we believed the same things. you stand to the side. rebirth ofhardcore pride. it all came true, too badyou can't see all the good things that i see. hi i'm brian, and welcome to another episodeof the game anthropologist. having a busy daily life leaves me littletime to play games nowadays. but when i do, i get completely absorbed inthem. my motto is to go big or go home.
so here i sit in front of my screen, witha 2 liter bottle of soda and my mixed bag of awesome snacks ready to get enveloped. but being here brings me to something i'vewanted to discuss for a long time now. something that seems to cut right into theheart of gaming culture. the rigid dichotomy between so called hardcoregamers and casual gamers. as gamers, we've all come to the believe thatthere is a definite split within gamer culture between those who classify themselves as moreinto the hobby we all hold dear. it's an exhaustive practice for gamers youngand old to proclaim on their outlet of choice as to who is truly a worthy gamer.
and it's also becoming more difficult to ignorethe gaming industry's latest trend of a more laid-back fare when it comes to new game releasesand the hardware that accompanies them. in fact, these gaming trends are so rampantthat it is causing an even greater factionization amongst gamers; where even the slightest capitulationinto either realm causes an automatic backlash from either side. it tends to leave a sour taste in the mouthof those outside the gaming community at large and serves only to forward the detractorsof gaming culture. so i feel the time is right to finally confrontthis notion of a divide between the truly dedicated and the slightly interested in theend all be all battle i'm calling hardcore
vs. casual: a neverending argument of idiocy. now, i wouldn't dare say to you that the titlewould be acceptable in the apa style that i'm so accustomed to, and it is tipping myhand to my personal opinion on the subject, but i felt i should lay my feelings on thismatter right away for you. it's refreshing to be as honest as possiblewith this. i've seen many tackle this subject from timeto time trying to be objective, but having their own opinions blind their observations. it's not wrong to have an opinion on this,as you'll soon see. it's just best to be up front with it.
so for this episode, we (as in the royal wemind you) will explore the very core of this debate and try to find a deeper understandingof where we as gamers are coming from on this. this exploration will take us to gamers ofall stripes, in an effort to find out what is hardcore and what is casual. we'll discuss the possible reasons for gamersto have such labels. we'll look at what the impact this so calledwar between the gamers has done to the culture as a whole, and we'll see if we can finallyhave a satisfying conclusion to all of this, for we have to understand what the realityactually is. so strap yourselves in cuz this one is goingto be a doozie.
but in order for us to come to a greater understandingof this conflict, we must go back and start at the beginning. (pause) oh man, did i just quote bores there. um... i didn't mean to phrase it like... (cut totitle card: too late! they saw it.) i won't bore you with the finer points atthe beginning of video games. i'll just make the vague ass of you and myselfin believing you know the story. the heady days of ralph baer and nolan bushnell,along with the multiple consoles with "vision"
in the title. the coin-ops, the cabinets, the more advanced"candy cabinets"... you get the idea. it's old hat to discuss the history of games. so let's go beyond the games themselves, andtalk who was actually playing them. pong's a good place to start obviously. it's humble beginnings were in the local barscene of central california and the pioneers of gaming - the very epicenter of where theidea of a gamer started -- were guys slinging back some pabst blue ribbon and looking topass the time. so yeah, video games were as relevant as adecent pinball machine.
but the dye had been cast and the gamer - forlack of a better term - had been born. these gamers were a model of the simplicityof the games that they played. but as the technology improved, the gamergrew in complexity. this is where the emergence of the hardcoregamer began to rear its ugly head. it was subtle at first. it usually took the form of the guy or galthe hung around a wee bit too long on one machine, morphing slowly into the ones whoplaced the quarters or tokens onto the cabinet to signal "next game", and eventually to unpleasantbravado that came from the "very best" players who shunned up and comers away.
but something else was occurring during thisgamer ascendency; the rise of the home console gamer. the aforementioned early consoles providedan adequate substitute for the arcade gamer in its similar complexity and re-playability. gamers were primarily of a younger age, asreflective of the simplicity of the games they represented. however, as with arcade gamers, the home consolegamers also began to evolve quite a bit. the technology improved with each new generation,especially with the renaissance of pc gaming, eventually propelling the home market pastarcades completely.
