I want to be a casual gamer

[Kenkaku]

The other night, I began to think (a dangerous pastime, I know), and it seems like nobody can go a single day without tripping over articles written by 'hardcore' gamers that hint or flat out insult the 'idiocy' of casual gamers, Nintendo, or both.

But here's the thing: should it be the other way around?

Some time ago, I was a casual gamer. I never looked at game videos, previews, images, or even magazines for previews of games. All I'd do was go to a store, buy a game based on its brand, word of mouth, or if the cover or promotions looked cool.

That said, I bought a handful of really good games as well as really bad ones. But here's the kicker: some of those 'bad ones' I really loved. Metacritic lists Mission Impossible on the N64 as a 60% average title, many professional reviewers giving it scores as low as 30%, yet I loved it so much that I played it at least five times through.

But why? Again, it was because I was a casual gamer. Unlike these reviewers, I didn't know what to expect; I didn't know the history behind the development of this game, which apparently was anticipated by some. That said, once I popped it in, it was a completely new experience to me, something where I couldn't hold expectations of any sort. It was a different game to me, and I treated it as such.

And this holds true to even Nintendo's games and their sequels. I bought Ocarina of Time while never knowing it was in development, and you can imagine the love I felt for it. The same held true for Majora's Mask and Wind Waker, two titles with similar formulas but vastly different styles. So why didn't I enjoy Twilight Princess on the same level as its predecessors when it did everything that made the series popular?

Enter the next generation of games, the current generation.

Once the new consoles came out, I evolved into a hardcore gamer. I went to websites, watched videos, got previews, the whole kit and kaboodle. Some websites practically revealed the whole intro of the game to me before I even bought it. In the end, I had expectations and opinions of games that I didn't even own, let alone played. This ruined way too many titles to count, mainly sequels, because I couldn't see them as their own games, which is what they should have been.

All I can say is that all of my favorite games are games that I never knew existed until they landed on the store shelf: Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Metal Gear Solid 1-3, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy VIII (yes, 8), just to name a few. After becoming a hardcore gamer and following every tidbit of news on each of these games' sequels, if they had one, none of them were as enjoyable.

It's not to say that I didn't know a bad game when I played it, I just very rarely encountered it. In order for a game to be 'bad,' it had to have a deal breaker, a game-ending problem that was not my fault, like a game mechanic that got in the way of the fun. For example, there was a PlayStation Digimon game that evolved your monsters depending on how you took care of them. The problem, however, is that taking perfect care of them was impossible, so you were always stuck with the bad monsters.

And it's not to say that I frown on looking at reviews, no sir. It's always good to know if a game has problems or limitations, or if at least somebody enjoyed it. It's good to have insight before you drop $50+ on a game. In fact, GameInformer's 10/10 and written review for Wind Waker was that final key that made me want to purchase it because, I am shameful to say, I was a bit skeptical of its new look. I punished myself shortly afterwards after having too much fun with it, and for the record, I did not compare it to Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask; it was its own game, and I enjoyed it because of that. Once more, it all stemmed from how I didn't know what to expect from it.

Now to wrap up my thoughts with a tl;dr recap:

In the end, I have made a vow. By the time the next generation of games occurs, I'm going to ween myself from Internet gaming-related media. I want to go back to being a casual gamer, because when you look at the whole picture, it seems like casuals are enjoying their 'casual focused' games more than the hardcore gamers are with theirs.

[Naked Age]

Wow! You sir made a lot of good points. I alway been thinking what am I? A "core" or "casual" gamer. I play a lot of games and spend a lot of times on it too. So I consider myself a "core" gamer. But I never complain about any games I brought except Motor Roader on Turbo 16 from VC store. I enjoying playing Mario Party 8, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Phantasy Star Universe, Resident Evil, Baroque and etc.

Everyone say Mario Party 8, Wii Fit, Wii Sports and other games are "casual" games.

I looking at myself, "if everyone said or claimed that I play Resident Evil, Baroque and other "core" games then I should be a "core" gamer."

But it doesn't sum it up for me. Maybe you are right that I should go back to being "casual" gamer or I might be "casual" gamer already.

[Nintend()\/\/|\|312]

I can definitely relate to what Kenkaku is saying. The problem I have is that if I read a bunch of reviews for a game I sometimes will determine whether or not I like the game before I even play it. Still, I find it helps to remind myself that reviews really are just some other person's opinion on a game and may differ completely from what I think of the game.

