There is no such thing as ‘casual gamer’. There is no such thing as ‘female gamer’. There is no such thing as ‘mainstream gamer’. There are just gamers.
There are no imaginary segments. There are no borders in the market where one side says ‘hardcore’ while the other side says ‘casual’. The market is not a Risk board where there are ‘territories’ all placed in different segments. Everyone is a gamer.
There are no ‘black gamers’. There are no ‘asian gamers’. There are no ‘girl gamers’. There are only gamers.
Someone might say, “Well, look at the movie box office. They have chick flicks for teenage girls, war flicks for guys, kid movies for kids, and old people movies for old people. We are going the correct direction.” And I reply, “The box office is in decline. When movies did best was when they made movies for everyone. Segmentation caused movie business to shrink.”
There are no ’stupid gamers’. There are no ’smart gamers’. There are no ‘fad gamers’. There are no ‘life-long gamers’. There are only gamers.
“But look at the non-gamers,” one might say. “Just look at them! They have no interest in gaming. They won’t even take the time to learn the controls!” I reply, “You are wrong. They are gamers. They just don’t know it yet. They are the ‘future gamers’. One day, they will play with us. The fact that they have no interest or find the controls difficult is not their fault, it is our fault, and we need to change it so they can become gamers too.”
There are no ‘kid gamers’. There are no ‘mature gamers’. There are only gamers.
The urge to segment gamers into groups, from ‘casual’ to ‘hardcore’, from ‘kiddy’ to ‘mature’, from ‘girl’ to ‘guy’, and ‘new’ to ‘old’ will only fracture the community and pit one side of the audience against the other. Are ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ forums, reviews, and games going to be segregated like black and white water fountains? Are the so-called ‘casual gamers’ supposed to go to the back of the bus? Think about what you are doing.
What purpose do walls serve the community? How can an industry become mainstream if it segments itself? New gamer money is just as good as old gamer money. It is time to bring down the walls. It is time to end the prejudice. Let everyone be a gamer. The market sees all gamers as equal. Why can’t we?
Hear, Hear!
Sadly, I don’t know if it’s even possible for human’s not to segment people into groups anymore.
By: liquidninja on June 21, 2008
at 2:55 am
Exactly. Bigotry is not a pleasant sight.
By: Gregory Weagle on June 21, 2008
at 1:41 pm
Haha, I remember in GameCrazy employee training, they were making sure we knew the difference between hardcore and casual gamers.
By: Juja on June 21, 2008
at 4:59 pm
Juja, tell us more!
As for me, a GIRL omg, sometimes I get annoyed when GameStop employees try to ‘help’. Dude, I know all those games are on sale, there’s a HUGE sign spelling ‘SALE!’ And I know RE4 is not for kids, I bought it for ME! And… did you just try to sell me ‘game insurance’ on an used game!? Who the hell buys that!?
Reminds me of the time I picked my my first PS2 and Kingdom Hearts. Dude tried to sell me the game guide, the PS2 vertical stand and more insurance than you can shake a stick at.
By: Lum on June 21, 2008
at 7:05 pm
Yeah, those game stores definitely put a lot of pressure on employees to sell pretty much every one of their ’services’ that they can (game protection/pre-orders/discount memberships). If employees perform badly for too long, they get let go. That’s actually why I quit (I hate pestering people to buy stuff they clearly don’t want).
Coincidentally, the day I quit was the day they were ‘educating’ employees on casual and hardcore games.
By: Juja on June 21, 2008
at 10:03 pm