Expert: Octane - 3/22/2010

Question
Hey Octane
Im writing an article on video game trends. I remember when the only people who bought fantasy video games like final fantasy were considered geeky. But now in today's world we have sports players, cops and teachers who spend hours playing world of war craft and God of war. In other words fantasy games appeal to more than just geeks now. Could you comment on this?...Do you know what occured to make this trend happen??

Thanks

Answer
Gday Alan,

A rather interesting question.  (And we don't get too many interesting questions particularly when it involves personal thought)

Okay my theory in why Geeky games are no longer Geeky!

I believe there are a number of factors have contributed to this.  

The first and probably primarily is the change in gameplay mechanics.  Original RPG games like Final Fantasy where off shoots of the cousin of the time pen and paper RPGs like D&D.  These RPG where very turn based, rule heavy and needed some advanced knowledge to how game play worked.  They where not someone that had no knowledge of the game could just pick up a game and go with it.  A geek by nature is usually overly obsessed with the complexity of such a game devoting hours honing his craft and learning the ins and outs of how it works.  Thus the Geek excelled at this over complexed game play where as a normal person would not understand gameplay and just give up.  Also most people find turn based games simply boring, which most if not all original electronic RPG where.  They also needed you to consult the manual to have any idea what you where doing.  So usually the people playing the First generation RPG video games where usually the same people playing D&D at there friends house on the weekend.  The modern RPG is filled with action, puzzles and plenty of things to do and the change in mechanics makes it easier for someone to just pick up and go with.  My 10 yo could pick up FF XIII and probably start playing it right away for hours, give her a FF 1 or 2 she would become frustrated and board with it in less then 10 minutes.  One game is deffinitly more geeky than the other.  There is a lot of button mashing madness in most modern RPGS.   It is also filled with less mundane tasks and does not really heavily on knowledge for you to get by.  They have help, tutorials, training missions to guide you on your path.  It has wonderful NPC (Non-paying Characters) that you can talk to that are just more than guiding hand on what direction you have to take along the way.  Which where absent in many of the time Geek Games.  It is not waiting on a random generator to see if you hit something with a sword but rather you swinging the sword to lay the smack down on some ork or troll.  A lot less to imagion and more to experiance.  A geek probably has more imagination that a regular player because they needed to link a lot of stuff that is not held together by pretty graphics and cut scenes.

The acceptance of video gaming as a past time has also played a part as well as technology being accepted as a whole.  I would be considered as a geek back in the day because of my love for computers and electronics.  Which Geeks where primarily know for loving.  But this was back when computers where not household items.  Now everyone has access to technology and computers.  It is common place for most families to have most if not all the current generation of video gaming systems instead of just one.  Therefor the geek also has faded away because of the population straying towards technology and being accepted.

Also Geek games aren't really geeky any more.  The RPG is less a Geeky game now a WOW, Gods of War, Final Fantasy I would not put into a geek category.  I would still put any turn-based strategy RPG in this category but when was the last time you played one of them or even saw on of them?  (If you did you would be a geek)  It's all First person, realtime, MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) with less a small group of geeks playing but now there are huge communities playing them.  There are still Geeks within these popular games, people that have a very high knowledge of the game and it working.  They know everything about the game but are less seen because they are all faces in a croud.  You could walk by a Geek in WOW who knows the point value of every creature, how much gold it takes to buy everything and knows the developers by heart but how would you really know unless talkign to him or watching them do battle.  Geeky games are still about but they are less popular than what the once Geeky Game has become which the RPG is not.  Geeky Games by nature would never be super popular among anything accept geeks.

The modern Video Game Geek does probably still exist but owns a PS3 and a Xbox 360 but also a Magnavox Odyssey or ColecoVision.  (Probably playing the latter more then the modern counterparts.)  I'm a proud Pinball Geek.

Octane