When I read your topic, including the interview, I was surprised at how strongly I reacted to it. The surprise led to confusion; why was I so emotional about one view of gaming versus another? Then I realized it. GameGO! is looking at the gaming world all wrong. Gaming isn't getting worse, or hasn't worsened in the past years. It's growing. And that growth is a very good thing.

Let me reiterate what Chris Jones pointed out quite well. There is no mainstream. There is no mass of people who do something. A lot of time, gamers will point out the mainstream as ruining the reputation of games and only buying highly marketed, yet poor quality games. Yet, even the Tomb Raider franchise spawned from an innovative, and critically acclaimed first game; at one point Mortal Kombat touched many gamers for its intricate story as well as its marketed gore. In their original release, or at one point in the series, the games weren't considered 'mainstream,' but innovative and for a select group. Simply because, in reality, there are no sheeple. There is no mainstream. Sure there are 'casual users,' but hell, I think at one point or another we're all casual users, even if just for a little while.

Gaming has never truly left the hands of gamers as GameGO! seems to believe. Just as music has never truly left the hands of muscians and novels have never truly left the hands of novelists. Just because there are a lot of games that aren't up to someone's taste doesn't mean gaming has gone downhill. Maybe it's not your year for games. Maybe it just doesn't agree with you.

For example. All my friends loved Vagrant Story. I bought it, but after a while I didn't like it. It just didn't rub me the right way; I felt the battles were too tedius. So what? Hell, I play Dance Dance Revolution whenever I'm in an arcade with a machine, and most of my friends think I'm a doofus for it. So what? They have fun with what they like, despite my opinion of Vagrant Story (I do like most RPGs, by the way), and I have fun with what I like, despite their opinion of Dance Dance Revolution (they thought Sambo De Amigo was great, despite their opinion on a different music game). It's diversity in gaming; something that will make it flourish in the future.

Tetsuya Mizunguchi wants to make a game that appeals to the casual gamer. Is he turning his back on the real gamers? Is he just feeding the 'sheeple?' Hell no. He's trying to make an experience that a lot of people enjoy. He's innovating, and doing it to reach out to a wide audience. He's making something fun.

My point is, GameGO! isn't wrong for disliking some newer games. That's their perogative. However, they are wrong when they say gaming has left the hands of essentially the few good gamers and gone to the more numerous bad gamers. If I remember correctly, everything from Pong on has been mass-marketed. GameGO! doesn't realize that as gaming grows as a major medium of entertainment, there is going to be a lot of diversity. Some may be good. Some may be bad. And some may rely on opinions more or less. Just, the whole purpose is to have fun and enjoy oneself. If I may say so, thank God for people like Mizunguchi, Miyamoto, Hideo, Meier (on the PC side), and others who want people to have fun. Because that's what gaming's all about. Not old-school vs. new-school, but what's fun.

That's just, in my opinion, of course.

-Mike Drucker

I don't think we should demonize that mindset in game designers, since wanting the game to appeal to many is not so much about selling games, but about capturing people' imagination, and that does include casual gamers. Blatantly pushing some themes or aspects of a game (I could think of a few examples, but I will refrain from mentioning anything) is wanting to sell more games to a receptive audience. Making a game simpler but pleasant looking, however, is extending an invitation to your audience to join in the fun, and just what is wrong with that? And if sometimes, as it so happens, a game happens to fall in between those two categories, shouldn't we apply the principle of charity, and assume that the best intention (i.e., the latter motives) went into the making of the game?

I think one of the biggest problems in the gaming community, insofar as communication goes, is that most entrenched gamers fail to realize they too were once casual gamers... Therefore, this attitude of snobbishly looking down at casual gamers as social pariahs who have ruined gaming is a load of rubbish. It's a way to replicate real life cliques within gaming, which makes people who staunchly believe there should be rankings insofar as people who game go, look pretty sad and pathetic.

Don't get me wrong. I too might have occasionally felt somewhat superior to Joe Q Player, or had to suffer his foolishness or misinformation... but I don't think we should take gaming back to the 8 bit era in hope that casual gamers go away, or lambast game developers (who still employ people who put their heart and a little of themselves in their games) for making games that happen to have a broader audience than a handful of entrenched gamers. That's just petty.

-Princess Jemmy, who reread the comments above, and is about to go hug her FF9 jewelcase even though she didn't have the most fun with that one :P

-yuji

They don't realize the benefits that gaming becoming mainstream has brought us. Those "casual gamers" are indirectly helping us out - even the most casual may pickup a good RPG once in a while, upping sales and making it more likely that another game will be released here. Whatever the mainstream may buy helps hardcore gamers by creating economies of scale.

The other issue is that fanboys cling to how "special" gaming is. They feel a need to be different, and now that it has gone mainstream, they feel a need to differentiate themselves by trashing mainstream games, and bragging about their import games and systems and how much money they spent on them. It's a big, pointless pissing contest. This mainstreamification happened in two other communities that I am in (linux and anime), and there's still the jerkish fanboys there who claim that, in some way, they are special and that the "Unwashed masses" should be done away with. Its just stupid. Be happy that other people are able to enjoy the wonderful things you enjoy. Simple as that.

