Note in advance: I'm 35 and this is one of those "you darn kids!!!" posts. Be warned if you step on my lawn. 
So...I obviously wouldn't be on this site if I didn't like games or the technical aspects therearound (read: hacking). Reading about news, games, new hacks...that sort of thing still excites me after...well, ever since I first heard about it.
However, I now have a girlfriend whom I'm seeing more than any previous one (she'll be moving in in a couple months), and as such gaming is taking more of a backseat. Ironically, my time spend on this forum barely takes a hit. Perhaps it's the addiction to news and interesting tidbits, the fact it's PEOPLE rather than AI opponents. Perhaps it's my arrogance to tell youngsters how to do things ("you shouldn't like THAT game, but THIS one, damnit! YOU ARE SO WRONG!!!" ). But as the title already mentions: I never really fit in to the group "gamers".
This may be strange, as the word is just a representation of 'one who plays games', right? So I should be a gamer as well...right?
Well...yes and no. The definition of a word depends on how it is collectively used. And while I do play games, I find myself drifting further and further away from the general perceived reception of the word. And I'm not talking about the socially inadequate nerd who embodies the cliché of the word "gamer".
First of all: my choice of games, and when I play them. I just can't get excited about trailers or hype trains. I can easily count the combined number of times I've made preorders, early access and DLC on one hand. This isn't about being hip to complain about it: I just don't do it. I play games, but I don't want a T-shirt with a Zelda emblem or a fallout miniature. To me, it feels like I'm endorsing a group I no longer belong to. Assuming I ever belonged to it.
Somewhat tying into that: board games. Perhaps it's these forums, but I feel like I'm the only one who even considers them GAMES (though it should be obvious).
Second is the attitude of gamers. It's like they're always busy complaining about things not working, no matter how small it is. And it might be these forums, but the whole "I pirate but I'm still ethical about it" gets annoying. Why am I on a same forum as someone who not only feels entitled to have to pay less than the asking price because he's a customer* and 60 bucks feels too much for him. Or why one should get a reduction in price because the game isn't long enough.
It's times like these I'm reminded of late last century. Games were around 1500 Belgian Franks back then for gameboy, 2000 for PC games. That's about 37, respectively 50 euros. Sounds familiar? Yes...these prices are still somewhat similar today. And that's pretty shocking, because inflation made pretty much everything else cost at least twice as much (same went for the average earnings). So in effect, gaming is half the price. And that's not taking into account a few other important caveats of today:
-the internet was basically non-existent. No user opinions, youtube videos or let's plays. There were gaming magazines, but if you think reviews are subjective now you should read up on a few of the old "reviews" (nintendo just had their own magazine that just sucked up to everything they made).
-PC gaming was excessively bad due to technological innovations. Since around 2006, things have slowed down a bit but back then you couldn't hope to buy a PC that wasn't obsolete within 2 years. And by obsolete, I mean that games just pushed the hardware that much. All this bitching about FPS being locked to 30 was nothing to your PC actually getting to start or play in non-slideshow mode.
-the second hand market wasn't up to snuff. Sure, console game trading happened, but stores carrying second hand games were rare. That, and the lack of virtual platforms (steam came much later), meant that prices remained set for years. If you told me I could one day get half a dozen games legally for the price less than a day's meal and support charity in the process, I would've said you were crazy.
-nostalgics to pixelart games either have selective memories or were too young to remember, but not every other game was a Mario or a Zelda. Storytelling usually sucked, elements like saving and new game+ weren't standard and the difficulty was only fun in, well...actually GOOD games. I'd say there was more variety then, but that's not entirely correct because there wasn't an indie scene like today. But granted: AAA-titles were still somewhat creative (read: they didn't sequel the reboot of the update of the addition of a spin-off).
-though not something your average gamer cares about but hugely important: game making assets were scarce. Creating games was a lot harder than it is nowadays (as I write this, you can get the entire physix engine and a bunch of assets in a humble bundle...even for commercial use), and the developers of today are the gamers of yesterday. That really shows, as there were certainly games made by people who had no idea what their audience wanted.
Honestly: the more I think of it, the more I think this is the paradise I'd have imagined when I was a kid**: more games than the eye could see. I'm at 500 games in steam right now, and I still find novel gems to play. A simple example: Cook, serve delicious, my favorite game of last year, is getting a sequel this year. Not only that, but the developer has asked me to participate in beta tests. Things just couldn't get better for me unless Miyamoto offered me a blowjob!