gamers were constantly trying to catch upto each new innovation or maxing out the capabilities of their cpu's to accommodate the latest games. cut to today where the gaming landscape isnow vast, with gamers - while differing in ages, sexes, and preferences - all representedthe juggernaut of wealth and entertainment that gaming has become today. now again i have to stress that much of whati just stated is not scientific in nature. much of it is based upon observation and personalexperience. it's a hard task to see a new culture havelife breathed into it for the first time. anthropology is not really based on biology,insomuch as the process begins in a primordial
ooze and you see what materializes. it's based on a lot of observation; noticingtrends, traits, social norms, and the like. gaming culture also has these variables thatcan be viewed and analyzed. which is where this episode of the clash betweenhardcore vs casual gamers truly begins. i'm sure a lot of you already have a generalidea from your own observations about what makes someone a hardcore or casual gamer. so let's break it down to the very basics. let's start with the most obvious and themost easily befitting one: the length of time playing.
statistics are all over the place on the averagetime gamers actually game. most come from informal surveys and oftenhave mixed agendas on the subject. but a few consistencies present themselvesamongst the data. the hardcore gamer - in terms of length ofgameplay - is labeled to someone who games for from 15 to around 40 or more hours a week. this pretty wide gauge seems to be set fora comparison to an average work week for a part time or full time work. except in this case the "work" is replacedby long gaming sessions. it's safe for people to assume that someonewho plays games for those lengths would have
a very vested interest. and thus someone who games for less than thatfalls into the casual fold of gamers. but that might be getting a little too carriedaway with the concept of what is a hardcore or casual gamer. you play a lot of games, you are thereforea hardcore gamer. it's pretty standard. you substitute gaming with reading, moviewatching, weightlifting, you get the same common observation; a hardcore subset of thatculture. but the truth must lie a little farther downthen that just simple play length.
so we can move from this for a bit on to amore substantive aspect of this "debate"; the types of games played. this is also an aspect of the debate thatcan be over-stressed. it's a simple practice to make easy connectionsbetween what gamers play and where their overall place in gaming culture lies. in psychology, this is called a heuristic;using experience and learning to come to a satisfactory conclusion. in fact, this whole hardcore/casual notioncould caused by one large heuristic method of thinking amongst gamers.
a concrete notion that gamers who play thegears of war series are hardcore, and those that play games like bejeweled are casual;and nary the tween shall meet. the influx of these easy to make flash gamesand the advent of motion control have drawn a clear distinction between the gaming pointsof view. there is also the supposition that those ofa certain age group - mainly those who fall on both sides of the 18-34 demographic - couldnever fit inside the hardcore sphere since games are tailored to their needs alone. basing all of your understanding of what itmeans to be a hardcore/casual gamer on the games they play seems to be another easy wayto understand.
but there is one final aspect to consider:gaming knowledge & nostalgia. all the time in the world playing games thatmake heads explode - literally - mean nothing if you don't know why that head exploded. or... well, maybe not exactly that. but a knowledge of gaming is key into theconsideration. hardcore gamers stake their claims to havingknowledge that exceeds those of the so called casual spectrum. they know the "in & outs", the history, howto actually play the damn game appropriately. more appropriately, it specifically refersto involvement with games.
being ahead of the curve with the each generation,opining the old days of the gaming media they love and have a contrarian attitude to theadvances of modern gaming. and there you go. it really comes down to length of time playing,the types of games played, gaming knowledge... then you know when you're a hardcore or casualgamer. of course... that's not the whole story. it's never, ever that simple. these three aspects do indeed dictate howpeople view these types of gamers, that much is certain.
it's just how do we apply these aspects togamers and ourselves. let's explore it a little deeper. hardcore gamers play lots and lots of games. yeah, seems right. they play these games for great lengths oftime. and not just games, hardcore games. games meant to test your mettle and dexterity. sure. problem is that those defined as casual gamersdo this as well.
