Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Are You A Gamer?
Scot
Member LegendaryPosts: 24,273
Been a lot of talk lately, about gamers and the gaming market, so time to put out my stall.
Do you game more each week than you watch TV and films? (And I am not talking about watching games on You Tube and Streaming here.) If so you are a gamer, that's what I did when I was a in my twenties, it is what I do now. I have a passion for the entertainment I mentioned but none surpasses gaming. If you play Angry Birds more each week than the entertainment I mentioned, you are still a gamer in my eyes. Maybe you got married and have ten kids, maybe you have hardly any time like you used to have, if more of that free time is spent gaming than any other form of entertainment you are still a gamer.
For gamers interactive entertainment is what counts, the problem is the gaming market is now being driven by those who spend most of their time watching rather than playing. They don't expect anything more difficult than switching it on and chilling out, for them you can sum up the whole of how a game can entertain you in one word...fun. For me there is also depth, strategy, story, difficulty, achievement, competition, role-playing, solving puzzles, interaction with other players, grouping, community, guilds, economy, trading, living in an online home, become more skilled in anything you do in game, claiming the bragging rights be it for how you won a race or how you built a house, making your own guild games up within an online game. I am sure you can add some to that.
That's gamers and gaming.
Do you game more each week than you watch TV and films? (And I am not talking about watching games on You Tube and Streaming here.) If so you are a gamer, that's what I did when I was a in my twenties, it is what I do now. I have a passion for the entertainment I mentioned but none surpasses gaming. If you play Angry Birds more each week than the entertainment I mentioned, you are still a gamer in my eyes. Maybe you got married and have ten kids, maybe you have hardly any time like you used to have, if more of that free time is spent gaming than any other form of entertainment you are still a gamer.
For gamers interactive entertainment is what counts, the problem is the gaming market is now being driven by those who spend most of their time watching rather than playing. They don't expect anything more difficult than switching it on and chilling out, for them you can sum up the whole of how a game can entertain you in one word...fun. For me there is also depth, strategy, story, difficulty, achievement, competition, role-playing, solving puzzles, interaction with other players, grouping, community, guilds, economy, trading, living in an online home, become more skilled in anything you do in game, claiming the bragging rights be it for how you won a race or how you built a house, making your own guild games up within an online game. I am sure you can add some to that.
That's gamers and gaming.
Comments
Depth: I think a gamer can enjoy a completely shallow experience. But depth is certainly not missing from today's games.
Strategy: A gamer that enjoys pure action is just fine for a gamer IMO. And it's certainly not missing from today's games.
Story: Actually never mattered for gamers at all until like 1988. In fact, most board games are devoid of it. Video games are what popularized story based gaming. Certainly not missing from today's games.
Difficulty: A classic in gaming for sure. But I don't think a successful game requires it at all. Certainly not from a game design perspective. And certainly not missing from todays games.
Achievement: Fun for sure. Certainly not missing from today's games.
Strategy: The amount of strategy games these days is mind blowing. And they are extremely fun and engaging IMO.
Competition: We are literally in a time period where the most talented gamers in the history of gaming are competing against each other. And the pool is incredibly larger as well.
Solving puzzles: Do you even play games that aren't super popular? Puzzle games have had a revolution. It's absurd how many puzzle games I've be enthralled by in the last 5 years.
Interaction with other players: We are literally in the most social moment in all of history. People literally keep their mics on while playing with randoms in almost every game I play. In MMORPGs, there is a discord/vent/mumble in every single guild.
Grouping: They now have tools that allow people to group more easily than ever. I am literally almost NEVER without a group in any MMORPG that I play. It is SO easy now.
Community: It's up to taste. I remember when the community overall was small. It was harder for me to get in where I fit in, but I do feel like when I found it back then, that there was a closer camaraderie than today. It felt like we only had each other. Now it feels like we can have anyone we want.
Living in an online home: I don't know what you are specifically referring to here, but housing in MMORPGs never felt like living anywhere to me. The closest I got was SWG and EQ2. SWG was more fleeting than EQ2 and I kind of actually miss the RP style people I met in EQ2.
Becoming more skilled at anything you do in game: I always do that. It is pretty much my motive for playing games in general in the first place. In fact, I'll bet CoD players are doing the exact same thing. This one is non-nonsensical to me.