...but why do I feel like I'm the only one actually LIKING games? It's as if there was a general gamer meeting where everyone agreed to be grumpy and angry for no real reason. Yes, yes...I know there are downsides to our industry and hobby. But I sometimes feel like all the community can do is whine about things. There is movement against DLC, and the voicing that it erodes games of "a full experience" by selling you bits and pieces back to you for - in total - more cash. Why can't I just be allowed not to have an opinion on it and just play games like I want? There are still plenty of games without it, or where it isn't tacked on. And there are plenty of reviews that are much easier to find than ever, so...why should I care?
Then there's the thing about branches and franchise. Game X killed the franchise. Or mechanic Y. Or story aspect Z. Yeah, so? I've got my own beef with UT3, and I love UT2004 more than most of you love your favorite game. However, unlike "gamers", I don't write that in the past tence. I've had an absolute blast with UT2004, and that experience doesn't diminish because the sequel wasn't up to MY personal standards (which it shouldn't be in the first place).
Gamers seem to wallow into that self pity. And I don't understand why. To me, personally, games are about challenges that you overcome. Strange, that gamers don't seem to realise that this just isn't something to do WITHIN a game. These same people will, like me, immediately search for alternatives if action A won't work. Outside the game, though, they'll keep repeating action A (complaining about something) ad infinitum. Why? It's not so hard to guess that complaining on a forum developers don't even read won't improve a game. As such, I spend my time with other games (since when was gaming about protecting a franchise, btw? or worse: about protecting your own identity***).
Worse still is the shortsighted view that one's taste correlates to all games. And that's just...sad. In addition to gaming, I like reading, watching movies and listening to music. Do you know how much time I would waste by telling everyone who reads a book I don't like, watches a movie that isn't my style or listens to hiphop? I wouldn't have any life of my own left! Gladly, my fellow bookers, movie-ers and musicphiliacs allow me my own choice in what I like. Not so on games. Gamers make a sports of telling everyone else that their opinion is wrong. The wiiu sucks! Mobile games suck! Controllers are nothing compared to keyboard and mouse! Gaming platforms that aren't called steam are terrible! EA is the devil! Indies are too much hipster!
...and so on, and so on. I get that since games take more investment time than other media, we tend to go for more familiar experiences. But is it so hard to leave other gamers to their opinion? Rather than encourage others to share the same medium, we dish everyone who isn't into our little subset of the kind of games we like.
Take Cook, serve, delicious again for reference. It's hard to pin down if it is actually, objectively a good game because it is pretty unique in what it does. Nonetheless, the CSD2 announcement was somewhat spoiled by people who dislike it because it "isn't making enough use of the graphical capacibilities of the PS4"****. Translation: so-called gamers want all games to clock in 60 FPS as well as attempt to be as realistic as possible (even though the handdrawn style fits the game much, much more).
Time for a confession: I never played minecraft or MOBA's. The premise of just building stuff simply doesn't appeal to me. However, I'm glad it got made and is hugely successful. This isn't a game for ME, but it captures an audience with values I feel strongly about. It proved once and for all that if you take time and effort, you'll get something in the end. People who play games can be socially active, engaged and passionate. They can spend hours in making something of beauty. It's a young audience, but these will be the gamers of tomorrow (while the gamers of today will be the old grumpy men of tomorrow...probably with artritis on their hands). If it was up to me, they inherited the term today. Gamers like me mostly grew up with violent games that putted you against enemy players. Winning happened inevitably at the cost of other players...fairly often humans. These are not the only kind of games. Console games now often have co-op modii, games where you help each other out are fairly common and even on board games, co-ops have blossomed into a genre. If games really teach things (and we shouldn't kid ourselves: they do), we'll see more co-operative minded players entering gaming boards. Until that time...I just don't like gamers.
Thanks for reading. I hope it gave some food for thought.
*which is an oxymoron in itself: you're not a customer until you pay, and you can't pay because THE GAME ISN'T EVEN OUT YET!
**this was before I got into girls. Now I have a girl AND a smorgasmboard of games
***someone threw that argument at me when I questioned his reason to crusade against expensive games. I could point out that he CHOOSE to act bitter and entitled to something he had no right to, but again, I've learned to adapt. he's on my ignore-list now.