according to recent study by lightspeed researchof those who use social networking sites, 58% of those surveyed claimed to have playeda social networking game of some kind. of those, 29% play the games daily with another24% playing several times a day. it breaks down even further with 24% playingup to two hours a day and 10% playing two hours or more. but the most stunning number from this studyis 17%; the respondents who feel they are "addicted" to playing these games. addicted eh? i did mention in a previous episode that thereis some grumbling within the mental health
community about the impact that the lengthof time gaming might have on the psyche of the gamer. though the mental health community seemedto focus on the more "hardcore" games as opposed to these simple "casual" games. but why gloss over them? these so described casual games offer theperfect rebuttal for every hardcore argument. the main arguments for what is a hardcore/casualgamer really comes down to gaming aptitude. if you look at the length of time argument,you would know that this is a poor gauge for gaming aptitude.
the average age of a gamer is 34 years oldand they have generally been playing games for 12 years. so they know games, but lack the sufficienttime to play the games due to the commitments of a job, family, or other concerns to beconsidered a hardcore gamer. casual games are generally an easy pick up& play option that offer a great amount of gameplay in short bursts that can perfectlyaccommodate those who don't have the time they used to have to play games. plus they reverse the notion that only a certaintype of game fits with a certain type of gamer. most of the debate comes from the transitionthat gaming seems to be going through right
now. for right now the major companies have seenthe fruits of the motion controls of the wii and followed up with their own iterations. this has caused the lines in the gaming communityto be clearly drawn and for self-described hard core gamers to exclaim the death of gameadvancement. the hardcore side felt that those who pickedup on these new motion control do dads were denigrating the advances of the past. but these are also the same types of gamersthat have opined for the simpler form of gaming; picking up and play, easy game saves, easycontrols, actual gameplay over long cinematics.
these motion control games offer all of this. each game system that advanced always hadsomething more intricate to it. though graphics were the obvious ones, thecontrol scheme is the prime example. one button, two buttons, seven buttons, analogstick; it set people at odds for something easy to pick up on to something you neededto invest a great amount of time. more complicated control scheme led to morecomplicated gameplay; more complicated gameplay led to a drop off in gamers. as stated earlier, gamers evolved, but notall gamers. some were left behind.
so game makers saw a need to reinvigoratethe gamer population and continued to expand handheld systems to keep a steady flow ofgamers, and came up with a motion control solution to the more advanced consoles. and what about the rise of the rhythm gamesas of late? ddr, guitar hero, dj hero, rock band... allof them are easy to pick up and play. hell, they are all glorified color coatedsimon games. but you can't deny those who have dedicateda good chunk of their time trying to complete the most complicated color coated combinationson expert. i have seen some claim that those types ofgames show a so called "bridge" between the
casual and hardcore gamers. however i think if you look at it more critically,it exemplifies that the types of game a particular gamer do not make. if you fall into that 34 year old, 12 yearaverage demographic i mentioned then you had to have played games with only a two buttoninterface with simplistic graphics and linear gameplay. and you had the time to play those games becauseyou had fewer responsibilities (i.e. school, chores, etc.) we all have to start this long and gloriousroad of gaming somewhere.
so criticizing the simplicity of some currentgeneration hardware seems to be... hypocritical. but what about gamer knowledge? nostalgia can cloud our judgement and causeus to harken back to a more "primitive" time in gaming. the old control schemes, gameplay, etc. the hardcore gamer beating his chest and statingthat those today don't realize what they are missing from the past, and especially theknowledge of the history of games. it's true that you can be a "better" gamerby knowing the old ways and the history, but
that doesn't make you any better than anyother gamer. it can be counterproductive to the entireculture. basically the notion goes; trying to be thebest gamer doesn't always bring out the "best" in gamers. so why do we constantly try to label gamersthis way? the great literary mind of christopher hitchensis fond of saying that as humans, we are all pattern seeking animals who would take a bogustheory over no theory at all. and this is very true with respect to videogame culture. we as gamers seek to easily label fellow gamersmainly out of a sense of expediency that most
cultures have been doing since the beginning. skipping the layers of complexity that thehuman condition offers. this is seen in many other types of cultures. there is always a self described hardcoreelement found within. i mentioned weightlifting earlier. even an outsider like myself can attest thatthey are those who are little more into than others. but let's find something a little more similarto gaming culture. cinema culture seems to be one the obviousones.
