The Nerds of the nerds
Video gaming is, for the most part, seen as a nerdy past time. There's no getting around that. Sure, with the advent of Halo and the xbox, it's attracting what could be described as a "frat boy" crowd, and even seen a cool, but that's only if you play the "cool" games. Namely first person shooters and war games (bleh!) Sadly, WOW players are still mocked and rediculed in conventional society, now a then, but they're nothing to the nerdiest of the nerds, the Simulation game player. I am one such player. Sure, perhaps it's hard to compare us to those RPGers or MMORPGers who spend their non-gaming time thinking about stradegies to get that next weapon upgrade or defeat the big boss, but at least they get respect and recognision as gamers. Sim gamers don't even get that. No-one's going to take you seriously as a gamer if you list things like Sim City and Harvest Moon (or even Pokemon) in your game list, unless it's nestled between Halo 3, GTA 4 and Team Fortress 2 (which is awesome and you should all play it). Usually the only people that can get away with it are kids and girls (and although i do fall into one of those categories, i'm standing up for the principal). I've even heard the term "casual gamers" attributed to people like me. And i take offence to that. Casual gamers are people who play facebook games, stick cricket and online tetris. They don't pay money for these games, and they probably only play them in their lunch break or when the boss isn't looking. That's not real gaming, or at least it's not gaming like we know it. Sure there was a time when all games were short and had about as much depth as a puddle, but these days that's not the case. A good game can have as deep and meaningful a story as any book (but if you're thinking of Twilight, even Space Invaders has more depth). But i guess it doesn't really matter. The Games industry is redefining itself all the time. I'm sure eventually there'll be more categories than just "hardcore" and "casual" gamers, and they'll probably also be people who just don't give a damn. ah well. As long as people keep producing good games, it's all good. |
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