Gaming as a hobby and as an industry has changed dramatically over the years since its humble beginnings in arcades. It's gone from going incredibly simple, to incredibly complex; from a few levels, to entire worlds and universes and dimensions; it's gone from stupid to stupid, too. This isn't always the fault of the games. While it 9 out of 10 times IS, there's still the fanbase that do just that little bit more to make gaming as a hobby, just that little bit more childish and annoying.
Since its early days, gaming has been seen as something for social-retards, rejects, nerds and geeks, for the computer savvy and the awkward loner with sight problems and unfortunate dermatological issues. In recent years, gaming, especially on Nintendo's Wii, has tried its damndest to bring the regular joes and average schmucks into gaming, which was always seen as the lazy, fat, asshole, frat-boy at a party of beatnicks. It was the big fuckin' elephant in the room.
While Nintendo is easing adults and children alike into a new past-time, it would seem the community of already established gamers aren't quite ready to accept the happy-go-lucky, lose-and-smile generation of players. They, for one reason or another, see these strange, smiling creatures as dangerous and hostile, who, not through direct action will do damage to the industry, but through their need of dumbed-down mechanics and characters, will force every other game to do the same just to accommodate the skill set of a newbie.
This elitism and exclusionist view is made only stronger by pigeonholing every single gamer into categories. Two of them almost anyone has heard of: Casual, and Hardcore Gamers.
I see these two types of gamers as having large numbers of sub-types which really depend on your definition of the above two. So, I'll explain my personal definition of them just to make things clear:
A Casual Gamer, is someone who doesn't want to devote a whole lot of time to gaming. The kind of person that sees video games as a sitcom, where you can just sit down at any show or episode, no matter how far in, and know what's going on, laugh at the jokes, and be able to grasp the concepts quickly.
A Hardcore Gamer is the guy in it for the long run. The kind of person that wants to devote time and energy and be completely absorbed into gaming as a hobby. They don't want every game to be the same. And usually own more than 2 consoles, and vast libraries of games accumulated over their lives as a gamer filled with enjoyment and nostalgia at the sight of each title from their earlier days, excitement and wonder at works from their modern life as a gamer.
Pretty self-explanatory. It'd be great, wonderful, even, if these two very clear distinctions were all that there was. New kids who just wanna pick it up, and kids who grew up with their games, with it as a huge part of their childhood, but no, there's more. So. Much to my chagrin. I'm going to try and point out a few that I've noticed developing over time.
To start with, I'll go over the sub-types of Hardcore Gamer:
First is the "xXakimboHXC UBER HARDCORE GAMERXx!" AKA The Hardercore Gamer:
While the first title there is either only going to make sense to someone who knows the mentality of most 13-year-old gamers, or has ever seen the average Xbox Live Gamertag, the distinction between Hardcore Gamer and Hardcore Gamer is as clear as Birdo's gender. I had to just add 'er' to even be able to make a proper distinction between the two in name. But, here goes.
The Hardercore Gamer is what the Casual Gamer or outsider may think a Hardcore Gamer actually is, and is often used as an exaggerated parody of gamers. Sadly, they do exist outside of comedy. These guys are usually 13-25 year old males with raging testosterone levels and a frat-boy mentality that makes you lose hope for future generations. They will at the drop of a hat call them selves Hardcore Gamers at any chance they get. But, they're anything but. They only play highly competitive and violent games, most notably First Person Shooters like Call of Duty and Halo, as well as Sports games such as Madden or Fifa.
Why are they so different from any other type of gamer? You'll notice Hardercore Gamers are a little colorful in their tone. Okay, let's face it. Their fucking piss-poor examples of humanity and western culture as we know it. Every second word is either a racial slur, homophobic, sexist or otherwise offensive slur that would take the intelligence of a dead, road-kill rodent that's been rotting for 70 years, and is infected with a new disease that has a main symptom: stupid!