I too sometimes resent that I follow games maybe a little too closely these days as well. However, if I didn't follow games all the close I would have missed out on some of my some of my favorite games like Half Life 2 and Portal. The only reason why I decided to give HL2 a whirl was because I saw it was so highly rated on gamerankings.com.

So, given the choice of whether I am glad that I turned "hardcore" or not, I think I can say that I am even though the ignorance of being more "casual" was comforting at times. Besides, I still love playing some pretty horrible games from time to time.

[RubyMars]

As someone who has been playing videogames for nearly 30 years, I totally understand your point of view. I considered myself a 'hardcore' gamer until the end of the Dreamcast era, but then... things started to change.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still enjoy games, I still read a lot about the industry, and I still buy games a lot. But I've been noticing lately that I'm either A) put off by the hype surrounding the latest "must buy" release, B) disappointed by a game once I've finally gotten it, or C) losing interest after only a few hours of play-time. I've got so many games that I've put aside and never gone back to, or purchased and not even played, or started and then just kinda said "meh."

I miss the days when I was a young pup, renting the latest releases at the video store and sitting down to ENJOY THE HELL out of whatever it was, because I had no preconceptions. And, more often than not, I did have fun! Sure, I got the occasional stinker, but most of the time I had fun with even mediocre games like Cool Spot for the Genesis or Clockwork Knight for the Saturn. Nowadays, I find myself playing 3-4 hours of Super Mario Galaxy and wondering when they're going to announce the next Zelda.

So, yeah, I agree that being a 'casual' gamer was actually a lot more fun than being 'hardcore'. The endless cycle of anticipation for the "next big thing" is getting tiring...

[thresholdXCI]

Yeah I'm the same. Back in the days of the Playstation I was much younger, had no internet access and no money for gaming magazines etc. I was still at primary school so I made a lot of game purchases based on playground word of mouth and just going into a shop and buying games with cool covers. When I look back at IGN's reviews of many of the games I loved, I found a lot of them to be really low. Well, low considering my liking for them. When I read the reviews I could see why they scored that way but still I certainly had a great time playing them. As a result I have extremely fond memories of my Playstation.

Having said all that I think I am going to continue following the gaming media, but perhaps in future I'll simply find out about games that look good and then wait for them to release (instead of reading reviews/ checking scores). I think it's best for me to follow the press because I missed out on so many amazing games. I never knew Zelda was any good, so I avoided Windwaker, I had no idea what the Pikmin games really were or that Metroid Prime 1 & 2 were actually good and because of that I missed out on some of the Gamecube's greatest games. I still got enjoyment out of some of the worse games I bought though. For a sort while I liked Shadow the Hedgehog (no really, I honestly did!) and Billy Hatcher was fun too - both games that scored low enough on IGN to warrant my avoidance in normal situations. But I think the press does have some advantages when it comes to enlightnening me about games I would never have noticed otherwise.

[stinklesAFI]

Well I consider myself in the "hardcore" category also. I read destructoid regularly, I have a NeoGAF account, I try to stay up to date on the gaming industry. But to what Kenkaku said "After reading reviews i already have an opinion about a game I haven't even seen yet" I find this to be quite awesome being that the price of games now are at 50-60 dollars and me with my meager pay I want something that is worth my money. It's true that even if a hundred reviews say that a game is crap you might find it interesting but it still varies from person to person. Most of the ppl who are writing these reviews are shall we say "connoisseurs" of video games and me being of similar thinking if I see a positive review then I am probably going to like the game. This is also a two way street though, me being of the "hardcore" variety I know a good game when I play it so I would tell others 'hey this game is f***ing awesome you should play it' even if it's an older game now more ppl are going to try that particular company should they make more games they now have more fans.

So I tell you being a hardcore gamer you can only help the industry.

[Kenkaku]

""After reading reviews i already have an opinion about a game I haven't even seen yet" I find this to be quite awesome being that the price of games now are at 50-60 dollars and me with my meager pay I want something that is worth my money."

Exactly, much like I said later on in my rant.

But it's just that reviews are looked at differently depending on the gamer, whether they be casual or core.

When I looked at Wind Waker's review as a casual gamer, it was all about whether or not it was fun, not whether or not it was better than Ocarina of Time. But that's exactly what I was looking for when it came to Twilight Princess as I became more of a core gamer, as online material led me to hope for that.

In fact, that's exactly the pitch that RE5 has; GameInformer's header on its latest magazine is "Can Capcom Improve on Perfection?" If you played RE4, that's a lot to live up to.

