How Microsoft got Beautiful-Katamari Exclusivity..what will be next?

[Bodhesatva]

Ck, I want to apologize. You happen to pluck at particularly irritating strings for me. Let me make my position and make my preferences clear, and hopefully I can do it in a less hostile tone.

I love the casual games, because I feel they are including people who never played games before. That's what I want. I don't want to be surrounded by 95 percent males aged 15-25 all the time, especially once I'm 35. I don't want to feel like I'm engaging in a market that's largely targetted at immature boys.

I love the hardcore games because I play them intensely, and I play them for skill. I just don't think many, or any, console games apply to this: practically every serious professional game has been on the PC, despite the fact that the player pool is so much smaller. In addition, the few games that have allowed console gamers to play PC gamers (such as Unreal Tournament) have seen the console gamers get decisively defeated, to the point that many console gamers have specifically asked for servers where PC gamers are not allowed. This will be replayed again, I suspect, when Team Fortress 2 allows for cross-market play (I'm perfectly aware that this disparity is in part because the control scheme for PCs is superior. This only leads me to question why anyone who wants to be "hardcore" would play with an inferior control scheme in the first place). In addition, the continued upgradability of the PC allows for a continuously evolving system, not one stuck in the same place for 5-6 years.

My problem is that 360/PS3 material -- lots of it, anyway, and most of the stuff you personally seem to prefer -- is neither hardcore nor casual. It's usually very violent (God of War, Gears of War being good examples), and as such, only persists in keeping mature adults away from video games. This is the heart of why I seem to spew so much scorn at such games: I want well educated adults to play video games. I want video games to be considered an art form, and not just an entertainment venue for 18 year old boys. There are many reasons why this hasn't happened yet, but one of the main reasons (in my opinion) are games like God of War. As long as God of War "me too" style action games, with grandiose plots, oodles of melodrama and gobs of violence are seen as the pinnacle of gaming by "serious" gamers, mature adults are simply going to stay away.

In short -- God of War, and games like it, are keeping gaming from what I personally want it to be.

Just my thoughts, Ck. Again, I know I've spewed a lot of hatred at you recently; I'm feeling bad about it, and I apologize. Hopefully, the above post explains why this particular issue peeves me so specifically. I feel like God of War/Gears of War/Killzone style games are directly holding games in the 15-25 year old mind frame, and I want games to expand or even move away from that demographic entirely.