Hardercores don't play games for the same reason others do. They don't play for fun. They play to win. And they let you know it every chance they get, whether it be through random insults, boasting, or e-penis measuring contests, they're only playing to make sure everyone knows how great they are. 10 times out of 10 times, they're never the best, and usually make top 4, if even that.
Much unlike a lot of "hardcore gamers" they don't care about pixels or story, they care about graphics and guns. Literally, the first complaint they'll make about a game is "the graphics suck" or "there's not enough guns" or something complaining about one, the other, or a combination of both which usually boils down to "the graphics for the guns aren't good enough. Add breasts and explosions."
They don't care about what your character's been through, or how they develop, they care about how big the explosions are, and how cool the guns are. Yes. It's the same thing over and over. Always about the damn guns and the damn graphics.
While most people just call these guys "xbox live and PSN users" I think it's far more fair to put them into their own little shitty genre of gamer.
The Retro-Loyalist:
Anyone who pays attention to internet comment sections, forums, news, critic videos, or video game-related blogs will always find this person, or little bits of them showing in one form or another.
You know these guys the moment you hear them speak. You know them the moment you see them. How? For the most part (not always, there's quite a few exceptions) they're snarky, obnoxious punks in their late 20s to early 30s, wearing a tri-force t-shirt who tell you that somehow a modern game just can't compare with one from the 80s.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't actually mind these people. They're not bad. They're just kind of annoying. Like Trekkies (or Trekkers depending on who you ask), but not bad people and not that damaging to the industry (sometimes they do a lot to help give little boosts by being so damn narrow minded, much like how they eventually got their much loved retro games ported onto the Wii, those were met with a cash stream and plenty of smiles all round.)
The Retro-Loyalist grew up in the early stages of gaming when there were dozens of home consoles that all pretty much delivered the same shoot-em-ups, side-scrollers, and fighting games of varying quality. Most of them, not all, are completely devoted to Nintendo and its various franchises. There's nothing wrong with getting obsessed about game or movie stuff, I'm guilty of it, but to the point where you'll ignore blatant flaws of the past when comparing past titles to modern titles, is just mind-numbingly annoying and frustrating.
Product loyalty is one thing, but when you tell me that the first Zelda had more story than Fallout 3 could ever have purely because of said loyalty and waves of nostalgia, you're just stepping over a line. I'm not going to discuss Zelda Vs Fallout here, that's an 8,000 page word document for another time. I just can't really wrap my mind around people that just can't look at modern games and old games as two different things that deserve different views and respect given their time and technological capabilities on their respective consoles. As a note: people that just LIKE playing retro games and basking in nostalgia while being self-aware are fine with me. I even encourage it. But just don't take it over the top. The moment you say Simon's Quest is a superior game to any roleplaying game on the xbox purely because of it's nostalgic value to you, then I gotta draw the line and say "you're an asshole. Go away."
The Marathon Man:
Who could resist a movie tie-in sub-type? There's enough game tie-ins, damn it. If I wanna use this awesome movie title as the name of a sub-type, then I'll do as I damn well please. Anyway...
This specific group aren't one that I hate, dislike, like, or loathe to any extent. I'm completely neutral in all respects to them. With a lot of the people that fall into this category I'm just downright impressed they have the patience and mental stamina that I just can't always muster when playing video games.
You've probably heard of this type of person before. They're the archetypal hardcore gamer if there ever was one. These guys spend hours on one level collecting every item, learning every secret, memorizing every combo, taking in absolutely 100% of the game as quickly as possible as they can. They'll sit in a dark room for a straight day and night without sleep or breaks. If they like a game, they -really- like it and take their love to Fan-boy extremes (something I'll touch on in the next sub-type.)
