Thursday, June 17, 2010

E3 and stuff

So the principle of social construction is basically that if enough people believe something to be real, it may not reflect empirical assessment, but on some level it must be treated as real -- there will be real consequences and effects.

The categories of hardcore and casual gaming are a misleading classification. They place a limitation on individuals by assigning them an exclusive classification of "gamer." While some individuals may self-identify in that manner, a majority of the population does not classify themselves as exclusively a "gamer." They are individuals who spend a varying amount of time playing video games. The distinctions of casual and hardcore are arbitrary. There is no consensus, nor is there much discussion , of what is the metric of a gamer.

Oh message boards are talking about some of these concepts, but they are a poor measure of the penetration of this information or this discussion. Those individuals represent a small portion of the message board population and and even smaller percentage of the overall population. There is no metric for the discussion of this media outside of the internet.

I can't say anything about the things people say in their living rooms and on the phone and with their friends. There's some anecdotal examples of families using the Wii together and grannies playing FPSs, but making any assessments on that would be informed conjecture.

However, a large portion of the message board population -- including the media sites -- reference the casual and hardcore groups as markets. These ideas have had mainstream penetration through tech blogs, popular magazines and newspapers. This mentality and subsequent self-identity have created a culture around the casual and hardcore markets.

The major producers of this media also buy into these distinctions. The recent media conferences from the big 3 hardware producers indicate a distinct and bilateral approach to the gaming market. If the major producers of the content buy into the idea, then we are stuck with the idea.

So in a few swoops casual hardcore are first built by media outlets and blogs as a social construction and identity and then cemented into reality by 3 enormous corporations.

It's not so bad, but it's kind of funny