you have those within that culture who claimto watch more movies, have a deeper knowledge of the vast history of cinema, and watch awide variety of avant-garde and aaa features, while also looking down with patronizing eyesat so called "popcorn" flicks. using the three factors i've presented tolabel gamers, you see a pattern that is often seen in many other cultures from sports, toart, to music, and literature. i've even seen this pattern in the wonderfulworld of crossword puzzles. this interesting culture of puzzles was displayedbrilliantly in the 2006 movie wordplay. so you have everything from movies, to triviagames, crossword puzzles, and even sudoku. a pear...?
as you can tell, gaming culture is not alonein identifying a hardcore and casual element within their respective cultures. and often they use the three-pronged patterni alluded to. now let's go into the technical facets ofwhy we as gamers label. there is the factor known as enculturation. this is a key concept that drives the studyof anthropology, and is usually combined with aspects of socialization. it details the process by which a person learnsthe requirements of the culture by which they are surrounded.
those involved in the culture acquire thevalues and behaviors that seem appropriate and necessary in that culture. it seems very fitting for gaming culture atlarge. fitting in the sense that gamers aspire tobe the type of gamer they believe they should be from their own observations. they collect what they perceive to be theabsolute need of gaming culture in order to best assimilate. what seems appropriate for some can be a fulldedication to and by going above and beyond the craft, thus tilting towards a perceivedhardcore slant, and others may deem it necessary
to absorb just enough knowledge of gamingculture to tilt towards the casual slant. but that still leaves those in the middle. so what of them? there is also the factor of enculturation. and necessary in that society. you remember this guy i showed you earlier? well, he's howard s. becker, renowned sociologistwho came up with a refined version of what is known as the labeling theory. this theory describes how self-identity andbehavior of an individual is influenced - or
even created - by how that individual is categorizedand described by others. culture involves many attitudes and behaviorcharacteristics along with the ideas of a people. ideas that can influence a gamer's identityto push their love of games to limit and begin to identify others of the varying degreesof their own involvement in the culture. becker opened up a deeper understanding ofwhy labeling occurs in a social construct, and involves the nature of deviance. now i know that you associate "deviance" with...acts that reside in your own mind, but deviance in this sense deals with that acts withina culture.
becker laid it deviance as "a consequenceof the application by others of rules and sanctions to an "offender." that "social groups create deviance by makingrules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those roles to particular peopleand labeling them as outsiders." gaming culture - along with many others - hasthese informal rules and social norms known as "folkways." they are the types of habits that are fornewcomers to accommodate to, but are strictly enforced. usually any violation involves a warning orsome kind of admonishment.
becker expounds that those who do not followalong with these folkways are deemed as deviant in that cultural structure. somewhere in the culture of gaming, it becamean acceptable practice for someone to be hardcore. using the becker's method, we can postulatethat this started out as a deviance for that culture, as the folkways were mainly justplaying the games and passing the time. but though the label was meant to condemn,it instead reenforced the "deviant" behavior of the individual and was used to justifythe hardcore gamer's actions. now it seems that the acceptable folkwaysof gaming have tilted towards a more hardcore outlook, and the casual gamer now manifestsas the deviance.
i won't be able to give dr. becker's studiesand conclusions any true justice concerning the topic of labeling and deviance in thisshort section, as i only touched on his theories to lend understanding to the nature of gaming'shardcore/casual debate. so i implore you to check out the informationon your own, especially his landmark book outsiders that details the subject in full. as far as the overall reason for labeling,there is no concrete answer. though it's a widely believed there is a modernprohibition against lazy stereotyping, it's also widely known that it still know it exists. gamers will easily label each other out oflaziness just as anyone outside would do.
