One of the reasons I do write these posts is because I have strong opinions about the gaming universe and I'm not always on the side of popular opinion. I mean, just take Final Fantasy XIII, apparently that was popular enough to justify a direct sequel. And Donkey Kong Country: Returns has been lavishly praised for it's return to the Donkey Kong formula. However, I have noticed that there has been a schism in the gaming community this recent generation of consoles that I first took immediate sides with, but now I am stepping back and finding that there's really no need for divide amongst gamers. I am of course talking about Casual Gaming versus Hardcore gaming. I would also like to tie in the existence of the Nintendo Wii since it has been a target of much ire from the hardcore group.
*SNARL!* Casual Gaming
First off, what is casual gaming? The way I see it, casual gaming involves a game that the goal is to get the highest score. It gets a little more complicated than that, but let's look at a few examples. Games like brick-break which we've all played on our cellphones and solitaire are casual games. They're easy to pick up and put down without involving a save function or hardware version updates. Their aim is accessibility and ease-of-play. There's no leveling or power-mastering, just one task and obstacles to keep you from completing that task. It's also not uncommon for these games to only occupy one screen, meaning, once you see the first screen of the game, that's probably the only one you'll ever see. Games that are released on PSN, XBOX Live or iPhone can generally be taken as casual gaming, though not all.
The idea is, these games are on a smaller scale. They take the old, old school approach to gaming. They lack the depth of game play or presentation values of hard core games. That's not to say there aren't those which can stand toe-to-toe with modern titles, it's just not that common or needed.
Hardcore Gaming Bro
Now what about hardcore games? These are your big-budget, blockbuster games that you see in commercials and magazine covers. Games like Assassin's Creed or Metal Gear Solid that take millions of dollars to make. These games usually require a player to master talents in order to progress further. There are also more complex ideas like full soundtracks and narratives that go into making these games, and there's a lot more expectations from gamers to the content. If casual games are the independent films, then hardcore would be the Hollywood blockbusters.
Nerds and the People They Despise
So what's the problem here? Problem is, each type of game takes in a different audience. The hardcore gamers are a more devoted fan base. They take pride in their accomplishments and grow emotionally attached to games. The casual fan base looks at gaming as if it were a minor distraction or easy source of quick entertainment. I know I made that sound rather harsh by comparison, but I assure you my opinions of casual gamers is very welcoming. The problem is, for a long time, there have only been hardcore gamers.
I Like the 80s
And now I will tell you about a time I was barely alive for, but have no problem telling you what happened. A brief history. Gaming actually started out completely casual. Atari games and arcade games only had one screen, and the goal was to get the highest score. That's all there was to gaming, and it was simple. But with the Nintendo Entertainment System, games started getting more complex. Screens started to scroll left and right, and some opened up entire new areas. This leap not only made games more complex, it meant they took longer to beat. It meant that gamers would have to show more devotion in order to complete the task. This is the birth of the hardcore gaming scene. And it has been this way ever since. Each new console generation has moved more rapidly into the mainstream culture and has come out with more and more complex gaming. However, this latest generation has seen something new happen. Retroactive gaming. Never before have classic titles and independent games been more available to people. With the advent of digital downloads and online capabilities, it means access has been blown wide open. So all those old school games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man have seen a return, and with them, a whole slew of similar games. When this happened, there was such a contrast to what gamers were used to, that it was a bit of a shock to the culture. People quickly tried to categorize and sort out the onslaught of new material. Then someone came up with the Casual Game and Hardcore Game labels as a way to divide up games, and by association, the gamers.
A Fistful of Quarters
So... what's the problem? Problem is the notion of superiority developed by hardcore gamers. Casual gaming is seen as a lesser form of the hobby while hardcore gamers are the real deal. The hardcore crowd are real gamers and have their controllers plugged into the port of true gaming world. Casual gamers are those wannabe gamers who don't take the medium seriously and haven't earned any nerd-credibility or respect. They haven't beaten Ghost and Goblins or traversed through the Lost Levels of Mario. I bet they don't even know who Billy Mitchell is! Yes, that all was more of a satire than an analysis, but it still captures the basic feelings of hardcore gamers. And casual gamers couldn't honestly care less about any of that. It's more about the quick thrill or amusement that video games once were. So there's less of a conflict, more of a one-sided distaste for one another.