They know everything there is to know. Every cheat. Every hint and tip. They can give you in-depth directions to get to single notable point [no matter how small] all from memory. While, as I said before, I can't help but admire their staggeringly superman levels of patience, mastery of fatigue, and bladder control. In some respects, they are the ultimate bad-asses. They're also usually, you're typical nerdy guy. Not always true, there'll always be exceptions with everything, but really. Just tell me you didn't picture an acne-ridden, over-weight kid huddled over the warm glow of a tv in a dark room. That's just the image this conjures. The media has practically welded the idea into your subconscious. And it's not going anywhere. Even if you're one of these people.
The Fan-boy:
I just wanna say now, there's nothing wrong with being a fan-boy or fan-girl. Even the term I'm using above is just a relatively familiar term that best captures the type of person I'm trying to describe. Not using the term "fan-boy" and then going into this section would be like trying to describe Keanu Reeve's acting without using the terms "wooden" or "surfer."
Basically, the Fan-Boy isn't really fan-boys as we all know them. They're the ultra-extreme-blu-ray-edition. They're the image that usually springs to mind when negatively viewing the term fan-boy. Try to picture every obsessive Star Trek fan, or every obsessive Star Wars fan, they don't even come close to the level of nerdy and annoying that the Fan-Boy brings to gaming.
This was, as far as my own gaming history knowledge goes (it's nowhere near as completey as say the Angry Video Game Nerd's or MovieBob's, largely because I haven't existed as long as they have), something that sprung up around the advent of console wars. When companies that owned gaming consoles were are corporate warfare with one another to sell consoles and ship games faster than the other. Of course, that was just regular corporate business, so why the special title? The answer is Fan-Boys. They always blow console wars out of proportion like how Fox News blows everything out of proportion. The console war was their holy war, and they were making damn sure that their holy prophet was better represented than the other guy's.
What emerges is nothing but a bunch of loyal fans who will get Feminist-angry if you even so much as look at a title from the console that they hate, which is every other console than the one they own. These guys are loyalists through and through. They own one kind of console from one company and will never deviate, only going onto hand-held editions as any way of diversifying [which are made by their holy-mecca-mother-of-god-company.] These companies are, at least now, only a triad of gaming giants: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
The most recent console war began when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo had their 7th generation consoles
(PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii respectively) out on the market. Believe me, there's never been so much nerd-rage over any other topic, not even the debate over whether or not George Lucas is an evil bastard who only wants to sell toys.
A fanboy to each console will swear to the death that their console is the best. Often, they'll use poorly represented sales figures to show that their console sells the best. Even simple console errors such as the Yellow Light of Death and Red Ring of Death are brought up non-stop. No one ever sits down, sees the flaws, but ignores them because they just really like the console. There's nothing wrong with respect for your enemies. Without competition, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would quickly grow stale. That's just how it is. There'd be no room for innovation, because there'd be no need for it. Just a monopoly over a market and a guarantee that the titles will sell.
Fan-boys will spend countless days on forums, comment sections and blogs typing in ALLCAPS and spouting as much internet hate as Hardcorers. They do it all while ignoring everything that states the contrary to their idiotic claims, and collect everything only barely related to their "beloved" franchises and companies. If you honestly can't look at other consoles and see their pros and cons over your console, then you need to wake up and stop being such a child. There's always going to be bigger and better things. This is 2011, we're at a peak of technological capability where living beyond what we ever thought possible, and doing things we never thought possible are now common place, where innovations are made every day, where machines can do almost anything you need, and where everyone can sit down and find a good game, while having an open and easy-to-access resource like the internet to find a vast realm of reviews and opinions that you couldn't really get in the past. So just chill out, be humble, and play some games. Learn humility.
Now for something a little less negative. Just a little. There's only three types here, because casuals are really summed up like this: they're not as extreme as hardcore gamers. That's as simple as it gets. Don't believe me? Read on.
The Family Man:
I know, I know! It's another movie title. But I really like movies, okay? Moving on...
The Family Man is not Nicholas Cage, it's the Dad, Mom, confused Grandparent or quirky Aunt that's only every experienced of video games what Nintendo has always done best: fun, "party games."
