A New Breed of Gamer, A Different Generation of Games

We can't escape the media. It's impossible. Even in the gaming industry, especially the gaming industry, we can't escape the media. Every year gamers fall into the hype of a brand new blockbuster must-have for the summer or holiday season. But how many times has that game ended up being a flop? Are those games really all that great? When we compare some of the big hits that have come out in the past couple of years, we start to see a pattern: more and more hype of games. Who is the target of all this hype though? As a 19 year old avid gamer with experience with a variety of games, new and old, I can usually tell what is going to be good and what isn't. Unfortunately, the younger gamers can't. They're destined to play through the next big hype without a second guessing of its "quality".
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It's an unfortunate sight, one that I see grow bigger and bigger with each passing year. The new Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty, the monsters of gaming can spew out a new title whenever they want, and the kids will eat it up. There is so much hype for games, yet very few of them actually manage to be an overall success.

The new generation of gamers is a totally different beast. In fact, it's not a beast at all, it's more like a sheep. Gamers aging from 8, up to about 14 are shown nothing but commercials of prerendered trailers for the newest game, while the narrator tells them it's going to offer the best this and that. It may be true, but often times, it's not. Nevertheless, these kids will beg their parents to buy the game, and most of them will get it. And so starts the cycle of shaping the generations.

What are the top online games for PS3 and Xbox 360? I'm 100% sure you can guess what they are. If you guessed Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and World at War, Killzone 2, you're right. What do these have in common? Guess again...Exactly, millions of dollars of hype and advertising, along with names that people recognize. Now, I'm sure you can think of a ton of other games online that you would rather play than these. But, why don't you? For me, it's because I'm the only one I know that owns the game. The online communities are dead, taken over by these giants. Chromehounds is a good example. Though the singleplayer was definitely below average, the multiplayer was an interesting, fresh, and fun aspect of the game. You would take part in a persistent war, choosing a country and building a mech of total epicness. Fighting alongside your friends and destroying the other countries units was awesome. Definitely a unique online experience I'd never had. You can still find some people fighting the good fight too, but definitely not many.

Another one of my favourites was Civilizations Revolutions. A much simpler, less time consuming, but still very satisfying and fun adaptation to the PC version, it definitely proved strategy games could work on a console with a controller. It's quite dead now though, it took me a good few minutes to find a match online.

So why is it, that these games, with all of their uniqueness and qualities, could die so fast and so hard? Why do we keep buying these damned games we know we've played over and over and over again? Why are we so adamant on playing a few quick matches of killing sprees over maybe something different, something new, something more thoughtful, more complex? Is it because we're all actually mindless killing machines who want nothing more than to destroy? No. It's thanks to the media. They've taught us that consoles are no place for the thinking man's game, only violent, simple-minded games where we pick up a gun and go nuts. Granted, these games are a ton of fun and, when played with friends, can make for an amazing night. But we need to start realizing that we are only hurting ourselves. Gaming has taken itself into a new generation, and it's heralds are the thousands of minds of submissive, easily influenced children and preteens that are much more susceptible to seeing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and yelling for joy than to see a remake of the original Shadowrun (done right...).

Ultimately, this affects everyone. And I'm not saying that this is something that will happen with the snap of my fingers. It will be a gradual change to the type of games that become popular. I'm 19 now, I plan to be gaming, and be involved in gaming until I am either physically or mentally unable to play a video game, though gaming could be the reason why I'm not mentally or physically able to play games, so I find it very troubling to see this de-evolution of gaming. Video games are supposed to be, to me at least, the one creative outlet where you are limited to nothing except your imagination. The pinnacle of entertainment, art, socializing, and creativity. It will always retain the entertainment and social aspects, but now I'm not so certain about art and creativity. Too few games are now tantalizing me with art styles, camera styles, or any aspect of art or creativity. I find myself now reveling in the fact that a game now features new guns, characters, and maps! Why am I settling for that to be my next must have game?

We are settling for something that we can change so easily, with the simple action of not buying a game. We can show the huge names in gaming that we want something fresh, something new, something we've never seen before, instead of letting them, year after year, churn out more of the same shooters we see every year. But unfortunately again, that is only what we as mature gamers can do. There is still the other half of the gaming population that will be your biggest challenge in changing the games you play, the younger crowd.

Now, you might disagree with me, and say that there are very unique games that do well, like Fat Princess, Braid, Trine, Scribblenauts, etc. But how long are those games' life spans? I don't see people playing Braid anymore, I'm sure Trine will do well on the PS3, and despite it receiving many awards at E3, I do not see many people playing it on PC, and it's currently out. What are people still playing though? All of the monsters of gaming. There may be a time when the "flavour of the week" is all you see, but guaranteed within a week or so, they'll be back to Halo 3 and CoD.

I do not want to be completely pessimistic though. I do not believe that the unique games will disappear completely. I do believe though that they will go further under the radar as long as the hype machine continues to trample the minds of young gamers.