Brian Crecente at Kotaku had a novel idea to find out why: let everyone on twitter comment on why they don't like COD. The comments are interesting and varied, from claims that COD is the videogame equivalent of a popcorn film like Transformers to distaste with the management of its publishing company Activision and even some disgust of how unrealistic it portrays and over glorifies war. The unique voice of the community can be heard in this wide range of comments, but there was one in particular that really struck a chord with me from the twitter handle jerschobel:
"it perpetuates stereotypes of gamer culture that simply aren't true. many who buy COD buy ONLY COD."
It made me think about myself as a gamer, what I play, and what games my friends play. We all lean toward certain genres, I certainly enjoy my FPS and RPG games, but I found that I do have a robust library. Titles like Frozen Synapse, Limbo, and Magicka can be found throughout my steam library from the very small developers that created them. I clearly enjoy my fair share of strategy games as well with turn based Civilization and the Total War titles, not to mention the real-time titles like Dawn of War II and the iconic Starcraft games. 3rd person action games even get the nod with Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City and I have never played a game so thoroughly as Assassin's Creed II in recent memory (100% completion including DLC in one glorious weekend). Yet, when I compare it to some of my friends and roommates, things start to diverge.
To start, 2 of my roommates (with the exception of sports titles) own exclusively Call of Duty games on their Xbox 360. In fact, since the release of Call of Duty 8 (Modern Warfare 3) this past Tuesday, it's the only game they have played. They have nearly 30 or more than hours into it's multiplayer mode and it's been for sale for only 5 days as of writing. That is a ridiculous amount of game time. Another 8 of my friends own only games from a total of 4 franchises (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War, and Halo) with the iterations of Call of Duty being considered their most played title. 4 more of my friends own the same titles, but start to add in more role-playing games like the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Mass Effect. Only 3 of my friends have a library as diverse or even more varied than the one I have.
It's interesting to see how dominate Call of Duty was among my friends that claim themselves as gamers. If you blow the numbers up by millions, it sure would outweigh a lot of the other players with very uniquely dispersed library's. The question is though: are those who seemingly play only the blockbuster AAA titles like Call of Duty the definition of today's gamer? The loudmouth, trash talking, racist, sexist, 17-28 year old guy on Xbox live is getting well known in society. Even popular viral shorts like "The Online Gamer" have been dedicated to this stereotype, with one of my friends actually making this mockery series look tame. A lot of my friends are highly competitive and hearing a small tirade of cussing from the other rooms in my house is common place at the moment. Is this becoming the face of the gaming community? Like movies, the Michael Bay movie with cheap thrills and no story and a massive marketing budget rule the roost and bring in the masses while the more well refined experiences get lost to a more niche audience? I for one don't like telling people that I am a gamer, in particular a Game Development major, and then get asked immediately about Call of Duty. I want to talk about the art and magnificence of Skyrim's landscape, the brilliance that The Old Republic looks to bring with story telling to MMO's, the creativity in Minecraft, and the success of free communities like League of Legends. *Sigh* or maybe I should just give up and be happy that the stereotype of a gamer is no longer the neck-bearded World of Warcraft die-hard. Regardless, I want to hear your thoughts on what you think a gamer is. Is it the new sterotypical COD rager, is it still that WoW guy in his mom's basement, maybe it's the rise of the female gamer? Sound off below!
No comments:
Post a Comment