know the ins and outs of a duck's ass about the neighbourhood the main hero grew up in you're not a real gamer" shout the "Hardcores".
"?" respond the "Casuals". And that's the key thing here, only the "Hardcores" bother with such trivial pigeon holing. Only "Hardcores" feel the need to elevate themselves above the commoner. The foolish commoner who is only here to have fun. How dare the "Casuals" be content with just defeating the final boss on easy mode and seeing the credits roll; they must grind themselves to the bone, turning the game into a chore to see every last collectable AIDS vial, every last menial addition to add and artificially notch up the hours boasted in the blurb on the box.
I touched upon the word fun, and wish to highlight it's significance. I also wish to bring into play Achievements, the bane and absolution, the great invention and terrible monstrosity all rolled into one.
Achievements take advantage of the yard stick of gaming; the need for a hi score on your game. The need for your game to be "complete".
On paper achievements are fantastic; they give rise to the potential of new levels of gaming, the potential to "prove" to your friends how adept you are at a game. "Wow", says Timmy, "Matthew beat the Giant Dog with Springs for Legs and Horses for Courses without using a continue" as he surveys Matthew's Gamercard.
However, this wonder unfortunately is buried under "Wow, Matthew sure is a dick, he rented Avatar just for an extra thousand Gamerscore; the very opposite of an achievement as someone fresh out the womb could attain the exact same thing."
I'll linger on this for one more moment. A game such as Kung Fu Panda could be described as a "Casual" game, and as such would be played by "Casual" gamers. The same game also has easy achievements, and will therefore also be played by "Hardcores"?
"Casual" games. Argued by "Hardcores" to be the destruction of the gaming industry. Why will developers bother to make block buster games when they can churn out "Rayman Party 67" or "Dance with the Cheshire Cat: Hot Tin Roof Edition". However "Hardcores" can also be blamed for any fear of the gaming industry being "destroyed" by rewarding developers for putting in easy achievements and punishing those with difficult ones.
Too many times I see "Not buying this game, MP achievements" to which I think "What the Hell". A game that you planned on purchasing, has been taken off your wish list because of (at the end of the day: worthless) score being assigned to challenging activities. You're denying yourself fun - a returning theme - for something meaningless. We could get into philosophical levels of debate here and state gaming, working, relationships and even existing is all meaningless but let's keep things in perspective shall we ladies and gentlemen?
Why would a developer waste their time creating blockbusters/challenging games when they can bring out "Piss Easy 1k"? Sure we'll still have a pioneers wanting to go down in history for creating the next Bible, but they'll outnumbered by the hordes.
The group that prevails when competition is presented is the one that attracts the greater benefit for the whole. In the games industry, this means money.
"Casuals" crave "Casual" games, "Hardcores" crave "Casual" games. If two thirds of the market (One third is never mentioned in "Wars", and is the group I belong to: "The don't give a shitters as long as it's FUNNERS") crave the same thing; the market will shift to meet that demographic.
If there's equal demand for all colours of the spectrum, all colours of the spectrum shall be supplied. Again, there will be exceptions, I'm sure there are "Hardcores" that want Gamerscore but only via normal game playing, but that doesn't make you a true "Hardcore". read:irony
Cease the pigeon holing, the console wars, the flaming and focus on the fun. I can safely say collectively "Hardcores" have less fun as they're too worried about their next chance to express their "Elitism" or inflate their Gamerscore.
Christ, I sometimes think that if the government invented mobile ID cards that assigned score to actions we'd have a fucking utopia.
Forgive me if this article lacks a conclusion for your tastes, or gives the overall impression of a meandering conversation with myself. I don't give a shit, it was fun writing it.
An individual's constant craving to measure themselves against a yard stick; that no matter how far up said stick they go there is always a yard further to travel.
With branding comes competition, and from competition comes rivalry. This brings me to the groups presented in gaming: "Hardcores" and "Casuals". For the longest time there was no such division within the gaming community. Gaming was a niche interest, surrounded by misinformation (of course this hasn't changed but switched to different topics) and doubt. "Nerds" they were labelled as a whole.
