Poll: Is it Good or Bad that games is now mainstream?

[BonsaiK]

Wow, talk about a non-issue. And trust VG Cats to get it wrong, as usual.

What do people mean by "gaming WENT mainstream"? Gaming was never NOT mainstream! Comsoles made by big corporations that played versions of Pong were on the news and in family living rooms when they first came out in the 1970s. That's about as mainstream as you can get. There's nothing "underground" about it, and there never was.

The popularity of gaming has also not wavered much. Kids have always liked them. The only difference now is more older people are also now playing them. Some of them maybe have been drawn in by stuff like Wii Fit, but a lot of them are hardcore gamers from their youth who have kept the fires burning.

These days you have more choice, more games than ever before, more consoles than ever before, all the old consoles and games still exist and can be gotten via EBay or emulators... gamers have never had it better than this. I don't see what people are even complaining about. Gaming is still evolving and will never die now that's it's here. Even in a worst-case scenario and the world runs out of electricity geeks will fire up solar panels and have LAN parties. Relax, people. The gaming future is safe.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Bad.

Spoiler: Here is exactly why

Just confirming, you are being sarcastic, right?

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

Gaming hasn't gone mainstream, A select few games have. If you made an 8-bit pie chart that represented the number of games bought by the general populas in relation to games bought by long-time gamers it would probably closely resemble Pac-Man.

My point is that the majority of long-time favorites by gamers are still considered obscure by general populas. so if these such games become their own sub-genre this will elavate the long-time gamer from core-gamer to Gaming Connoisseur.

Where we go from there is up to us and the companies.

 

[phar]

Yes,

Look at the movies you like and enjoy. I can guarantee they arnt some random movie with no subtitles.

I hope more and more people come into the game industry to put in a few ideas. It really cant hurt. More money more people more games more people into the industry.

Sarcastic?

If you've stared in dismay at the pile of crap available nowadays (this will sound PC fanboyish, but mostly for consoles) you'll see what I mean.

I'm not saying that there are no good games.
I'm saying that the proportion of good games to crapware is horribly skewed.

My friends call me a pessimist, and maybe they're right.
But honestly a truly good game (read: worth my $60) is hard to find and few and far between.

Funnily enough, the games that score high on the enjoyment-to-cost gauge tend to be much cheaper than $60.

Hate to burst your bubble but every generation/era has had the same ratio of crap to good.

 

[Fr331anc3r]

I find it to be a problem that games and gaming in general have become mainstream. I feel that back when gaming was more of a cult addiction than a mainstream choice made by all the "cool" kids companies actually cared about what they were producing for the consumers. Now companies will put out whatever mindless drivel that they think will get them a few dollars here or there, and it makes me absolutely sick.

When gaming was young, a companies livelihood and image was based off of a single game, but now that publishers (EA, Activision) are umbrella corporations for tons of other developers (Maxis, Firaxis, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, etc) they can use one to promote their games, and others to push the user base to certain genres (issues with CoD:MW and CoD:WaW and Activision), this creates a multitude of terrible games, while the good ones are becoming fewer and more far between.

I miss the days of companies putting out games because they too loved the game, not just because they like the smell of unearned money from the unwashed masses that will pay out any price for any quality of game as long as it is hyped properly.

There's my 2 cents.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Bad.

Spoiler: Here is exactly why

Just confirming, you are being sarcastic, right?

Sarcastic?

If you've stared in dismay at the pile of crap available nowadays (this will sound PC fanboyish, but mostly for consoles) you'll see what I mean.

...uh huh. Yeah, I actually don't see what you mean at all. The last pile of gaming crap I stared at was fifteen years ago. Then I learned not to overreact to things.

I'm not saying that there are no good games.
I'm saying that the proportion of good games to crapware is horribly skewed.

My friends call me a pessimist, and maybe they're right.
But honestly a truly good game (read: worth my $60) is hard to find and few and far between.

Funnily enough, the games that score high on the enjoyment-to-cost gauge tend to be much cheaper than $60.

I agree. This one only cost me $20.

Spoiler

Then again, the only game I've ever seen cost more than $50 was a used copy of Fate/Stay Night, so that's probably not saying much. Either way, every medium works strongly through Sturgeon's Law, mainstream or not.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

I picked other, with games more mainstream, many developers have to dumb games down to feed the masses = more money.

But when they where smaller they would get a group of gamers and talor their games to that, not simplify or broaden their games.

