Death of the hardcore gamer

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 10 November 2007 06:00

Opinion and Analysis

Even ‘Lord British’ Richard Garriott,  creator of the complex world of Ultima adventure games as well as pioneering the Massive Multiplayer Online game with Ultima Online has relented to the accessibility quest.

His soon to be launched new MMO Tabula Rasa has a stated direction to make online gaming a much simpler step for ‘newbies’.  In a recent interview he bemoans the time consuming process and dedication that must go into most MMO’s ; "It takes 30 minutes to an hour just to meet up with your friends to start playing. In contrast, Tabula Rasa, a PC game that will be released Nov. 2, was designed to appeal to the average Joe who's probably not interested in learning what "gold farming" or "damage over time" means and just wants to amuse himself by saving the universe.

And fair enough, after all, simply put, games are supposed to be fun, a diversion from real world concerns or a way to share moments with family, friends or even a bit of ‘own time’.  The vast majority of the population is not concerned with plotting diagrams for a WWII submarine, or what flap trim to put in place to avoid rotor force (I don’t even know what that means!)

So the simplification push is somewhat understandable – cater to the masses is one of the first laws of capitalism.

But for niche fans all is not lost, there are still commercial games such as Silent Hunter, Armed Assault, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Civilization and so on available on shelves.  For the more specialised aficionado, look no further than the internet for fan driven code to support, Mount&Blade being one popular example.

Whilst the Console gaming arena might be lost to the XBLA and Virtual Console popularity, there are still games such as Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 to give the gaming pad a real work over.

So specialist subject gaming fans, don’t despair, though you shake your head at the news of yet another The Sims expansion or Guitar Hero release, your niche titles have not completely gone away, they are just a bit harder to locate.