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Article Written by Faux
Original Forum Post
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I would like to preface this article with my personal definition of how I will be using the term culture.
Culture: Anything that directly or indirectly influences a persons behavior toward someone or something.
Here are just some statistics that show how popular gaming has become:
- Roughly a whopping seventy percent of people between the ages of eight to eighteen own some sort of video game platform.
- Seventy-two percent: the number of people age six to forty-four in the U.S. who played video games in the year 2007.
- 70.93 Million: the number of Wiis that have been sold worldwide.
As video games are popularizing exponentially as a widely accepted form of media, I find myself being able to bring up video games as a more casual conversation piece to break the ice; it's nice to not be ridiculed when I mention my love for them. Although recently when I try to bring them up all people want to talk about are the Wii and the next big shooter game. I have always veered off of the path of shooter games but when an acquaintance of mine praises a game so highly I would be crazy to not at least give it a try. Well upon placing the disk in the drive and trying out multiplayer I was greeted by unruly language, people telling me I should kill myself for being French, and telling me I suck, but has this just become a standard?
Instead let me use a better comparison between two "Hardcore" gamers. As of late I have tried to recommend the game Dragon Age: Origins to a friend of mine who is rather fond of Mass Effect, he asked me to give him a plot synopsis; I go into great detail about the lore and how the blight is similar to an apocalyptic setting. Shortly after I had got done explaining he retorts with "I'm not that nerdy." Maybe he was kidding maybe he wasn't.
Would you like a third; nearly any time someone mentions World of Warcraft there are a select few people who shutter and say "Get a life stupid nerd." (Granted I have never played WoW but why reprimand someone who does?)
With more and more people getting into games it's undeniable just how popular they have become, but with popularity comes issues. The gamers of the new generation have over looked the unwritten rules of courtesy towards one another. I have a few interpretations on why gamers today lack that friendly mentality:
- One; the recent ability to play with people around the globe provides fodder to cyber-bully someone whom you will never see again.
- Two; the unbelievable spike in competitive shooter games- Shooter games seem to be the main focus of this console generation and I think it is the driving factor of why people are buying more games, and also why people are more inconsiderate. Games that pin someone against another is just begging to spawn flame-wars, and I'm sill having a hard time wrapping my mind around why arguing with someone across the globe creates endorphins that people crave.
I will use the following as an example as to prove that shooters are dominating the market:
After speaking to a few members of the community the subject of Clover/Platinum games has come up, with them recently developing a game entitled Vanquish I have been pondering the past releases of these studios: Okami, Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, Madworld, Infinite Space, and Bayonetta. If you ask me this is a flawless list, but these games have done poorly sales wise, did you know Bayonetta was outsold by "Mario & Sonic at the Winter Games" I kid you not. God Hand: infamously given an extremely low score of three by IGN; was the heart and soul of Shinji Mikami's creative genius, and never once appeared on the top sales list. Madworld: the sales were portrayed as abysmal selling a mere 66,000 copies in the U.S. by the time the NPD's came out.
So why will Vanquish double or even triple the sales of some of these games; because it's sole purpose is to keep Platinum functioning unlike Clover. Mikami has to make an embellished version of a third person shooter to provide the sales that Platinum needs to thrive as a creative developer. I am nearly positive that Mikami is aware of how the industry is responding to shooter games.
Why is it that as of late gamers can't be bonded by the one thing we all share a love for, why must we bicker over which game is better, or who has less of a life? Granted there have always been console wars since the beginning of time, be it between Nintendo and Sega or Microsoft and Sony, but we were always united on the social hierarchy as gamers. Currently online gaming has an extremely negative connotation when you mention it, I would like that to soon change.
To close this article I would like to note that I DO NOT hate shooters nor the people who play them, this is merely my outlook on how a vast majority of the gaming community has been behaving recently.
I thank you for your time.
Comments
14 years, 4 months ago
i cant agree more with your views of current gaming. i remember one day i was friends, talking about Pulp Fiction when i brought up Shadow of the Colossus. i began praising it at enormous levels. they listened attentively (i think) and i stopped cold when i saw one of my friends look at the other, with a smirk in his face. that other friend turned to the smirking one and did the same.
i knew that face oh so well: the "dude, this ridiculous. this guy is blabbing nerd stuff" face.
then, after meeting some guys and gals from my friends, i brought up modern warfare 2, and suddenly...everything changed.
its obvious what happened next: my friends started blabbing about modern warfare while me and this girl sat there attentively. i think i was more bored then here.
what pisses me off is that even that the gaming community has been rising up to considerable levels, there always be the bully-ish pundits who dismiss your likes in games. and of course there the pretentious idiots who dismiss you as "a guy who likes movies, games and some music for entertainment" to one simple word : "nerd". and oh man, if i had a dime for every asshole who bothered me just because i speak of games, i'd be owner EA and Ubisoft. what saddens me is that the gaming community has grown up, but into the likes of a, lets say, a 35 year old man, who even though he is successful in life, he is seen weak amongst the eyes of the pretentious.
if our continues with this sort of labeling and mean attacks towards communities...its hard to think we have much time left in our world.
it saddens me, oh so deeply.
thanks nick, for raising up this issue.
Kudos.
14 years, 4 months ago
I was just thinking about this last night. Of the 5 games I KNOW I am going to play at some point in the coming months, all 5 involve shooting.
