drohne said:
if you'll close your mouth presently you might see the point of the comparison. i obviously don't mean to say that videogames are just like books or music...but it's worth asking yourself what the difference is in this case. it's worth answering my question.
One important difference is that books have been around for centuries, and music for millenia. Video games have been around for mere decades. By this point, if somebody has heard even a small fraction of the staggeringly huge range of music in existence and truly doesn't like music, it's unlikely there will be much else to change their minds. That said, there are always those moments that change one's mind on a long-held belief.
When it comes to video games, we clearly have only scratched the surface in terms of the kinds of experiences games can provide. It would be silly to assume anything otherwise, considering what a short period of time people have been making games. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that as more types of games come into existence, more people will realize they could enjoy games. This isn't an issue of Nintendo making Wii Sports and then suddenly everybody who hates games runs out and buys the console. It's just one step among many others, such as soccer moms playing Bejeweled.
Those are things that really don't affect existing core gamers in a direct way, but it will have a big impact in coming years. The bigger the potential games market, the bigger the range of games can be supported and the better it will be for everybody. It's the same with any entertainment industry. For example, I don't watch many, if any, romantic comedies. However, the fact that the industry can see huge success for those films
as well as for big budget action movies, dialogue-driven dramas, small experimental independent films, and so on is an indication that the movie industry has reached some kind of important milestone in terms of its mass audience that allows so many different types of films to be released.
We don't have that in games right now. We have very specific markets, and not very many of them, and publishers have very specific ideas as to what kind of games can and will sell. The markets are all very segmented, too. The casual market, the hardcore market, etc. Stuff like Live Arcade is helping remove those barriers, even if its' unlikely the Bejeweled soccer moms are buying Xbox 360s; the point is that genres and demographics are becoming more platform-agnostic. Wii will likely help in that regard as well. We've already seen DS do so, at least in Japan.
Just because you don't want to play "non-gamer games" doesn't mean they won't have a long-term positive effect on the industry. You don't have to play them, I won't be playing most of them, but that's not the point. Gaming has passed the point where it was any kind of exclusive club. Now it's just a really big club that can't decide if it's exclusive or not, and that confusion is helping to keep things inbred. The fact that gamers are offended or disgusted that games targeted
at somebody other than themselves is mind-boggling. Do you go into record stores and sneer at all the music targeted at somebody other than yourself? Do you do the same with books, or movies? I mean, I'm sure some people do, but they're just going to have to get over it.