Then the community grew larger, and with a larger group came the mass need to differentiate from one another. Now today we have our "Hardcores" and "Casuals", and once more another once unified group has divided into sub sets.
"If you don't play everyday you're not a real gamer", "If you can?t complete the hardest difficulty you're not a real gamer", "If you don't know the ins and outs of a duck's ass about the neighbourhood the main hero grew up in you're not a real gamer" shout the "Hardcores".
"?" respond the "Casuals". And that's the key thing here, only the "Hardcores" bother with such trivial pigeon holing. Only "Hardcores" feel the need to elevate themselves above the commoner. The foolish commoner who is only here to have fun. How dare the "Casuals" be content with just defeating the final boss on easy mode and seeing the credits roll; they must grind themselves to the bone, turning the game into a chore to see every last collectable AIDS vial, every last menial addition to add and artificially notch up the hours boasted in the blurb on the box.
I touched upon the word fun, and wish to highlight it's significance. I also wish to bring into play Achievements, the bane and absolution, the great invention and terrible monstrosity all rolled into one.
Achievements take advantage of the yard stick of gaming; the need for a hi score on your game. The need for your game to be "complete".
On paper achievements are fantastic; they give rise to the potential of new levels of gaming, the potential to "prove" to your friends how adept you are at a game. "Wow", says Timmy, "Matthew beat the Giant Dog with Springs for Legs and Horses for Courses without using a continue" as he surveys Matthew's Gamercard.
However, this wonder unfortunately is buried under "Wow, Matthew sure is a dick, he rented Avatar just for an extra thousand Gamerscore; the very opposite of an achievement as someone fresh out the womb could attain the exact same thing."
I'll linger on this for one more moment. A game such as Kung Fu Panda could be described as a "Casual" game, and as such would be played by "Casual" gamers. The same game also has easy achievements, and will therefore also be played by "Hardcores"?
"Casual" games. Argued by "Hardcores" to be the destruction of the gaming industry. Why will developers bother to make block buster games when they can churn out "Rayman Party 67" or "Dance with the Cheshire Cat: Hot Tin Roof Edition". However "Hardcores" can also be blamed for any fear of the gaming industry being "destroyed" by rewarding developers for putting in easy achievements and punishing those with difficult ones.
Too many times I see "Not buying this game, MP achievements" to which I think "What the Hell". A game that you planned on purchasing, has been taken off your wish list because of (at the end of the day: worthless) score being assigned to challenging activities. You're denying yourself fun - a returning theme - for something meaningless. We could get into philosophical levels of debate here and state gaming, working, relationships and even existing is all meaningless but let's keep things in perspective shall we ladies and gentlemen?
Why would a developer waste their time creating blockbusters/challenging games when they can bring out "Piss Easy 1k"? Sure we'll still have a pioneers wanting to go down in history for creating the next Bible, but they'll outnumbered by the hordes.
The group that prevails when competition is presented is the one that attracts the greater benefit for the whole. In the games industry, this means money.
"Casuals" crave "Casual" games, "Hardcores" crave "Casual" games. If two thirds of the market (One third is never mentioned in "Wars", and is the group I belong to: "The don't give a shitters as long as it's FUNNERS") crave the same thing; the market will shift to meet that demographic.
If there's equal demand for all colours of the spectrum, all colours of the spectrum shall be supplied. Again, there will be exceptions, I'm sure there are "Hardcores" that want Gamerscore but only via normal game playing, but that doesn't make you a true "Hardcore". read:irony
Cease the pigeon holing, the console wars, the flaming and focus on the fun. I can safely say collectively "Hardcores" have less fun as they're too worried about their next chance to express their "Elitism" or inflate their Gamerscore.
Christ, I sometimes think that if the government invented mobile ID cards that assigned score to actions we'd have a fucking utopia.
Forgive me if this article lacks a conclusion for your tastes, or gives the overall impression of a meandering conversation with myself. I don't give a shit, it was fun writing it.