it can't be stated enough that there are forcesfrom without and within that try to label us as either casual or hardcore. the "within" has many more nuances and advancedsociological and anthropological factors to consider. the "without" is easier to understand. fear of the other is a concept that's as oldas society itself. it's present in the modern xenophobic notionsof the most ardent believer to the most isolated tribal community. and it is definitely a factor from outsiderslooking in to gaming culture.
from the self-proclaimed champions of children'swelfare to the aptly described "no fun squad", there are always those looking at gamer culturewho exhibit the traits found in "fear of the other"; suspicion, distrust, misrepresentation,and a good dose of labeling. and these outside forces can have an impacton the gamers. we're talking associative learning, operantconditioning; think pavlov or b.f. skinner; associating violent video games and poor gamingbehavior with a hardcore element and allowing a positive reinforcement in the form of praise- within reason - of the burgeoning "casual" games and those who play them. again it's not a glimmering link as to whythese labels of hardcore and casual exist,
but it is something for you to consider thenext time you hear about the next outrage du jour over a "hardcore" gamer interspersedbetween fluff articles of the current crop of "casual" games. fear of the other allows those on the outsidelooking in to point a finger at the apparent "dysfunction" of the hardcore gamer, usingthe factors i presented earlier as fodder for their hyperbolic claims. and also to prop up the so described casualgamer as a viable alternative. but in the end, these outside forces reallydon't drive the debate as much as the gamers themselves.
there is always going to be a tension betweena culture such as gaming and the global cultures at large. it's the nature of things. it doesn't require either side to give aninch, but it does require a little bit of consideration and a little bit of understandingin order for all to truly thrive. there's something else to consider. unrealized or not, there has definitely beenan impact from this hardcore/casual confrontation and man it ain't pretty. time to dive in the muck and the madness.
cultural hierarchy was one of my propositionsto help explain why gamers get angry at games, though that was more of a running theory thanactual proven fact. however there is something to it in this case. self proclaimed hardcore gamers have takentheir place in gaming culture's hierarchy in terms of the "haves" and have designatedthe so described casual gamers as the "have nots." the latter mean that "have not" the gamingknowledge, the time, and the proper games. it could also have a physical applicationas the early days of gaming involved the hardcore element owning the most gaming - be it consoles,games, or accessories - and leaving all the
others in the dust. that was the effect that the filmmakers weretrying to convey with lucas from the wizard and is mere possession of the power glove,though obviously that argument of having more swag - or crap in this case - is negligibleat best. there was indeed a good amount of jealouslyto be found amongst the kiddies that had more than one console at their house, or even thisthing. it sets up a easy scenario based upon thenotion of the rich vs. the poor, which is indeed a hierarchal structure, but a littleto broad of a structure to scrutinize for just gamers.
it's a good place to start though, addingto the pretension that home console gamers were beginning to exude. this pretension only got worse in the digitalage. a steady crop of sites and forums dedicatedto retro gaming sprung up out of a desire for nostalgia. but what began with the best intentions toremember the old ways of gaming soon devolved into a litmus test for those with the greatestgaming knowledge, and leaving others not even with the ability to question the past withoutgetting slapped down. not to mention the more marquee websites outthere that have unfortunately allowed a framework
for degradation of gamers that do not followthe "accepted" paradigm set forth. it's not true for all of these sites mindyou. there are plenty of great sites out therethat don't worry about who is hardcore or casual and other petty arguments. the point is that you no longer have to travelto another's house to encounter such affectation; it could now be ported right to your own homethrough the wonders of internet, and in the realm online gaming. again i've mentioned this before. people screaming in your ear about you suckingbecause they've dedicated the time to the
game, know the in's and outs, lolfag, etc.etc. it is important to remember this in the overallquandary of the hardcore/casual debate. it is usually generated from gamers consideringthemselves hardcore and not being very circumspect with their statements. in my travels i have heard many scream aboutgamers they perceive as not hacking it to go back to games that are "more their style"- in other words - casual and not worthy of attention or respect. it's comical and somewhat easy to ignore,much like the slings and arrows faced by the hardcore elements found on online forums.