[StarStabbedMoon]

The benefit of keeping track of the industry shouldn't be so much about seeing the "next big thing" as it should be the next.. "small" thing. Because if you're just online to hear about the huge AAA releases you might as well be a window shopper, because these are the same releases that are going to have the flashy oversized cardboard displays that will fit about four dozen copies of the game into. And that's no different than seeing every other blog post being about how the production of said cardboard is taxing the publisher's resources and whether there are any racial connotations unintentionally leaking through. And if that doesn't work, you better believe the clerk will incessantly pressure you to pre-order the game. That we get so much information about games we don't really need much from leads to this emphasis on scrutinizing great games when their only flaw is being a little bit too popular. Meanwhile, truly great games get passed over because no one cares. Window shopping, you're never going to discover something like Killer7, you'll never see something like Deadly Creatures. Both of these games were not reviewed well, and they sold even more terribly. Yet they were both very ambitious, creative, and some of my most well-liked discoveries. Without the knowledge we have we would never know about future games like Muramasa*, Night Game, and Flower Sun and Rain. The problem is we're wasting the vast amount of information to which we have access to dismiss and rule games out, when we should be using these resources to our advantage to make sure not a single work of art passes us by unnoticed.

[D3stiny_Sm4sher]

because when you look at the whole picture, it seems like casuals are enjoying their 'casual focused' games more than the hardcore gamers are with theirs.

Yea, fancy that, right?

Why be one or the other? Why not be a mixture of both?
Casual games aren't bad, and neither are hardcore.
I would agree that a lot of hardcore gamers (at least ones who populate internet forums and b1tch about EVERYTHING) are missing the whole point a lot of the time and often have narrow-minded attitudes, though.

But being a blend of both has served me pretty well over the past few years -- not that I was trying to, I just sort of came to realize I enjoyed casual and hardcore gaming about the same. Though, honestly, it's hard to clearly define what is hardcore or casual.
Some people think Wind Waker is "casual" just because it has toned down difficulty.
Others think Tetris is "casual" despite how challenging it is to master.

In the end, games (and nowadays, software that isn't technically a "game") are just what they are, and there's all types.

I once read an analogy that hardcore games are like sci-fi and fantasy books on one extreme and casual games on the other extreme are like cook-books and self-help books, the analogy basically serving the idea that they're ALL books, are all generally worthwhile for different purposes, and anyone at large can enjoy or at least get something useful from any kind of book.

[The_Hangman]

I was a "hardcore" gamer from about ages 10 - 14. But, when I got to High School, I just stopped caring. I guess I just found life itself more intriguing or something. *shrug* I was "casual" from about '04 to '08.

I find it ironic, actually. Of all systems, the Wii, which is now lambasted by some as too "casual", brought me back into the "hardcore". A little. It was the beginning of '08, and I was still quite content playing Sonic Adventure 2, not knowing that it was criticized left and right. I still kept away from reviews and release dates. I began playing SSBM again and learned all the new techniques. I did not know about GoNintendo, Destructoid, 1Up, or ScrewAttack, nor did I care about any internet game sources. I bought Brawl the week after it was out, without reading a single review. For the first seven months of '08, I only played SA2, SSBM, and Brawl. And I was content.

I did not discuss level design or repetition. I wasn't intrigued by video game writing, storylines, or character development (because movies and literature were/are so much better). I didn't complain about the Wii's "small libray" or lack of "internet" or "third-party support" because I didn't care. "Innovation" was a meaningless word. "Originality" couldn't trump "fun". I hadn't even heard of things like Wii Fit or Wii Play, or what "casual" even was. I did not visit message boards or bother with reviews. I did not care about critique or criticism. I skipped every cutscene in every game. I did not talk about "Games as Art", nor did I compare games to one another. I did not care about shiny graphics, detailed environments, or immersion. I did not go on rants or have detailed opinions about any video games. I was not "connected" to games. I only knew of the highest profile games. Games that weren't out yet held little appeal. And niche titles? They might as well have never existed. The "culture" of video games was highly unappealing and juvenille (and mostly still is, actually). I didn't really care about video games. When it came down to it, I simply wanted to have fun with Smash Bros. and Sonic, without being bothered by second opinions, or articles, or all sorts of nonsense.

Then, in July '08, my dad suddenly buys me a PS3. I buy CoD4 for it, without any prior knowledge, research, or bias about the game. Then, CoD4 (which, btw, is my second favorite game of the past several years behind SMG) sucked me right back into the "hardcore".

