Words by Greywolfe
One of my biggest pet peeves in World of Warcraft – while I was playing it – was that there was no body slider for your character. This basically meant that I was stuck with a generically sized human [for the couple of minutes I played that human] where he should have been the portly, friendly, old wizard.
It’s frustrated me for a long time that in most games with a character generator of some persuasion, the default for avatars is generally “muscle-bound Adonis.”
But this is just one part of a bigger problem. If we are to accept diversity in this realm, there’s lots of other realms we need to accept diversity on as well. It’s not enough to just say “let there be more types of player avatar.” No. We have to accept that diversity comes to us in many ways – in the games we play as much as the people who are part of the gaming industry.
One of my biggest pet peeves in World of Warcraft – while I was playing it – was that there was no body slider for your character. This basically meant that I was stuck with a generically sized human [for the couple of minutes I played that human] where he should have been the portly, friendly, old wizard.
It’s frustrated me for a long time that in most games with a character generator of some persuasion, the default for avatars is generally “muscle-bound Adonis.”
But this is just one part of a bigger problem. If we are to accept diversity in this realm, there’s lots of other realms we need to accept diversity on as well. It’s not enough to just say “let there be more types of player avatar.” No. We have to accept that diversity comes to us in many ways – in the games we play as much as the people who are part of the gaming industry.
I am willing to bet money most of us don't look like this.
Are You An Adonis?
There’s a stereotype for gamers that has held for the last near-forty-years. Most of us fall into two general categories. Either we’re “that bearded fat guy who spends their time playing video games” or we’re the “thin pasty kid who doesn’t go near the light because they’re playing video games.” In both cases, of course, we’re recluses and we don’t want to deal with the outside world, preferring “mom’s basement” to sunshine and baseball.
The thing is, we’re not like that. Not at all. There’s many of us and we all run the gamut of what a human being can look like. Sure. Some of us are the fat, bearded guy. And absolutely, some of us are the thin, pasty kid who doesn’t want to go into the light. But we’re more diverse than that. And so, of course, developers really ought to be catering to that disparity in looks. Not everyone wants to be the eighteen year old, blond, muscled man who can shoot twin pistols with the accuracy of an assassin.
The thing is, we’re not like that. Not at all. There’s many of us and we all run the gamut of what a human being can look like. Sure. Some of us are the fat, bearded guy. And absolutely, some of us are the thin, pasty kid who doesn’t want to go into the light. But we’re more diverse than that. And so, of course, developers really ought to be catering to that disparity in looks. Not everyone wants to be the eighteen year old, blond, muscled man who can shoot twin pistols with the accuracy of an assassin.
Cellular Telephones are basically synonymous with casual gaming.
Casual Gaming: The Great Sin
Since gamers come in all shapes and sizes, it stands to reason, then, that we are also interested in many different types of games. Naturally, most of us here will lean toward more “core” experiences [whatever that word actually means] such as the next Forza outing, or the next hard-as-nails From Software game, or we might be looking forward to the new Tomb Raider [though that exclusivity for the next game? Get that out of here, Microsoft.]
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned across forty-odd years of playing video games, it’s that they too come in all shapes and sizes. While it’s true – for example – that Another World was super hard [it really was occasionally quite ridiculous] it was also very short. In fact, Another World is arguably shorter than a game that got a whole lot of flak for just being short. [I’m referring, of course, to The Order: 1866 a game which dripped style over substance.]
While it wasn’t a critical success, games like The Order: 1866 are somewhat beneficial to the gaming community at large, because that particular game showed that there is a desire for games that aren’t set in a prototypical fantasy world. Or a high tech world with guns in it.
And it’s a pretty short step from “a short game” to casual games. Most of us frown on the fact that casual experiences even exist, and yet, we fail to look around us. In the book market, there are many, many instances of “casual” books – bodice rippers that no one takes particularly seriously – and yet, they sell. Horror novels that are basically just an author spouting blood and gore across two hundred pages. Again, there’s nothing particularly “serious” or “deep” about these books. Yet, they sell and book readers have adapted to the fact that there are all stripes of reader in their circles.
