I have a question for everyone. Now when you find someone that share same interests as you, do you care of how much they are dedicated to their hobby? For you Whovians, does it matter if you know someone who’s seen all the episodes or just the first season? For you brown coats, does it matter if they just seen the movie or saw all of Firefly? With that said, this should determine how you feel about the whole debate on “hardcore vs. casual gaming.”
It’s strange to me why people feel the need to be dissing on people who don’t play the obscure games over the mainstream that they felt the need to create the term “casual gaming.” Well I’m sure the journalists created the term mainly to give a term for games that is bringing more people in but now it’s taken a turn for the worse.
I don’t believe I need to give out a “gaming cred” just because I’m talking about casual games I enjoy. I do play Rock Band and Wii Sports and games on the Kinect. Does that mean I’m not a gamer? What if I said that I played Shadow of The Colossus, No More Heroes and World of Warcraft? Strangely enough, people are actually saying that World of Warcraft is going to the casual crowd.
Playing a game is playing a game. No matter if it’s the simplest controls or you got to use an entire keyboard to play. World of Warcraft has over 10 million people playing. Farmville has the same amount, if not 50% more. Both have a thriving online social aspect that requires a computer to play. A lot of people enjoy playing Civilization V but even more enjoy playing The Sims 3. Dance Dance Revolution was big but now its community is dying out whilst Dance Central is raring to go.
It seems like people are worried that casual is taking over and that there will be a world of nothing but Farmville, Sims 3 and Dance Central. Personally, I don’t see a problem with that. “Hardcore” gaming will never go away but as with anything in life, things evolve. Games were all about platformers and RPG’s during the day. Now games have evolved to much more. Motion control is here, whether you like it or not. It’s not the future no matter what spokesperson says it is. It’s here to stay but won’t be the standard. It’s an accessory, nothing more, nothing less. You’ll still have the Call of Duty’s, Halo’s, Uncharted, Gears of Wars and all that.
Some games I do enjoy having a shorter period of play. Growing up, we all had time for games. Only thing we had to worry about was school. We had a set schedule, weekends off and sometimes had holidays off. Today, we got to have school, work, friends, relationships, family events, gym/exercise and Lord knows what else. Some people cannot be able to put the same amount of time they used to back when they were a teenager and school was the biggest “responsibility.” I don’t mind playing a game when I am able to fit it. Some games I will dedicate more time to but I don’t mind the others.
If anything, bringing more people into gaming, even into a casual sense, is not a bad thing. It brings more similarities to people to interact. Relationship partners may understand the “addiction” of gaming from just Farmville alone. They know that sometimes you can’t help it. Other times they know that it’s a release, an escape, a way for you to unwind. It’s about understanding, not about dividing and labeling.
People just need to remember that a game is meant to be played. Casual? Hardcore? Who cares? Just have fun.
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