mentioning it leads me to what i think mightbe the most pernicious influences from the hardcore/casual debate; the treatment of femalegamers. let's face it; female gamers are most certainlyoutnumbered by their male brethren to varying degrees depending on what statistics you follow. and unfortunately that disparity has led tothe conventional wisdom being that "girls do not play video games." or if they do, they fall on the spectrum ofeither a pathetic girl with no life or a sexy girl with no brains. either way, they are perceived to be casualgamers and nothing more.
unfortunate slander to be sure, and probablynot helped by the online videos of scantily clad girls forcing themselves to play gamesfor the amusement of a few. this conventional wisdom is a amusing misnomerfor all female gamers if you really think about. from my own experience, i know many girl gamersthat have played the most self described hardcore games with varying degrees of excellence. it's a moronic statement that female gamersonly pine for games about "girly" things or are posers pretending to be into the morehardcore fare. and here's where it gets reaaaaaally not funny.
i came upon a great website entitled fat,ugly, or slutty.com. the name is derived from the notion that ifyou are female and you game, you are either fat, ugly, or slutty. great in a sense that it really opened myeyes to where this hardcore/casual debate has officially gone over the edge. three female gamers were fed up with the abusethey received in various online forums and created a compendium of said insults - andeven outright threats - that they and other female gamers receive on a daily basis. if you have the patience, i implore you togo through this site with very open eyes and
understand why this nonsense has to stop. this really stuck in my crawl. it's beyond overstatement to say how deplorablesome gamers can be, and it seems to be a pervasive sentiment entrenched in gaming culture. that hardcore is the way to go and casualis an unwelcome usurper that should be threatened and lambasted back to obscurity. and if you observe it closely, you see thatthe real villain in this saga might not be the gamers themselves, but more likely theones who in charge making the games themselves. gaming companies have spent a great deal oftime and money in making gamers want games.
they have strived to push the demographicsof gaming even further by introducing these new game innovations. and for the most part, they have succeeded. but these same companies have also exacerbatedthe supposed hardcore/casual divide. you see this especially in the marketing oftheir products over the last 15 years, which corresponds with the early generations comingof age. there was certainly a gradual progressionto more hardcore ads for games and consoles as time went by, making it clear that eachgeneration had to be more mature than the rest.
and they - whether they meant to or not - createda divide. a divide that they marketed with gusto. remember associate learning & conditioning? advertisements are made to influence people,subtly or overtly. they influenced the early adopters and a newgeneration of gamers into believing this divide was real. and they also used the new media capabilitiesof the world wide web to influence gamers on a scale never before realized until a perceptionwas gained. the perception that the gaming corporationsexploit to convince gamers to put in the long
hours, to collect all of the games, and - asthe current view of the gaming industry has presented - accept games that are now moreexpensive, have shoe horned features, and content only accessed through pay for playdownloads. not to mention the "casual" market they propup. releasing a great amount of shovel-ware gamesto appeal to a greater market and simultaneously alienating the hardcore gamers they builtup. to the point where they feel the need to introduce"hardcore" notions to "casual" concepts, and otherwise making an even bigger mess of thingsand hurting gaming altogether. and when you combine all the factors; theemploying of game companies marketing, gamers
at large are influenced by this and respondsas such, giving substance to misinformed factoids about how gamers are perceived, all flowingthrough the web via social media, online forums, and internet gaming, and back again. it's a continuous cycle. it now seems amplified by another factor that'scrawling from the web portion: the self-described spokesperson’s of gaming. i only want to touch on this for a moment,but it is important. the rise of internet personalities has createdadditional problems of those who are perceived as poser's to gaming or those who have proclaimedthemselves the champions of all gamers.
