Video games have been hijacked

There are 2 types of gamers. You are either a hardcore gamer, or a casual gamer. Yes there are sub-types, and variations, but most gamers can easily be labeled one or the other. So how do you know which type you are? There is a very simple question you can ask yourself to find out! Let's pretend you're at some sort of gaming convention like E3. You're watching a game developer on stage trying desperately to get you excited for their companies new game coming out next year. Then he/she says: "We are making sure that this game will be accessible to everyone." (This seems to be a popular selling point nowadays!) The question is; Is this a good selling point, or a bad one? If you answered 'good', then you are a casual gamer, no doubt about it. If you answered 'bad', then you are most likely a hardcore gamer.

So let's get into the details of how I can come to such a bold conclusion. Let's start off by trying to define the hardcore gamer to an extent. First and foremost, the hardcore gamer has a love and passion for video games. They do not consider them a hobby. They appreciate the little details in well made games that to the casual gamer goes unnoticed. They nit-pick and critique every little aspect of a game's content and its balance. A good example of this is when developers started to introduce a little game mechanic called "Auto-scaling" or "Level-Scaling". This is a mechanic that has recently been introduced to games in the RPG genre that basically causes any enemy that you fight to automatically become a fair match for your character at any given point in the game. This is generally frowned upon by the hardcore gamer, because it causes a lack of difficulty and poor player immersion. The casual gamer on the other hand, just doesn't care about these types of things, and is blissfully happy just watching the character he or she created bash in a skeleton's skull with the hilt of their sword. The hardcore gamer needs more than that! Auto-scaling monster levels is a perfect example of making a game "Accessible to everyone!" This specific example though, is one worthy of it's own lengthy discussion, and we will save that one for another day.

So how do we define a casual gamer? Well naturally they are polar opposites of the hardcore gamer. (Other than the fact that they do indeed play games!) They generally care nothing of the things listed above. They are perfectly content with coming home from work, sitting on the couch, turning on their Xbox, and walking some random soldier through a war zone with buildings being lit on fire, and people's heads exploding. They are in it simply for the entertainment value. There is very little, if any passion, or emotion involved.

So going back to the title of this blog entry.. Video games have been hijacked! But by who? I'll tell you who. The majority of all gamers. The ones that feed the gaming companies the most money. The casual gamer. Okay, okay, to be fair, they are only indirectly responsible for the hijacking. In fact they are all probably ignorant to the fact that they have even done so. So I can't blame them! The real culprits are the game developers. But wait.. Can we really be mad at them? They are only trying to make money after all. They have kids to feed. They need to make a living just like we all do, and they are going to go where the money is.

So perhaps there is no one I can truly be angry at. The result is the same though; fewer and fewer good games. Since the year 2000 the quality of video games have been on a steady decline, designed to appease the growing crowd of the casual gamer, and we hardcore gamers are getting left in the dust. Will this path continue into this new decade? Or will we see a turn for the better? I hope there are people out there more optimistic than me.