****I guess just calculating pi in the background isn't going to cut it
So...I obviously wouldn't be on this site if I didn't like games or the technical aspects therearound (read: hacking). Reading about news, games, new hacks...that sort of thing still excites me after...well, ever since I first heard about it.
However, I now have a girlfriend whom I'm seeing more than any previous one (she'll be moving in in a couple months), and as such gaming is taking more of a backseat. Ironically, my time spend on this forum barely takes a hit. Perhaps it's the addiction to news and interesting tidbits, the fact it's PEOPLE rather than AI opponents. Perhaps it's my arrogance to tell youngsters how to do things ("you shouldn't like THAT game, but THIS one, damnit! YOU ARE SO WRONG!!!"
). But as the title already mentions: I never really fit in to the group "gamers".This may be strange, as the word is just a representation of 'one who plays games', right? So I should be a gamer as well...right?
Well...yes and no. The definition of a word depends on how it is collectively used. And while I do play games, I find myself drifting further and further away from the general perceived reception of the word. And I'm not talking about the socially inadequate nerd who embodies the cliché of the word "gamer".
First of all: my choice of games, and when I play them. I just can't get excited about trailers or hype trains. I can easily count the combined number of times I've made preorders, early access and DLC on one hand. This isn't about being hip to complain about it: I just don't do it. I play games, but I don't want a T-shirt with a Zelda emblem or a fallout miniature. To me, it feels like I'm endorsing a group I no longer belong to. Assuming I ever belonged to it.
Somewhat tying into that: board games. Perhaps it's these forums, but I feel like I'm the only one who even considers them GAMES (though it should be obvious).
Second is the attitude of gamers. It's like they're always busy complaining about things not working, no matter how small it is. And it might be these forums, but the whole "I pirate but I'm still ethical about it" gets annoying. Why am I on a same forum as someone who not only feels entitled to have to pay less than the asking price because he's a customer* and 60 bucks feels too much for him. Or why one should get a reduction in price because the game isn't long enough.
It's times like these I'm reminded of late last century. Games were around 1500 Belgian Franks back then for gameboy, 2000 for PC games. That's about 37, respectively 50 euros. Sounds familiar? Yes...these prices are still somewhat similar today. And that's pretty shocking, because inflation made pretty much everything else cost at least twice as much (same went for the average earnings). So in effect, gaming is half the price. And that's not taking into account a few other important caveats of today:
-the internet was basically non-existent. No user opinions, youtube videos or let's plays. There were gaming magazines, but if you think reviews are subjective now you should read up on a few of the old "reviews" (nintendo just had their own magazine that just sucked up to everything they made).
-PC gaming was excessively bad due to technological innovations. Since around 2006, things have slowed down a bit but back then you couldn't hope to buy a PC that wasn't obsolete within 2 years. And by obsolete, I mean that games just pushed the hardware that much. All this bitching about FPS being locked to 30 was nothing to your PC actually getting to start or play in non-slideshow mode.
-the second hand market wasn't up to snuff. Sure, console game trading happened, but stores carrying second hand games were rare. That, and the lack of virtual platforms (steam came much later), meant that prices remained set for years. If you told me I could one day get half a dozen games legally for the price less than a day's meal and support charity in the process, I would've said you were crazy.
-nostalgics to pixelart games either have selective memories or were too young to remember, but not every other game was a Mario or a Zelda. Storytelling usually sucked, elements like saving and new game+ weren't standard and the difficulty was only fun in, well...actually GOOD games. I'd say there was more variety then, but that's not entirely correct because there wasn't an indie scene like today. But granted: AAA-titles were still somewhat creative (read: they didn't sequel the reboot of the update of the addition of a spin-off).
-though not something your average gamer cares about but hugely important: game making assets were scarce. Creating games was a lot harder than it is nowadays (as I write this, you can get the entire physix engine and a bunch of assets in a humble bundle...even for commercial use), and the developers of today are the gamers of yesterday. That really shows, as there were certainly games made by people who had no idea what their audience wanted.
Honestly: the more I think of it, the more I think this is the paradise I'd have imagined when I was a kid**: more games than the eye could see. I'm at 500 games in steam right now, and I still find novel gems to play. A simple example: Cook, serve delicious, my favorite game of last year, is getting a sequel this year. Not only that, but the developer has asked me to participate in beta tests. Things just couldn't get better for me unless Miyamoto offered me a blowjob!
