Gralian said:
boholikeu said:
Unfortunately, Gralian's argument is flawed for one simple fact: hardcore titles aren't the video game equivalent of intellectual movies or novels. You don't see hardcore gamers defending the likes of games like The Path, Braid, or Flower. In fact, more often than not they label these games as "casual", too.
If anything, your typical hardcore game has much more in common with Twilight than it does with Wuthering Heights. The stories usually pander to our geeky side in the same way that Twilight gained popularity by exploiting the interests of teenage girls.
Here's the thing, though. You may get say, one in every ten "hardcore" titles producing a
Bishock for every
Killzone or
Gears of War, but by its very nature, it is impossible for casual games to achieve this. We may have a large selection of gritty grey first person shooters in the 'hardcore' market, but if you look hard enough, you will find the odd masterpiece. This comes down to, in simple terms, production values and concept. Casual games are not ever designed to have such intricate stories or game mechanics. They're designed to be non-interlinked, non-sensical mini-games that are to be played at any time and do not tell a story. They can never develop something artistic or intellectual, because otherwise it would not be aimed at the demographic that casual games make the most money from. Now i'm not saying people who play casual games aren't intellectual, but i think most people who buy a casual game expect the game to be just that - a game. Not an artistic statement and not a story. Indie titles can be artistic and auteristic, but we are talking about the industry as a whole here. Big publishers and developers. As for the Twilight comment, i do understand where you're coming from, but i didn't mean it in the sense of pandering to fantasies. I meant it to mean that it's "playing it safe". It's dumbed down, it's not going anywhere, it's not treading new ground. It's doing what the industry knows people will respond to. You can pander to whatever demographic you wish, but it has to be done in a way that's not quite so one-dimensional. Any pandering is at least
trying to tell a story. Casual games do not. There is no pandering, there is no attempt to broaden the player's horizons or engage them on more than an instructional level of "shoot ball in hoop to win", there is no emotional investment. I'd rather have someone play to my fantasies of space marines and zombies and orcs than not bother to play to them at all. While i realise you can get mindless 'hardcore' titles, that is not the focus of this topic. The topic was 'why casual games are bad', and as such that is what i am focusing my argument on.
I hope that has helped to clarify my position somewhat.
Let me clarify myself a bit, because it seems like you aren't getting my point.
There are intellectual "hardcore" titles (Bioshock), and not so intellectual ones (Gears of War). There are intellectual "casual" titles (Flower, Braid, The Path), and there are some not so intellectual ones (Farmville).
You seem to be arguing that the current popularity of casual titles is similar to the "dumbing down" of movies and literature, but the fact remains that there are both intelligent casual titles and stupid hardcore titles. Therefore, it would seem that the basis of your entire argument is wrong.
I think what might be confusing you here is the difference between complexity and depth. Hardcore titles are generally more complex than casual titles, but that does not make them intellectually deeper than them. A lot can be done with relatively simple mechanics, as a number of art games have already shown. Similarly, some very complex mechanics can be used for nothing more than brain-dead twitch gaming.
To put it another way, let's look at the difference between a soap opera and a haiku. Soap Operas are often very complex. Characters have detailed backgrounds with labyrinthine relationships to each other. Try watching a random episode some time. Unless you have someone next to you to explain the personal history of each person on screen, it'll probably make no sense whatsoever. A haiku on the other hand, uses only a few phrases and a very strict, set structure to convey it's message. By the logic you use with video games, soap operas should be infinitesimally superior to haiku. In reality however, soap operas are the in the gutter of pop culture whereas haiku is considered high art. This is because haiku are
deep; they hold more intellectual meaning in a few simple phrases than a soap opera can in a decade long series.
Same goes for video games. The hardcore/casual divide is most often drawn between control schemes and learning curve, not actual intellectual depth.
Gralian said:
With contemporary games, the games are designed specifically whether or not to be 'casual' or 'hardcore'.
Interesting you should mention this, since many "casual" games have their roots in the arcade games of old. Is tetris a "hardcore" or "casual" game? Is it possible to play "Bejeweled" as a hardcore game?
ciortas1 said:
On topic, casuals have a much higher tolerance level for bad gameplay, story, lack of innovation, depth and so on, and that's the reason people are up against them. Because when developers start pandering to people with low standards, everyone but those people suffers.
Funny, I tend to find the opposite. It seems to me that hardcore gamers have a higher tolerance level for the following:
Bad gameplay: Bad RPG mechanics like grinding and random encounters weren't really stopped until the influx of more casual gamers into the market. Same with save points in action games.
Bad story: A lot of hardcore gamers just don't realize how bad video game stories are. Even the best writing in the industry would only be considered mediocre by film or literary standards. Non-gamers are a lot less tolerant of this, which is why I imagine they stick to games without a narrative.
Lack of innovation: Are you honestly trying to say that the hordes of copy-cat FPS games, strategy games, and RPGs are more innovative than games like Katamari-Damacy, Spore, Mario Galaxy?
Depth: Covered this a bit above, but Flower, Braid, and The Path are all quite deep despite the fact that they are commonly referred to as casual games.
And so on: Did you know that the casual influence on the industry has actually brought us better UI, in-game tutorials, etc? Most games nowadays are designed to be able to be played without reading the manual, and that's thanks to casuals that didn't want to have to study a game before they started playing it.