 

[pipboy2010]

Every time I see someone bring this up, I can't help but thing that they're confusing mainstream with casual . Gaming has always been mainstream, be it on Commodore 64s, Megadrives, or Playstations. The difference is that recently a lot more casual games have flooded the industry and it's largely these that account for a lot of the crap floating around. I think people who call themselves gamers always like to feel elite, but it's never really been completely true.

 

[inflamessoilwork]

I think it is good because it lures more investors, so the game companies have more funding, so they can produce better games

 

[Twilight_guy]

Unless you just came out of a time machine or fell through a wormhole in space that propelled you into the past, I have no idea what you mean by calling games mainstream. Gaming is not mainstream at all yet. Its still misunderstood and feared by the general public. Few still have played games (other then simple flash games and the such) and even fewer have come close to seeing gaming culture. Gaming is still very much a substream.

On a sidenote, when gaming does become mainstream it will be a good thing if for no other reason then games will stop being blamed for violence and used as a way of saying "this kid is a social recluse/not healthy" because people will see that such a blanket statement is unfounded. Also, it will mean that gamers will include a great diversity of people, so there will be less outcast wineing about how the mainstream has bastardized their games and more poeple seeing the diversity of industry and accepting it as an extension of the diversity of the fans.

 

[CorpseCryAngelfall]

*Shrugs* It all really depends, games becoming mainstream, means more people go into the gaming business, means more people work on games, which means more high budget games and gaming breakthroughs are made, makes better games and better graphics, means people buy them, means developers start to get greedy, which makes developers make sub-par games and we get back to the start.

I think it's good in the aspect that we're getting more good games, but bad that we're getting more casual games. If they weren't "Mainstream" as you called it, there'd be no such thing as The Sims, or Guitar Hero, and idiots who know nothing about gaming wouldn't tell us the exact reasons they're so great for making their Sim live, or beating "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert. Casual Gamers piss me off.

So yeah, depends which angle we're coming from.

 

[Emeli]

I think that gaming going mainstream has taken the quality of games downhill, but it's a necessary sacrifice.

I don't want to generalise, but I'm going to paint with a broad brush and say that as a female gamer, five or ten years ago I found it really hard to get into the gaming scene, because male gamers had the most disgusting attitude toward women. I couldn't go to a lan party without getting my arse grabbed and couldn't talk to another gamer without him staring down my shirt. They treated me like absolute dirt, and I think it's a reactive measure to many of them having bad social skills and thus feeling some resentment toward women for rejecting them.

But enough armchair psychology. My point is that now hardcore gamers are at very least intermingling with people who have a less focussed view of the world and getting some social skills. Going mainstream may have decreased the quality of the games but I think it has increased the quality of the culture.

 

[Plinglebob]

While I don't think gaming could quite be considered mainstream, I think that the games industry is not healthy and setting itself up for a fall.

There are 2 things I blame for this. The first is what I labal "The Playstation Generation". The Playstation is where playing games started to become cool, rather then something for the "Geeks" and as such, more people got into it and where the idea of "Gamers" really grabbed a lot of attention. Because more people were buying games, companies started to look at what was selling and tried to copy it in the hope under informed people would buy it. This is not surprising as the film industry has been doing it for years. However, I don't think that the ratio of Good to Decent to Crap has changed, but rather more and more games are now released and so it just feels like it.

The second is down to the Graphics Race. Because they think people are impressed by shiny things, (and, delving into stereotype, a lot of the 13-25yr old market probably are) console makers and games developers are focusing a lot more on the graphics now rather then the gameplay. This has led to dramatically increasing costs which aren't being reflected by increased sales. As such, they look for ways to reduce the costs and as such, reduce substance for shiny.

 

[rossatdi]

Bad.

Spoiler: Here is exactly why

This. Although, there is a little bit of nostalgia-itis amongst gamers. There was never a period with 100 good games a year. It's just not that industry!

 

[ultimateownage]

Bad, because before the average gamer was an obsessive 15- 20 year old who never stopped playing games, now it's stupid 12 year olds who think they're badass playing halo 3 multiplayer all day. So know the PROPER gamers like me who have dedicated their life to games are now inferior to those people who only ever play halo 3 and base how badass you are on your gamerscore. I know about this, because everyone in my school are these apart from one of my closest friends, my old friend turned into one, it's like a virus.

 

[Shadowfaze]

games that are now mainstream can get away with being terrible because they know it will sell anyway. this annoys me.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

It's good. More money to the industry, and less "OMG videogames R FOR NURDZ". Sure we'll end up with a billion trillion guitar heros, and nintendo will never be fun again, but i think that's a small price to pay.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Mainstream isnt bad persay but I'd rather have developers make unique games ever now and then than pumping a new Call of Duty thats basically a reskin out tons of times..