How much of a big deal is this "hardcore" thing? The best games I've played in the past several years are CoD4 and SMG, and that's largely because my opinion was mostly uninfluenced. I did not know what to expect, and I got something brilliant. This is the first console generation where I actually didn't enjoy a few games. Resistance, Metroid Prime 3, MGS3. Those games never appealed to me yet they were hyped to hell and back, so I tried them out. I was disappointed, if only because my opinion was colored by the "industry". I guarantee that if I was never reintroduced to the "hardcore", I'd be lovingly playing those games.

If it weren't for my PS3, I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't know about Team Fortress, or Uncharted, or Bioshock, or NSMB Wii, or even Mario Galaxy 2, nor would I care. I wouldn't care about reviews. I wouldn't be "hyping" games. I'd still be quietly playing SSBM and Brawl in my living room. Or, better yet, I'd be off enjoying life.

There are certain "hardcore" gamers that condescend the "casual" or look at them as if they're somehow "inferior" (this doesn't happen on these boards, thankfully). But Why? They're only normal people, after all.

You know, I really did enjoy games so much more when I was "casual". Now, I'm sort of stuck between the two "realms". I could buy all the new releases and keep up with the media and culture. Or I could just play TF2 from now until forever, throwing this "hardcore" tag aside once and for all.

The latter is beginning to seem so much more appealing nowadays.

[Pichi]

I'm just a "me" gamer. I'm not too casual and I'm not too hardcore. I read about game news and such, but not so many to the point that I'm reading games more than playing them. I only buy games that I want to buy despite what people say if its a "bad" game, "too casual", etc. Only time I break the mode is when I play with my bro in his demos and such. If I liked it, I'll agree to play with him or if its single player and I like the atmosphere, I'll go for it.

I take my time playing games. I don't buy the newest games alot, only when deals come and I have extra funds.

I'm fairly happy about it. Even back to the NES days, I'm always half way in the pool. Never fully out or deeply in. Just right for me.

[Shiiva_Wilding]

I am who I want to be, casual/hardcore, it's all the same. Gaming never labelled gamers in any way, we did. We invented labels for people and society to better sell games and better understand what makes people interested in gaming. Don't consider yourself either, be casual and hardcore together, find a balance and whatever people tell you you are, do less of and reset the balance. It's what I do and it's suited me just right

[vonMarion]

I'm well informed on the industry and keep up to date, but I think I'm mostly casual.

All things aside, the one rule I always follow is:
"Never schedule my time around videogames, but play videogames when I have the time."
It bothers me that people who play games like World of Warcraft plan other things based on when "raids" are, etc... It's probably why I've never joined clans in any sort of game (TF2). I'm my own person and I'll play when its convenient for me.

[hillbilly_gamer]

Do we even need to split hairs on this? I consider myself to be a gamer, not "casual" nor "hardcore" just a gamer as in someone who likes to play videogames. I've been playing videogames my whole life, since the days of the Atari 2600, and i just play whatever appeals to me no matter what category it tends to fall under because all that really matters is that you're having fun, right?

[SEGAsbest]

No we shouldn't cores are the equivalent to movie buffs, they understand the medium better than casual gamers just as film buffs understand that medium better than the average movie-goer.

[MAGNUS-8M]

Yeah, I can agree with the OP to a point(more in favor of, not against). I remember buying games like M.C. Kids on the NES without even so much of a thought as to whether it'd be good or not, and I had a lot of fun with it. Even now, when I look at it, I'm amazed at what a company could do with such a pigeonholed franchise, and yet make something that's both fun and enjoyable without making too much direct reference. And then you go online 15 years later and find people bashing it and saying it's a stupid boring game, or, without even having played it, they say that because it's attached to a McDonald's franchise, it's a stupid sell-out game that couldn't possibly be any good. And yet I have no trouble playing it.

All in all, I think having such a massive collective of information about games is a double-edged sword. Yes, you want to make sure you're not buying into a game that isn't worth your money, but too often the opinions of what makes a good game are too skewed by fans of the series, haters of the genre, people who get their information wrong, or even people who hate/love the system that it comes out on. I guess it could be summed up as 'having too much subjective opinion' for or against a game, and allowing ourselves to get caught up in that without looking into it ourselves. I still want to make sure I'm paying for something that will be worth it, but I do miss the days of simply buying a game and enjoying it, rather than being told to enjoy it or hate it.