a proclamation that is unfounded and verymuch unwarranted. gaming doesn't need a spokesman. it speaks for itself and is open to all comers. and the main problem with having one is thatit builds resentment within gamers in two ways: resentment that the spokesman is nota representative of their particular interests (i.e. a hardcore/casual enthusiast), or thatsomeone would have the gall to claim to be a spokesman for all gamers. the latter grouping also seem to exacerbateall of the traits that gaming companies believe all gamers display.
again i don't want to point out any individualor collective by name, but just to show you that just like the retro websites and forumsbefore them, these internet personalities may be inadvertently making this divide greaterand letting it fully manifest in the eyes of gamers and outsiders alike. i mean you've seen me throughout this videochanging into various gaming shirts. yeah, i have a lot of gaming shirts. this room is covered in gaming posters andvarious gaming awesomeness. i have these mario candies (spit em out). i'm wearing a freaking sonic snuggie!
does any of this make me a hardcore gamer? a casual gamer? better question: does this make me a bettergamer than you, or anyone else? sure it makes me look classy, stylish, anda huge dork but it doesn't make me a better gamer for having it. nor should any conclusions be made as to amanufactured status i might claim in gaming culture. so, what exactly do i want you to take awayfrom this episode. if anything, i would like you to questionthe existence of a hardcore gamer or casual
i refer to it as "idiocy" out of my own subjectiveopinion because there is really nothing concrete to this. what is hardcore to one gamer is casual toanother, or vice versa. the definition just seems so schizophrenicin places. is this what we want, i mean, is this goodculture? if not, what makes a good culture? gaming by its very nature is intended to besocial. it began with it's initial offering of socialinteraction in the arcades of old and continues even stronger with pc & home consoles expansionto even greater online play.
the newer innovations expand demographicsand open up for people - who do not relate to gaming - to have their own "moment" wherethey making gaming an important aspect of their life. famed anthropologist alfred kroeber's influential"superorganic" notion views culture as having almost a life of its own, molding each individualfar more than the individual molds culture. i believe this is the best way to look atthis overall argument of hardcore and casual gaming. yeah, there are times when these new innovationscould be construed as counterproductive or even deplorable in some circles, but it'sbest for all gamers to understand the minutia
in all facets of gaming. remember: anthropology is based on a lot ofobservation. in a way, we are all like anthropologists. we can each observe gaming and try to understandit in our own way. we always refer to gaming as a community. it's most basic definition pertaining to agroup of people claiming a similar trait: video games. it's stands at the center, with a venn diagrammaking up the rest of the quirks and idiosyncrasies. if gamers continue to break up this diagramin a vain attempt at easy labeling, they establish
an unfalsifiable argument; an argument thatcan never be easily proven and truly not as easy to disprove. whether you agree with that notion or not,you have to look deep down within and realize that none of this matters. not what they say, not what the mighty gamingcorporations say, and to an extent, not even what i say. you know what you like, you know what youwant, and you know you are a gamer without the extra sub-labels attached. as with all things i observe, i don't havethe answers.
this is not a self-righteous crusade on mypart, nor do i claim to speak for gamers. i'm always trying to find a way to betterunderstand things. what i do know is that we as gamers have tofinally move away from this faux battle of the hardcore and casual gamers. we only serve to make it easier for detractorsto paint all gamers with a broad brush while simultaneously alienating newcomers to themedium. a culture survives and thrives by openingup and including more into the fold. true there is still the old hankering to revertback to the exclusivity that gaming once bred; the activity that a collection of geeks wouldpartake in leui of other activities.
but those days are over. the dam has bursted and gaming is much moremainstream and inclusive than ever before. and it really is a good thing. let me leave you with this: a video of myfriend eric - known to many of you guys as asalieri. he told me about how he had to sell off hisgaming collection a few years back. a regretful, but necessary decision on hispart. so i decided to do something i implore allthose who are able to do: give the gift of just look at that; here it's not about howthe game is old, nostalgic, or in need of
gentrification. just how multiple demographics feel aboutthe games. and that's what it is truly all about. i'm the game anthropologist, bringing youcloser - even if a small family at time - to gaming culture.