Gaming Divisions
by Samuel
No matter which platform is your particular poison, you'll always be wrong somewhere. It's gamer law.
Games traditionally have been divided along clear lines into separate genres, each one with its own sub-types and core demographic of fans. There are the role-playing games and strategy titles that are identified with bespectacled nerds who don’t like to come out into direct sunlight; the first-person shooters who attract the… well, shall we say less cerebral players; sports games for sporting fans who, when it comes down to it, are unlikely to actually engage in sports themselves; driving games for gamers with a need for speed and a passion for cars their wallet would never be able to afford in the real world; the flight simulators for the flying buffs and wannabe pilots; fighting games for the ultra competitive; platformers which went from being a serious challenge to slowly being seen more the province of younger gamers over time, and so on and so forth.
Of course this is broadly generalising. I’ve played all of those kinds of games, and others, and most gamers don’t stick to just one or two kinds of game. Despite that, we all still see ourselves in a certain light. Were I to be asked, I would say I was a strategy and RPG gamer, over any other group of gamer.
It doesn’t end there, either. There are the rivalries between PC gamers and console gamers who, in turn, sub-divide themselves into various camps depending on which console manufacturer is their preference. I had rather hoped that it would stop when SEGA stopped making consoles (disappointed as I was to see the Dreamcast fail), as during the late eighties and most of the nineties the main fighting was between supporters of SEGA and Nintendo. Instead first fans of Sony’s Playstation, and then later on Xbox owners, joined in and made things arguably an even bigger pissing contest than it had been before.
With the Mass Effect series blending the RPG and FPS genres and Borderlands acting as yet another hybrid, the lines are becoming blurred
But times are changing. There are very few games that are being developed in recent years that don’t blur the line between two or more genres. Most shooting games have been adding RPG elements in terms of story and player progression and, with the success of Mass Effect 2, it can’t be long now before more RPGs are starting to include some serious gunplay. Role-playing and turn-based strategy have been mixing it up for quite some time now, thanks to the likes of Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics and most recently Disgaea. But now real-time strategy is getting in on the same act, with Dawn of War (perhaps unsurprisingly, considered the source material) seeming to lead that particular charge, and forcing other RTS franchises to follow in its wake just to keep up. Since the advent of 3D graphics, it can be difficult at times to see where the line lies between platformers and action adventure games. Even the humble and usually very traditional puzzle genre was given a good shake up by Portal, which had elements of first person shooter and platformer in the mix. One of the most recent games releases, multi-platform Darksiders, ticks so many boxes from so many other kinds of games, and does it so well that it seems unfair to call it derivative or unfocused, that I’m not really sure what to think of it. And most recently of all, it seems that nobody can decide what to call Fable III, the up-coming sequel to RPGs Fable and Fable II, but which doesn’t seem to be itself an RPG. The debate on the GamingLives forum is about the most active topic on the boards as I’m writing this.
As well as genres getting more diffused, more gamers own more than just one console. The same people who had to choose between the Megadrive and SNES at the start of the nineties are now old enough to buy their own consoles, and not obliged by parental restrictions to just have one (unless their parental restriction these days is having to spend all their money on a child of their own). You can’t help but shake your head in despair when it transpires that the same moron who has been bashing the Xbox 360 in favour of the PS3 also owns Microsoft’s console, and still plays on it despite spending all his time on forums seemingly hell bent on besmirching its reputation. And of course the same applies to people making the countering argument.
When all is said and done, it might be time that these arguments between various kinds of gamers were put a stop to and done away with. For someone as famously argumentative as me to come to this conclusion, it only shows how pointless and petty the entire thing has become. At the end of the day I am a gamer; I play games of all kinds, on PC and various consoles, and what matters to me most is whether the game I’m playing is fun and worth my time, irrespective of other considerations. Just don’t hold that statement against me the next time we have a debate on the forums.
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Agreed. I do get snorts of derision now and again from people who can’t understand how anyone that calls themselves a “gamer” doesn’t play Call Of Duty or Halo, or even Half Life or Mass Effect for that matter. We play what we play, and we can’t really expect others to like something just because we like it ourselves. Take “Flick Fishing” on the iPod Touch… I adore that little game, but I’d never dream of trying to convince others that it’s worth their time or money… yet people try it with me all the time when it comes to the big ticket games.
