Everyone Act Casual: Gaming Labels
It used to be so easy.
We had gamers and we had normal people. Gamers were lifeless shut-ins who stared blankly at glowing squares and only ventured outside to buy cake-coated fat bars. Normal people went outside to play sport and talk to girls, I assume.
Then came Nintendo, and games quickly became associated with children. So now there were kids (who play games), normal folks (who don’t) and gamers (who now, in addition to being anti-social blobs, also played with kid’s toys). Later, with the advent of mobile phones and the like, regular people started playing games, of a sort. Their domain was mainly puzzle-related applications where a coloured shape goes on a mystical journey to find its destiny. These ‘casual’ gamers were not gamers, of course. They would tell you this, and so would REAL gamers. They only do it for fun, or to pass the time between cups of coffee and on trains.
Disgusting behaviour, not befitting a true gamer; he spends hours perfecting his techniques and lapping up high scores. But then a rift emerges—some gamers are seen as too soft, not deep enough in the culture. These derisive statements come from the newly categorised HARDCORE GAMER: a beast who values games over all else, and pities those who click ‘quit’.
Things calm down for a time, each camp builds their own individual walls of contempt for the other factions. The rest of the world remains oblivious. Except suddenly all the normal people start playing games. Halo is wildly popular. Large shouldered people who enjoy rugby are sitting down and living out their Bruce Willis fantasies. Gaming rapidly comes out of the closet and into the public eye. Millions of dollars is pouring into production and advertising, people are no longer ashamed to tell workmates that they like Mario. Women are playing games! (Some would argue this was always true, these people have brain worms.)
Gamers are surprisingly unhappy, and are still sitting inside the closet. Unaccustomed to the glare of the spotlight, most hiss and scuttle away back to the darkness. Forced to pick a side, others make the leap and finally spend time with their friends, now that games are cool. Labels are streamlined again, split into ‘gamers’ and ‘mainstream gamers’. The latter term is spat out by members of the former, and has the visceral insanity of insults like ‘elitist’, ‘homo’ and ‘vegetarian’.
This schism quiets itself eventually, when long-time gamers realise there’s nothing wrong with doing something mainstream, and mainstream gamers realise gamers are just like them underneath the dandruff and oily skin. But we’re forgetting about those casuals, left outside in the rain muttering about how games are a “nice diversion from real life”. Seeing their opportunity, they ambushed the industry and kicked it right in the Bejewels. Marketing managers realise that casual gamers (or potential casual gamers) actually make up a hefty chunk of the population. They also realise that casual games are generally cheap and quick to produce when compared with 50+ hour epic space operas. Dollar signs spinning in their eyes, they begin churning out thousands of the little bastards—games where the object is to have a bit of fun then switch off. Madness reigns, dogs and cats begin living together, rain begins falling up, Bruce Willis stops making films in protest.
The age of Brain Training and Wii Fit is upon the world, cementing Nintendo’s place as the company that bends gamers over in a dark alley for cash. Certain segments of the videogame industry focus their attention on catering to this new(ish) market. ‘True’ gamers scowl as the number of engrossing titles is quickly overtaken by scads of games about balancing piles of food and raising digital horses. These are bleak times.
But every dark cloud is secretly hiding a row of bonus coins. On the one hand, casual gamers are just not that into you, or your games. They’ll nestle quietly into the one or two diversions they enjoy, and then never buy anything else. Gamers (real), on the other hand will just keep on spending. And spending. Even when they run out of food and their girlfriend (seriously) leaves, they shall not break their solemn vow to, you know, play lots of games and stuff. Also of note is that the gaming industry, at the same time as vomiting casual titles, is also going legit. Recent releases are often being praised as almost-but-not-quite-but-close-really as good as films and literature.
Maybe sometime soon we can unshackle ourselves from all the labels and just play games. Then maybe I can fly my ass to the moon.