Claiming bragging rights: You can probably tell I'm egotistical. Claiming bragging rights is part of life at that point. I literally see 0 difference between games today and games I played when I was a kid when it comes to this.
Making your own guild names up?! ?!?!?!?!?
Both of you seem to love generalizing and condescend towards current gamers (psst, I can tell you are my age at least). Let me make this clear:
GAMING WAS NEVER A HOBBY FOR THE MASSES.
That you thought that it was at one point just shows how distant you were from reality in the past. In fact, gaming is more of a hobby for the masses now than ever before.
So I guess "sometimes" I'm a gamer
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
"Strictly for gaming, it means that for the masses gaming ain't a hobby anymore, just one of the dozen others of entertainment / recreational activities."
And you backpedaled to:
"It was a hobby for a smaller group of like-minded people."
And money isn't the only measure of success. Not to any gamer that I know. There are a ton of amazing games that don't make a lot of money (or sometimes none). It's actually insane the quality of games that are offered these days. We are in a golden age of gaming and I'm watching a couple of randoms generalize it like everything is awful.
You personally don't like the amazing variety of games that are offered today. Good for you guys. But I'll be God damned if it doesn't make you look like a whiner.
Here, let me show you how awful I view your perspective:
"I believe the distinction is more in how these people find their fun (and it's more widespreaded than just gaming, you can see it everywhere...), when the instant gratification turned into a world-wide defining character trait."
You wrote this. It's an opinion, obviously. But it is such a damning opinion of people in general. You are a gamer (I think that you would call yourself that based on this thread). To accuse a generation of being obsessed with instant gratification is absurd in my opinion. Gamers, in general, are the epitome of that. Yes, especially EQ1 players.
I'm fine with that to be honest, even if I totally play more games than any other type of entertainment. As a matter of fact I would be annoyed if someone called me a gamer, since that demographic has proven to be far more whiny than anything else (seriously those gamers are still preordering crap, while simultaneously demonstrating that they fully understand that it's not in their interest to do so).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
My motivations are relaxation, escapism, story, choices, and depth. Not every game needs to provide all of these. Dynasty Warriors provides the first two exclusively, with almost none of the other factors. But because it's so high on the relaxation and escapism for power fantasy, it's one of my go to franchises when my stress levels are high.
My least important motivation is difficulty. In fact, I will not buy games which sell themselves on difficulty and do not provide difficulty settings (hello, Dark Souls). I play games to feel successful and in control. I do not play them to raise my stress levels. I do not think that makes me any less of a gamer.
It was making your own guild 'games' up, like racing or hide an seek in a MMORPG that was big enough to do that sort of thing. Oh and I know you are around my age as I have seen you on here for so long.
One thing I don't think you quite got was I was not saying this has all disappeared, just that there is far less of it now over the broad spectrum of gaming and that "fun" is not just about the shallow aspects of the games.
Depth: It is far rarer now but yes you can enjoy a shallow game, I did mention Angry Birds in my post. Nothing wrong with that, but they can be so much more.
Strategy: Far rarer now, this may become a theme, yes it is still a feature but far less of one than it used to be.
Story: Part of what I was getting at is it this idea games just have to be fun, story is part of what goes a long way beyond fun. We have more story than we have ever had in some games, like Tell Tale, but I do see a parcity of it in others where there could have been so much more.
Difficulty: Not saying a game needs difficulty to be succesful, indeed if you want your game to sell today thats the last thing you want to do, keep it easier than easy mode. Part of what I was getting at with my entire post was thatgames are being boiled down to a one template fits all, and difculty is not part of that template.
Achievement: Depends what you mean by achievements, I was not refering to Steam Achievments here but completeing things that are arctully hard. I think you realised that but to me that is a lot rarer now.
Strategy: True, there is a lot more stratergy, but the reason why you can say that is Indie means there are a lot ttitles in any genre than there used to be. AAA not so much.
Competition: Quite right, e-sports is the counter balance to what I said, but I am getting more at the variety and depth of PvP in games. Shallow SWTOR scenarios rather than seiges of DAOC for example.
Solving puzzles: Again, in Indie, not sure AAA even looks at puzzle games anymore, and honourable exception for Sherlock Holmes. I think here you have somehwat misssed the point, I was refering to puzzles in games that are not puzzzle game, like so much much of gaming now if it is not part of the "core gameplay" it is out.