I played Halo and thought it was pants. I played Mass Effect and thought it was too linear, although I DO plan on giving it another shot as soon as I can. I’ve never had an interest in Half Life or even the Resi series… but it doesn’t make me any less of a gamer. I’ve put in more than 280 hours with Fallout 3 and almost 260 with Oblivion (on each of the three times I’ve completed it) and have been known to sit and play Burnout Paradise for twelve hours straight because every time I went to stop playing… someone else appeared online wanting a game.
I’m starting to even divide my own allegiances though, with my gaming straying towards the PC away from the XBox thanks to badly compressed graphics and reduced clarity on the console. That, and I spent six or seven times as much on my PC gaming rig than I did on the XBox so I want my money’s worth.
Either way, if I have to wear this “gamer” label… other gamers should accept it rather than dissecting it and trying to slag me off for not having jizzed all over the latest Tom Clancy. Nuff said!
I’ll admit to getting a little over enthusiastic about telling everyone how awesome Mass Effect is, but I don’t do Halo games (Halo Wars was an exception, being RTS, and one I kind of regret now), and I just don’t care about Call of Duty that much. It has caused friction with people who don’t see how any gamer can not like those series.
What annoys me more than anything though is the constant “which is better? Xbox, Wii, or PS3?” argument. Before it was Xbox, Gamecube and PS2. Before that it was Dreamcast, N64 and PS1. And before that it was Megadrive and SNES (the one thing everyone agreed on was how much the Saturn sucked). It never ends, and it gets on your tits. Each console has something to recommend it, things it does better and things it does worse, or exclusive games that you want to play or you don’t. I still find myself arguing with people though, as much as I’d rather not have to bother.
That caption on the first image perfectly sums up what I was aiming for when I wrote this.
Thanks for the compliment on the captioning… it’s pretty much what I got from it before publishing it, so I thought it apt. I have to admit to being quite excited at the thought of the Two Worlds II multiplayer using proper RTS features… it’s not the sort of hybrid I would ever have considered, RPG meets RTS, put the thought of it certainly pumps my ‘nads considerably. I can see me playing that quite a lot, assuming I can find others to play with although I admit that I’ve never tried the multiplayer option of the first game.
I have my preferences with consoles, and likely always will. I’ve always been a PC gamer until I first laid eyes on the original XBox and it blew me away – the frame rates, the shading, the lack of screen tearing… I wanted one immediately, but waited a couple of years before ending up with one. The argument could also be that the XBox really IS a PC, which I wouldn’t bother debating too much, but it doesn’t have the power potential and that’s why it’ll always just be a console. The PS3 looks great under the Samsung telly though, all black and shiny. I may power it up one day to see what colour of lights it has, then shut it off again if it doesn’t match the decor
Preachur, I don fink ther is anyfing rong wiff peeple that play COD.
Its a pretty snobbish comment (the first-person shooters who attract the… well, shall we say less cerebral players)
Games are games…whether they are role play or first person shooters.
A dumplin’ can play a game like Ass Creed 2 or Fallout 3 just as well as you inteligent gamers.
Arse…..
Its a well known fact that the Occipital part of the brain that controls gameplay with the Temporal lobe that decides if your clever enough to buy a game online, or allow you to purchase a bus ticket to get you to the Game shop for the latest new release.
Being a tadger that likes to play COD, I think I will have enrol on an Undergraduate Degree course that will allow me to play Halo Wars. fssstttt……
Well well well… my awesome mate Willie finally decides to write something eh? Good to have you here sir, even if you have taken your sweet time over it!! None of this “too busy” crap either, you’re a retired fireman now… not a fireman!
PS… I’ll have your arse at Fallout 3 anytime – headshots all the way ya bass!
@Young Bill – I tried to think of a reasoned, educated, rational response. All I came up with was a loud “FFRRRRRT!” though. Sorry, it’ll just have to do, heh.
@MarkuzR – You’re welcome.
Arguments and fanboyism have extended even farther back when you consider the bickering over the Spectrum vs C64 vs Oric nonsense. It has always been there and always will be…it is human nature. The ‘mine’s bigger/better than yours debate’ bubbles over with everything, from cars, cocks, consoles, houses, horses, to spouses, children, pets etc etc. Whenever there is more than one choice to be made, there will always be this conflict…just that some idiots take it to an alarmingly vitriolic level, displaying shocking immaturity in the process.
Labelling is always a difficult thing because, again, as with most things in life, few things sit neatly beneath their label…there are always variables and exceptions, hybrids, and things which don’t quite meet neat qualifying criteria. I suppose it is why they are essentially useless and at worst, harmful and restrictive, not least in how people are treated and perceived. Ray Bradbury’s short story ‘The Referent’ springs to mind. Games are no different, at least for me.