They don't know anything about games. They can't tell the different between an Xbox and a SNES, they don't know that Zelda isn't Link's name, and the only real memories they have of games are the old 8-bit wonders of the past. Beyond those distant childhood years, they have no fucking clue when it comes to games. They're picking up a Wii-mote with the same smile and happy trepidation that drunk girls have when they're about to go on a mechanical bull, or have one of those weird Anne Summers dildo parties that you hear about. They're not doing for the enjoyment of the activity itself, but the for joy and fun received from a group experience of said activity. The kind of time you have enjoying a 1-player game, is on another level from the joy you get in party games with friends. It's just a different type of fun, with different variables. With the latter, you have banter, jokes, a good atmosphere, and friends and family joining in on the fun.
The Family Man is just this person. They don't care how Wii Bowling works, they just know that they have fun doing it in a group of familiar people that they can have a good time with [even I thought twice about writing that line.]
Alex the Kidd:
Easily the most understandable Casual there is. They're children. Fundamentally stupid, fascinated by colors, and they don't give two shits about character development or the incredible luck behind the Sony Playstation 1. Kids are just in it for the ride and you gotta love 'em for that. No other group of people but kids are playing games, reading books, or watching movies and t.v. purely for the sake of doing it, for fun, not for content. They don't care about Bowser's motives, they don't care about why Hello Kitty is on a god-damn desert island, all they know is that this stuff is fun, and that's all they wanna know.
Probably the scariest market there is in the gaming world, too. While kids are, for the most part, pretty predictable in their tastes, they are going to be the future generation of gamers who will eventually shape the market through product demand. They will either consistently complain as they get older that games are too easy or dumbed down [a topic for another day], or they'll never care to try anything challenging because they've been raised on a generation of easy-as-hell games.
I'll admit, that making them easy makes them accessible. Which is always good. You want to introduce kids early if you want them to remember gaming as a positive shaping of their character [again, this is something I could talk about for hours, the moral dilemmas games put people through is enough to make a case about games being role-models], or as a simple hobby that will remain a static blur of memories. The problem is, game's right now aren't made in increments of difficulty. You don't even see trademark Nintendo-hard games which is a special nick-name of the difficulty found in old Nintendo games. See, they were often quite short because of technical limitations. So, to combat this, they were made as hard as punching a mountain lion out cold in one hit. These days, you don't get games that slowly ease Kid gamers into higher difficulties. You either have kid games [easy] or adult games [harder] but no middle ground. Sure, you could always give them a Ninja Gaiden game. But I wouldn't recommend that. I'm not a sadist after all.
Ultimately, Alex the Kidd is just that: a kid. I can't have an opinion about these guys as kids are changing all the time, literally. Time will tell if this generation of casuals are worth getting angry about, or worth staying neutral about. Who knows. Maybe I'll even grow to like them.... [Pfft! Yeah, right!]
Mr. Casual-as-coke:
Casual Coke's as I'm going to call 'em from now on, are the archetypal Casual Gamer. They're just there for one thing: to play games as a hobby. They're not obsessing over what Nintendo's next marketing strategy is, or what generation consoles fall into, they just wanna play games and only want to remember the good parts of it. Sure, they'll have favorite characters, but they won't remember 10-button combos. They have favorite games, but they won't be ferociously loyal. They're just the god damn middle ground. The ultimate bland-asses. They don't go either way, to any extreme. They're... They're just neutral. But they're hardcore neutral. They're as neutral as it gets.
I can't say much about them, much like I didn't really say much above (I just went on about various topics related to what I was talking about), because there isn't much to say. You can sum them up in just two words: "Regular People." That's it. They're just the general masses that don't really fall into any archetypes of gamers. They're that imaginary well of infinite money that all the companies are so obsessed with hooking to their console. And, well. Like them or hate them. They're never leaving. Never have. Never will. Just a cold hard fact.
Sorry "hardcore gamers." But that's just how it is.
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