Interaction with other players: Discord an so on mean guilds commincate better, thats not what I am getting at. Also the joint activities you are talking about are were you are just lumped with others and barely speak? Not thatmuch interation there. I think you are confusing this one with my next one.
Grouping: Well here I have to question if you are pulling my leg, you are never without a gorup in anything you play?
Community: The community is bigger, not better. And only bigger in the sense there are loads of people who want to tweet inanly online rather than do something meaningful in game.
Living in an online home: We seem to agree here.
Becoming more skilled at anything you do in game: I think the reason you have not got some of these elements I have mentioned is you are applying them to the wrong game. I was not thinking of shooters for this one, rather the lack of skill needed. Lets just take one example, in PS you specialise in one area, in PS 2 you can do anything. Players are jack of all trades and the trades hardly take that much skill. Something similar happened in Anthem, I understand they were going to have flying as a skill then thought that would be to hard and binned it.
Claiming bragging rights: I was really getting carried away with the passion by then, you are quite right.
I don't think you me or Pogg are on that different a page, I don't think we are damning people who play games today. It was the companies who said, "look at that huge entertainment audience that is not gaming". It was John Riccitiello the former CEO of EA who said "we want to make our games so that your mum could play them".
Were we more into instant gratification than our parents, yes. Are the current generation more into instant gratifcation than us, yes.
And yes I'm a gamer. And for me that pre-dates video games and computers when I played strategy and tactics board games a lot.
I've always done it for fun.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The difference between you and your wife is exactly what I was getting at, lifestyle as opposed to lifestyle choice. There has been two periods in my life I did not have my beloved PC rig. One was for two months, another three. I really take my time deciding on the new rig so it once took two months to come to a decision.
Two months you say two months?! I was waiting for some magazines to publish, it was that long ago. The other time was when I decided I needed a "gaming break", I was playing games too much and the rest did work for me and proved I could kick the habit if I needed to. Now I have to go; Dishonoured, Death of the Outsider which has been on my list for too long has downloaded.
I barely have time to play anymore, and when I do it's largely split between Fortnite, Classic Wow, Roblox, and Minecraft. Yeah, games have changed a lot over the years, but I bet there is an equal percentage of crap games on the market as there ever was (Atari ET anyone?). There's just so many more in total now that it seems worse off. Also, the market has driven a lot of garbage development with lootboxes and in-app purchases, all because they can and people will spend money on them. This kind of stuff wasn't available to do previously without the development of persistent, cloud-stored accounts. But the internet occurred and it is what it is. So long as people pay for goods, businesses are going to sell them.
Thanks to smartphones, and the money they make because it's so easy to spend on that platform, we see games trending towards smaller playtime sessions. People don't necessarily want to spend 8 hours playing a game on their phone. Thats more for the PC or a console attached to a larger screen. But again, that's not all games. It just seems that way because so many people have a smartphone and play a game on one.
So long as the game isn't total garbage, I can appreciate at least something about most games. Even The CabbagePatch Adventure on Colecovision. Though..those controllers were totally whack. That weird era of console/proto-pc blends. Glad we got past that!
That's just, like, my opinion, man.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
I mean, playing video games at least 2 hours nearly every day since I bought my first PC back in 1988 doesn't count, right?
I buy high end lap tops so I can play games anywhere, my living room, in the bathroom (yes, I've done it, can't let the raid down) on vacation (the beach is highly overrated ...hmm, so is sleep) or just about anywhere.
I did start leaving the laptop home on vacations to make my wife happy....but she doesn't know about the games on my IPAD, she thinks it's for watching Netflix when we stay in cheap hotels w/o Smart TV service.
Oh yeah, used to read regularly, haven't touched a novel in about 15 years and while I do watch shows on Prime / Netflix I am always multi tasking while playing games at the same time. (Which is why I loath action combat, too distracting)
I've seen the sunrise more times than I care to admit while sitting behind my keyboard and learned how little sleep humans can actually live on. (3-4 hours a night, at least for a few days)
Yes I've played games while at work but had to stop, you know why? Both times people got suspicious seeing me smile so much (also why I suck at poker) while looking at my screen which of course was always turned away from others view.
Oh yeah, almost forgot, over 34K posts on a gaming related forum.
But clearly my negative attitude about 99% of all things related to gaming such as modern MMOs, streaming, BRs and other players confirms I am no way a gamer. Right?
Hmm...I'm starting to wonder if I'm even human anymore.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon