| ChichiriMuyo said: Just reading your post makes me wonder what the hell you are saying due to the lack of distinction we have for those two words. Sadly, that will almost certainly never be cleared up in the same way that the average English speaker will never know the difference between an actually theory and the hair-brained idea they came up with while they were drunk stupidER. That said, I personally think that mainstream and casual have too many different connotations unto themselves to make a solid relationship between the two. To some people Britney Spears is the example of something mainstream, and even Halo isn't that well known to the general public. You couldn't sell 15 different brain-destroying gossip magazines each week with Halo on the cover of each, but if you put Britney on there you can guarentee one of my customers will buy every last one of them in a single trip to my store. And even a lot of guys, 99% of whom wouldn't be caught dead with a copy of "People" (the title is a lie), not only know who Britney Spears is but can probably sing you one of her songs on demand (almost certainly that baby hit me one more time crap), probably knows who her ex-husband is, how many kids she has, and the fact that her 16-year old sister is pregnant. Virtually no individual video game gets that sort of recognition, and the ones that do go well beyond video games. If you wanna set up a fight between Britney and Pokemon, you have a show. What else (in gaming) competes with that level of notoriety among the general public in the US, or anywhere else really? With that said, FF is certanly not mainstream in the way many other games are. It's much closer than most, for certain, but ask 20 random people in their fourties what they know about FF and they'll tell you nothing. Literally. So much so, in fact, that they will probably say "nothing." But they probably know Mario and Pikachu, and maybe they've heard of Halo. So, for out purposes, if we can have a set vernacular I'd like it to be something liek this: Casual - People who play it don't play lots of games. Hell, that might be the only game they play. Were talking Brain Age and the like, but a lot of Madden fans will fit here too. Casuals often buy a system to play one game and one game only, then they either try a few others out or they give the thing away to their kids after they get bored with it. No matter how simple the game may seem to us, for some people it may take years to get to that point even if a sequel was released that the player didn't purchase. Mainstream - Refers to the industry only. These games get recognition outside of gaming, but the details are going to be vague and most people that hear of it won't have tried it. Also, unlike the casual games they will not be known for lasting players years on end unless they have an awesome online experience (which casuals tend not to care about). Halo and Mario would belong here more than in "casual." Mainstream gamers do put serious time/money into the machines. Not like the hardcores, but most certainly more than casuals. A casual in any environment tends to be someone who simply does it to pass time, so I think that it's better to look at casual gamers from that perspective. Of course, either word can be used either way. Which is why this topic exists to begin with. |
Oh, so if I listen to Britney Spears, does that make me bad? I have her 4 albums, but not her newest one. Just because a person is famous and/or gets a lot of bad press doesn't make them a bad person. It's the media that leads people to say she is a bad person, when she's not. Like her and everyone else, they are only human and an average person. They only have fame, but still, they are like everyone else.
And let me give an example about my FFXI online game. I don't play it hardcore, I just play it whenever I get the chance and have free time to. WoW is more hardcore. Why? You should see the people I hung out with at uni who played it. THEY are the definition of hardcore because they play that game nonstop, it affects their body (they were fat and smelled) and they finally stop having social skills. I may take the characteristic of hardcore gamer when I play, like I might play the game twice/thrice times a day, but that's only if needed with my friends on there. I usually only play the game 3-4 times a week, tops, because I have a LIFE lol As you can tell with my character's levels on my game, yeah, I like to grind a lot, but I take it a step at a time. 3/5 times I party with people, but I mainly solo at lower levels.