The Position of the Wii (Sounds really bad out of context)
So if Casual Gaming and Hardcore gaming is the war between Montague and Capulet, I guess the Wii would be Romeo... and Juliet I guess, I'm not sure where I was going with this. Point is, the Wii has sided with the enemy of hardcore gaming and thus, we as a culture have turned our backs on it. With the Wii sporting very poor 3rd party support and a host of games that are loosely defined as 'minigames', there hasn't been much to defend the Wii as a hardcore gaming platform despite titles like No More Heroes and Mad World. And I have no intention of defending anything the Wii has done (except for the lack of localization for Fatal Frame IV and Tales of Graces). Why does there need to be a defense for one of the greatest selling consoles of all time? The Wii pretty much prints money at this point. And if Nintendo ever sobers up from the crack and hooker parties they can throw every night, they'll just release a new color version of it. I don't look to defend the Wii on what it is, I want to defend on why it is the way it is.
2001: A Game Odyssey
Another history lesson. Let's all go back to the year 2001. The economy was booming, Evanescence was still good, and for all we knew middle-eastern people were just the people who ran our 7-Elevens. We saw gaming consoles like the original Xbox, PS2 and the Gamecube. Really the first time I can remember 3 different companies competing for the same demographic, gamers. Sony PS2 launched first and was awesome, and then the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube game just mere days from one another to the US shores. All hardcore gaming platforms, no digital distribution, no one even heard of the term casual gaming. It was a competitive environment and gamers ate it up. After all was said in done, something unusual happened. Nintendo finished last in sales. That hadn't really happened before. Even new-comer Xbox outsold the Gamecube, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas almost outsold the Gamecube system single-handedly. Nintendo wasn't used to this kind of result. It's best selling game was Super Smash Bros: Melee which paled into comparison to popular games on the other systems. It wasn't a comfortable feeling seeing success like that slip away. The fact is, the market became too stretched out with 3 consoles all vying for gamer's money, and Nintendo wasn't getting enough of the pie. It became apparent that great games didn't always yield great sales. Gamecube has some great games like Killer 7, Beyond Good and Evil, Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, Eternal Darkness, etc. It was obvious that Nintendo needed to do something drastic, something no other gaming company had thought of.
The Birth of Casual
No, motion controls wasn't the new idea that drove Nintendo to their success (we saw that on the NES with the Power Glove), it was switching their target demographic from gamers to potential gamers. There were more potential gamers out there than gamers, and they wanted that untapped market. We're talking entire families and people who would never play a video game under normal circumstances picking up a wii-mote and playing. We now know this lead to unprecidented success. The Wii has sold more than any other console on the market today, Nintendo is back on top. Sure she had to do a few dirty things to get there, but it's a secure position. With the switch to potential gamers, the Wii ignored hardcore gamers for the most part. And with the lack of success of the Gamecube, they had to. And this is the final point I would like to make: Nintendo didn't turn it's back on us, we turned our backs on Nintendo. We as the hardcore crowd didn't buy Killer 7 or Baten Kaitos. We let good, unique games fall threw the cracks while supporting the mindless, Michael Bay-esque games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto. It became more about the spectacle rather than pushing the medium to new places (I would like to qualify that statement with Grand Theft Auto III single-handedly defined sandbox gaming for consoles and has earn it's place, the rest sorta just stagnated). It was more important that the big titles come out with even bigger titles like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty while less popular games like Demon's Souls and Okami got shoved aside. It wasn't just the Gamecube that died during the last generation, it was artful gaming that died with it.
The Future, I Can See It
But things aren't as bleak as I make them out to be. There's still the artful game that wins over praise from the community, it's just they're ironically mostly casual games. Games like Limbo and Word of Goo feel more inspired and beloved than the products of the game-stamp machines of EA and Activision. It's almost as if gaming is being reborn in these titles. Casual gaming is hitting the reset button by rewinding the clock back to 1980 and recapturing why this culture was born in the first place. I can only hope that 12 years from now we'll get a new console born from a casual gaming company with a slew of games that all put Super or 64 in the title. Then maybe I'll start to love Donkey Kong Country again.
