This generation of gaming has seen some amazing things. Gone are the days of your mom yelling at you because she tripped on your tangled controller wires. Not only is your mom happy that wireless controllers don’t disturb the feng shui of the living room but, chances are, mom, dad, grandpa Bill, and Uncle Jim (who still owes me twenty bucks) are all playing with the latest motion controller. How about graphics? The first time I saw Gears of Wars for the Xbox 360, I hid under the bed and prayed that Locust wouldn’t devour me and my entreals. That’s how “real” graphics have become, my friends. And that was only at the start of the generation. Games like Heavy Rain and God of War have forever changed the definition of graphics. This generation also brought about digital downloads. You beat the game but want to keep playing? BAM! Here is some downloadable content. The sixty dollar game you bought has more bugs than a NYC hotel? BAM! Here is a patch for it. Crying in your sleep because you miss your favorite childhood game? BAM! Download all the FFVII you want, you sick sick pathetic shell of a human. The biggest change, however, didn’t happen in the hardware or software of gaming. The biggest change happened in the gamers.
Maybe it was Microsoft’s engaging online community. Maybe it was Nintendo’s casual-friendly controller. Maybe it was the rise of Facebook. Hell, maybe it was some sort of nasty virtual capitalist orgy between the three, but today we have a social gamer market. Forget the “hardcore” players pulling off no scope head shots and level grinding their youth away. Forget the the “casual” gamer family huddled over a Wii and bowling till their hearts’ content. I’m talking about people playing Bejeweled. I’m talking about Farmville, Bumper Stars, Mafia Wars, Lucky Strike Lanes, Scrabble, and much much more. Social gaming is upon us and it is not going anywhere. Even I, the most baddest and awesomeness gamer in the entire freaking universe (including all parallel universes), went through a Farmville stage. And call me a lame but the only thing more addicting than trying to prestige in COD is getting 300,0000 in Bejeweled in under a minute. I can sleep at night because I know that my guilty pleasures are offset by my manly and all powerful PS3. But what about people who don’t have consoles? My aunt has never touched a video game console controller but she can completely own me in Mahjongg Dimensions on Facebook. My Professor, who doesn’t get the point of Grand Theft Auto, loves playing Bananagrams.
Now I know the idea of social gamers can be scary. Simply put gaming is going (if it already hasn’t) main stream. And we all know what happens when stuff becomes main stream–doom rains from the heavens and people die. But before you and your hd tv hide in a bomb shelter, think about it for a moment, my fellow gamers. Because of this expansion in the industry there are more of us out there than ever before. We don’t have to hide in a dark room while we stuff our face with hotpockets. We can scream loudly and proudly: WE ARE GAMERS. A game is meant to be fun. That’s the only qualification. That’s it! It can be artsy, it can be violent, it can be full of social criticisms or cute pandas, but at the end of the day, all it really has to be is fun. And of course, as we all know, fun is in the eye of the controller holder. So hardcore gamers, don’t hate the casual and social gamers. Casaul gamers, don’t fear or resent the hardcore gamers. Social gamers, don’t you dare think that you are different from other gamers (even if you do have jobs and “exercise”). We are all gamers. Besides, if we don’t end this labeling stuff now, pretty soon we will be calling some gamers “casually hardcore social players” or maybe “social hardcore bicasual players.” Anyway, I’m going to go dungeonn crawl in Persona 3 while I wait for my crops to grow. Don’t judge me. Peace be with you gamers.
Agree or disagree? Let me know.
Super Gamer Cheese 