Explaining Gamin’ to the Layman - Casual Style

We all have that person who doesn't understand our hobby - our love - of gaming. Most of these people are football hooligans or the elderly, sometimes both. But other times they are other gamers. We all love games, but some people enjoy casual, some are hardcore and still others only play MMORPGs. This is a guide of how to talk videogames to anyone, be they the 95 year-old lady at the bus stop or the kid who keeps stealing his mum's phone to play Angry Birds at the shops. For instance...

 In-App Purchases

Why the laymen doesn't get it:

It's a free game - when floppy discs came taped to the front of magazines with a free game on, they didn't then tell you to post them a 50 pence piece half-way through! If they wanted paying they shouldn’t have put it up for free.

How to explain:

Sometimes you just want to congratulate the developer on a job well done, other times you just want to use a cheat code. You could wait fifty-seven hours for three Crystal Berries, but in fifty-seven hours you have plans. So if you wait, it will be Tuesday before you collect them and December before the next Crystal Berries grow - so cheat code. Sure it costs money, but you earnt the money you're spending, so it's perfectly acceptable to use it buying things you want. And you want six Crystal Berries come November, damn it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endless Games

Why the laymen doesn’t get it:

It’s just one level and you keep moving through it, avoiding everything in your path, to get a score that means nothing? This other game has ten levels and finishing story mode gets ten more. And you can send Cannon Chips to people on Friendster!

How to explain:

You want to test your reflexes and the only way you can do that at the bus stop is by swishing Tom the Electrician around a never-ending wind farm. The high score gets you on a leaderboard - which is also linked to Friendster - so you can tell Uncle Jim to stuff it at Great-Grandma’s next birthday party. It’s a relaxing way to unwind, helping Tom escape the Environmentalists. So why would you want to do ten levels of zombie shooting in a frightening landscape when Tom’s wind farm looks so peaceful? Even the Environmentalists have a smile on their faces!

 

It’s Too Easy

Why the laymen doesn’t get it:

With simpler graphics, surely it must have simpler gameplay! There’s no draw to a game which is incapable of rendering a bead of sweat running off of a rugby player’s ankle, because a team of 250 couldn’t have worked on making it.

How to explain:

Just because it’s easy to learn, doesn't mean it’s easy to master. You could spend the next month just trying to line up all the kittens in a basket - but some don’t even have any level of difficulty to them. There is no need for a challenge when rebuilding a dragon’s lair, otherwise you wouldn't do it. You’re here for the long-haul, not the short fix - it just happens to occur in short fixes. Racing pigeons to get to the top of the leaderboard on Friendster - or even the world - isn't something you can do in a five-hour marathon session. It’s something you have to train to do, day after day like a marathon. But with pigeons.

 

They’re All The Same

Why the laymen doesn’t get it:

You have to solve the grisly murder in this game, or a homicide in that game - so obviously there’s no thought put into it! Just copy what Microstudio Entertaingames did, but make it a little different, with a very similar title.

How to explain:

Many games you enjoy for free require energy units - so you have to buy an energy pack or wait. By choosing to wait, you need something else to do. You like solving 'The Case Of The Dead Guy', so of course you want to play all of those games at the same time. It's not like you will ignore the last one just because the new one came out - you're not that sort of gamer. You can wait ten minutes to get more energy units - it won't eat into your leisure time. It's cool when a sequel comes out, but you're not whiling away the hours waiting for it, hoping for some DLC or a new character line up.

 

Which reminds me, I've got more energy - time to take a look at that line-up. Next time we'll tackle Explaining Gamin' to the Layman - MMO Style.