...but why do I feel like I'm the only one actually LIKING games? It's as if there was a general gamer meeting where everyone agreed to be grumpy and angry for no real reason. Yes, yes...I know there are downsides to our industry and hobby. But I sometimes feel like all the community can do is whine about things. There is movement against DLC, and the voicing that it erodes games of "a full experience" by selling you bits and pieces back to you for - in total - more cash. Why can't I just be allowed not to have an opinion on it and just play games like I want? There are still plenty of games without it, or where it isn't tacked on. And there are plenty of reviews that are much easier to find than ever, so...why should I care?
Then there's the thing about branches and franchise. Game X killed the franchise. Or mechanic Y. Or story aspect Z. Yeah, so? I've got my own beef with UT3, and I love UT2004 more than most of you love your favorite game. However, unlike "gamers", I don't write that in the past tence. I've had an absolute blast with UT2004, and that experience doesn't diminish because the sequel wasn't up to MY personal standards (which it shouldn't be in the first place).
Gamers seem to wallow into that self pity. And I don't understand why. To me, personally, games are about challenges that you overcome. Strange, that gamers don't seem to realise that this just isn't something to do WITHIN a game. These same people will, like me, immediately search for alternatives if action A won't work. Outside the game, though, they'll keep repeating action A (complaining about something) ad infinitum. Why? It's not so hard to guess that complaining on a forum developers don't even read won't improve a game. As such, I spend my time with other games (since when was gaming about protecting a franchise, btw? or worse: about protecting your own identity***).
Worse still is the shortsighted view that one's taste correlates to all games. And that's just...sad. In addition to gaming, I like reading, watching movies and listening to music. Do you know how much time I would waste by telling everyone who reads a book I don't like, watches a movie that isn't my style or listens to hiphop? I wouldn't have any life of my own left! Gladly, my fellow bookers, movie-ers and musicphiliacs allow me my own choice in what I like. Not so on games. Gamers make a sports of telling everyone else that their opinion is wrong. The wiiu sucks! Mobile games suck! Controllers are nothing compared to keyboard and mouse! Gaming platforms that aren't called steam are terrible! EA is the devil! Indies are too much hipster!
...and so on, and so on. I get that since games take more investment time than other media, we tend to go for more familiar experiences. But is it so hard to leave other gamers to their opinion? Rather than encourage others to share the same medium, we dish everyone who isn't into our little subset of the kind of games we like.
Take Cook, serve, delicious again for reference. It's hard to pin down if it is actually, objectively a good game because it is pretty unique in what it does. Nonetheless, the CSD2 announcement was somewhat spoiled by people who dislike it because it "isn't making enough use of the graphical capacibilities of the PS4"****. Translation: so-called gamers want all games to clock in 60 FPS as well as attempt to be as realistic as possible (even though the handdrawn style fits the game much, much more).
Time for a confession: I never played minecraft or MOBA's. The premise of just building stuff simply doesn't appeal to me. However, I'm glad it got made and is hugely successful. This isn't a game for ME, but it captures an audience with values I feel strongly about. It proved once and for all that if you take time and effort, you'll get something in the end. People who play games can be socially active, engaged and passionate. They can spend hours in making something of beauty. It's a young audience, but these will be the gamers of tomorrow (while the gamers of today will be the old grumpy men of tomorrow...probably with artritis on their hands). If it was up to me, they inherited the term today. Gamers like me mostly grew up with violent games that putted you against enemy players. Winning happened inevitably at the cost of other players...fairly often humans. These are not the only kind of games. Console games now often have co-op modii, games where you help each other out are fairly common and even on board games, co-ops have blossomed into a genre. If games really teach things (and we shouldn't kid ourselves: they do), we'll see more co-operative minded players entering gaming boards. Until that time...I just don't like gamers.
Thanks for reading. I hope it gave some food for thought.
*which is an oxymoron in itself: you're not a customer until you pay, and you can't pay because THE GAME ISN'T EVEN OUT YET!
**this was before I got into girls. Now I have a girl AND a smorgasmboard of games
***someone threw that argument at me when I questioned his reason to crusade against expensive games. I could point out that he CHOOSE to act bitter and entitled to something he had no right to, but again, I've learned to adapt. he's on my ignore-list now.
****I guess just calculating pi in the background isn't going to cut it