The same is arguably true of movies. No one’s ever really going to take the horror-comedy fusion of “Scary Movie” very seriously. It’s a casual movie experience. You turn it on, you put your brain in neutral and you have a good time.
So, the hue and cry over casual gaming confuses me. Sure, there are bad casual games – not all of them can be “Plants Vs Zombies” good, but that’s – again – true of even “core experiences” like Call Of Duty. I get some of it, though. The process of taking Might and Magic and reducing it to Braveland Wizard might seem “bad” to some, but I view it as a small step. In other words, it’s a great way to get my non-games-playing-friends interested in that sort of experience.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned across forty-odd years of playing video games, it’s that they too come in all shapes and sizes. While it’s true – for example – that Another World was super hard [it really was occasionally quite ridiculous] it was also very short. In fact, Another World is arguably shorter than a game that got a whole lot of flak for just being short. [I’m referring, of course, to The Order: 1866 a game which dripped style over substance.]
While it wasn’t a critical success, games like The Order: 1866 are somewhat beneficial to the gaming community at large, because that particular game showed that there is a desire for games that aren’t set in a prototypical fantasy world. Or a high tech world with guns in it.
And it’s a pretty short step from “a short game” to casual games. Most of us frown on the fact that casual experiences even exist, and yet, we fail to look around us. In the book market, there are many, many instances of “casual” books – bodice rippers that no one takes particularly seriously – and yet, they sell. Horror novels that are basically just an author spouting blood and gore across two hundred pages. Again, there’s nothing particularly “serious” or “deep” about these books. Yet, they sell and book readers have adapted to the fact that there are all stripes of reader in their circles.
The same is arguably true of movies. No one’s ever really going to take the horror-comedy fusion of “Scary Movie” very seriously. It’s a casual movie experience. You turn it on, you put your brain in neutral and you have a good time.
So, the hue and cry over casual gaming confuses me. Sure, there are bad casual games – not all of them can be “Plants Vs Zombies” good, but that’s – again – true of even “core experiences” like Call Of Duty. I get some of it, though. The process of taking Might and Magic and reducing it to Braveland Wizard might seem “bad” to some, but I view it as a small step. In other words, it’s a great way to get my non-games-playing-friends interested in that sort of experience.
We are all human. And we all have different interests.
We're Everyday People
The other thing that kind of confuses me is the vitriol we heap upon people who criticize gaming. Gaming has faults [every industry has faults] and it’s great that these people exist. I’ll even go one step further. It’s humbling that these people even care given the assaults they have to endure.
Critics exist in every art-based medium. People have passed commentary on paintings for as long as painting has been around. The same is true of movies and books. If we can’t accept that there are people pointing out that there are issues in our industry then, quite frankly, we don’t deserve to be treated as “adults” – which we’re frustrated about already.
Critics exist in every art-based medium. People have passed commentary on paintings for as long as painting has been around. The same is true of movies and books. If we can’t accept that there are people pointing out that there are issues in our industry then, quite frankly, we don’t deserve to be treated as “adults” – which we’re frustrated about already.
Looking at gaming through different lenses is important. It’s the only way we can grow. We cannot keep churning out Call of Duty and Madden games forever, that’s a giant gaming cul-de-sac. In this way, it is vital that we have criticism of our medium. Criticism means deeper stories. It means more varied protagonists. It means more interesting mechanics. In short, it can only be good for the industry.
As I've said at the beginning of this piece, gamers come in all shapes and sizes – and we often criticise games ourselves. We don’t like mechanic x or the world that these developers built just wasn’t fleshed out enough. So we’re guilty of “taking apart” our own games. The fact that there are people who are interested in the form that don’t necessarily “play games” the way we do can do us all a favour by pointing out things we’ve never even thought of.
Conclusion
I hope our future games are more diverse. I hope that we all come to recognize that, regardless of what someone looks like, or what they believe, we are all – as I said in my Platform Wars article – gamers here.
Images Courtesy of Pixabay:
Pixabay
Pixabay