Fallout: New Vegas is a mixture of FPS and RPG.
Halo: Reach and Crysis 2 are pure FPSes.
Vanquish is a TPS.
And Metroid: Other M isn't really a shooter but it involves shooting.
So even in the game that doesn't make shooting a main point of the game, it's still there. Definitely popular right now.
14 years, 4 months ago
Great article Nick, I mostly play games like Okami, Bayonetta and most JRPGs, and I really like them, but when I talk about these games to my friends they aren't interested, since they play MW2 most of time. And it's sad to see masterpieces like Okami sell poorly while rubbish like Just Dance outsells them.
14 years, 4 months ago
PS:
NICK DIDINT WRITE THIS. SAY THNX TO FAUX. I GOT CONFUSED TOO!!
SO KUDOS NICK FOR POSTING THIS, AND AMAZING ARTICLE FAUX!! KUDOS TO YOU TO!!!
14 years, 4 months ago
Maybe 4PP should create a account named "The Community" so there wont be any author identity misinterpretations in the future.
14 years, 4 months ago
All i can say for sure is that I played too much of a certain shooter a few years ago and had to stop because it was affecting my demeanor, and that I know some elementary-aged children who play a certain shooter religiously now who swear and act like jerks. What I must assume from this is that there is a connection with online competitive play and the recent behavior of those who play them.
On the bright side, the world may really end in 2012 and we won't have to see this generation grow up and make decisions.
14 years, 4 months ago
I'm actually the exact opposite most of my real friends are hardcore halo lovers who enjoy nothing else but a good old first person shooter and for about 2 years of high school so was i eventually become burned out and discovered 4pp and other people in my school who genuinely enjoy all forms of the gaming community. I have tried to reform some of my friends who still play through halo 3 nightly to have a try at something more challenging that the perspective difference of gears of war to halo. I know the feeling of being ridiculed for trying something that looks "nerdy" and not popular but keep pushing them and some will change sometime like i did
14 years, 4 months ago
I've played games basically my whole life and my friends know this and respect that I understand games more in-depth than they do e.g. I'll enjoy a game for say the environments, details and care that may have been put into a game and my friends will enjoy it for the fact you can shoot people with big guns but at the end of the day if we sit down and all play together we will rather pick Gears of War 2's horde mode (or other 4 player co-op l4d, etc) over say something like "Lets all go get a copy of Bayonetta and play separately."
Note: I'm talking about games where all humans are on the same team and or the same room if possible.
14 years, 4 months ago
I don't think this is a recent development in gaming. Ever since I've owned a gaming platform even before I've been into online gaming at all there has been someone to trash talk me. Whether it was at the lunch table when i was little by just some random kid walking by or an acquaintance someone has trash talked me. the only difference is that more and more people can and will because of being anonymous so they don't have to see you the next day. With the insults about you being french one of my friends always, and I mean always gets hassled just because he is Canadian.
14 years, 4 months ago
Its not so much the gameing community or culture thats dying, its the new attitude thats rising. People in the UK want to be the hardest most popular guy around and they acheive that by making everyone else feel like shit.
And more stuff i read the more i realise this isnt only happening in the UK but all over the world people seem to want to be the best of the best and "Superior" (Which strictly speaking, being a douche to everyone you ever met is the total opposite). And Call of Duty has succesfully grabbed the attention of these people with gameplay that evolves around using cheap tactics to grab some overpowered military weapon controlled by the console.
At some point people will need to realise that being into video games is no different than being into films or a sport, its just that instead of sitting their for hours watching actors or running around after a ball your competeing with anyone in the world to prove you have the better aim, or to try and survive hordes of zombies with your freinds like you could never do in real life.
But no, instead people will try to tell you that liking games isnt "Cool" and that you have no life (somehow) by playing them.
Nice article though
14 years, 4 months ago
I mainly stick with single player for that exact reason. I cannot stand the ignorant rants that come out of fellow players' mouths. True, I've enjoyed some experiences with multiplayer, but those were few and far between. Very good points, Faux.
14 years, 4 months ago
Shooters can be fun if you don't take it seriously.
The thing about online gaming is you need to know that people abusing you either don't really care, or they're twelve. Most games come with a mute function, so I mute them when I can. Sometimes I can't, at which point messing with them is the fun alternative. The more abusive they are the easier they are to mess around with - especially if you happen to blow their head off.
As for the stigma of gaming, people somehow equate Mowing games (Modern Warfare, Call of Duty etc.) with being cool, largely because of the "FUCK YEAH! AMERICA!" syndrome, even when they're not American. They play sports games and equate that to playing sport. They play guitar hero and equate that to playing an instrument. They play racing games and equate that to racing.
Gaming used to be 'nerdy', now only certain types are. If things blow up or move quickly it isn't "nerdy".
14 years, 4 months ago
I feel like shooters are almost like a xbox or ps3 casual game, in terms that many people only buy FPS to play online. Anytime I look at someones XBL account in MW2 that is the only game they have or very few and many have had they're account from like 1-3 years.
I like playing FPS's and are fun mainly if you have some friends online who will join in, but I much prefer single player games mainly any Bioware RPG kicks the crap out of any FPS but at the same time they are two completely different experiences too.
Playing a FPS with friends online is more fun social gaming and is much more competitive, while Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age is single player and more of the fun is playing for the story.
14 years, 2 months ago
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