-BBK

So essentially, you're asking us whether we want gaming to be a more mainstr uh... widespread form of entertainment or to preserve the boys' club, hardcore mentality. It's pretty obvious which side you're on, but I don't think it's as cut-and-dry a problem as you make it out to be.

Okay, saying that "mainstream companies," whatever those are exactly, have "vampirized gaming, leaving it a cold, nearly lifeless, husk" is a little extreme. Okay, a little wrong. Okay, what the hell does this even mean?! Let's examine what he's saying here:

1) If gaming was vampirized it must have had blood at some point, probably, I imagine he means, immediately before Square jumped to the Playstation. So on one level, this is another "things sure were better back in the 2D days" comment. Now, I'm not sure if they were better or not, but I know I'm sick of hearing it.

2) This is a play to the "hardcore" gamers, the old boys' club who want gaming all to themselves. Of course, nobody will ever admit to being part of this, but I think at least some part of all of us likes the idea of belonging to some kind of small, exclusive group.

Meanwhile, you have Mizuguchi, who certainly knows how to get non-gamers into games (if you take the day my mom, aunt, and female cousins wrested the Dreamcast from me to play Space Channel 5 as an example). There's no denying that Rez has the potential to satisfy both the hardcore and the casual.

And I think that's my point, really, that the hardcore and casual segments can coexist. There are filmmakers out there who don't want to create a Hollywood blockbuster; they want to challenge themselves and make artistic works that appeal to the hardcore film fans. So if the hardcore fans want to read a magazine that caters to their interests, fine by me. In fact, I'll probably start reading it myself.

But yes, the idea that casual gamers somehow don't deserve to have video games is a little ridiculous.

-Chris Kohler

GameGO's publishers seek out experiences that remind them of how games "used to be", and laud those games in particular which are completely fueled by the developer's "vision." Yet many of those yesteryear developers are responsible for the changes "true gamers" rally against, and I doubt they were coerced into changing the status quo. For instance, 3D platformers are the bane of the self-proclaimed "hardcore gamer's" existence. But the first completely realized 3D platformer was Mario 64, from Miyamoto, Game-God-in-the-Eyes-of-All. So, working from the "hardcore" perspective, is Miyamoto still a genius or a compromising, aesthetic sellout? Most among the "hardcore" still deem this "bringer of evils" as a genius, which proves how paradoxical their standards are.

On the flipside, we have Mr. Mizoguchi's point-of-view, in which fun is all you owe the players. But who keeps the records on what's fun? The "old-schoolers vs. new-schoolers" debate alone shows how deeply divided our subjective opinions on fun are. So it's up to the developers alone to decide what makes a game fun, in essence making the game for himself, which is a far cry from the ideal of making a product "for everyone". Moreover, if anyone thinks they can make a game that appeals to every gamer, they're a damn fool. I know people who hate Tetris, even.

Same conclusion (the need for symbiosis), but different dispositions. Of the two opinions, I'd put more stock in Mr. Mizoguchi's philosophy, because it's more optimistic. It's very sad that some gamers, hardcore or otherwise, remain attached to a hobby they can do nothing but complain about.

-SonicPanda

Not an easy question at all, actually. It all depends on what we ultimately want from the gaming industry. There are obviously two paths, neither of which is clearly "right".

Making games with a broader mainstream appeal in an effort to attract people who normally would not play games sounds good in theory. In practice, however, it isn't as good an idea as most people might think...

Picture in your mind your five favorite games of all time. The genre and system don't matter. Now, how many of those games would you consider to have broad mainstream appeal? This is exactly my point. By trying to coerce "non-gamers" into playing, we run the risk of the gaming industry becoming what the movie industry has become. Taken as a whole, I think there is a higher percentage of good games made per year than good movies. This is because the movie industry tries, for the most part, to cater to everyone. The gaming industry on the other hand, by and large, tries to make good games for fans of that genre of game. Every team making an RPG or strategy game wants it to be better than the last RPG or strategy game that came out. They're not necessarily worried about appealing to everyone, they just want to make a good game for fans of that type of game. You don't see that attitude in the movie industry very much these days. Kevin Smith is a good example. He doesn't care about his movies having a broad mainstream appeal, he just wants fans of his movies to enjoy his latest work. The masses for the most part, ignore his work, and most good films in general. Just look at what happened to the Iron Giant.

That said, the occasional mainstream game specifically designed to draw a crowd of non-gamers and turn them into gamers is ok. When they're done with that game a percentage of them might take games more seriously, and buy another game, and another, and so on. This is a good thing. A gaming industry that consistently targets the mainstream would not be. Imagine the sickeningly easy RPGs alone. Battles and puzzles which required no strategy or skill, because they were made to appeal to the masses. A scary thought, no? I've got a scarier one. No RPGs, because that isn't what the "mainstream" wants. They want sports games and racing titles. Mainstream games you can jump right into and start playing.

If this sounds familiar, it should. The last time gaming enjoyed huge mainstream popularity was in the early 80's, when simple games reigned supreme. And while many of those 80's games are classics now, a return to that kind of mainstream simplicity is a frightening notion. As much as I loved Pac-Man and DigDug back in the day, I want Lunar and Front Mission now, games that aren't "mainstream", but are nonetheless brilliant.

All in all, it's a sticky subject. We'll just have to see what happens.

-Jason Alexander