What Drives Our Games and Gamers?

Features | July 9th, 2008 by Staggs

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I try to make one post that tries to answer something I think should be cleared up, or offer my way of thinking about video games in a light that others might not. So, today I was wondering what is it that drives the games that come out every month, and the gamers that seem to never want to give up their games.

Gamers like graphics. This is understandable… ever since the discovery of how to create 3D graphics gamers have been in a never-ending quest to play games that are the most realistic. This is an undisputed area of games that is looked at and analyzed by everyone. If a game has great graphics, it’ll probably do alright. If a game has amazing graphics, no matter what game it is, most likely it will sell to the people that can run the games.

Graphics are a give and take sort of thing. Big companies know that the graphics matter to gamers, so it drives them to make their games the best possible. The way I see it, as long as computers and technology is capable of producing images, there will always be this idea that graphics are the coolest thing ever.

Another important factor that games need is something new to bring to the table. Even the smalllest factors could drive a game. Look at Portal from the Orange Box on the Xbox 360; create portals and solve ridiculous puzzles. Sounds really simple, but the affects of this simplicity were that people loved it. Another example, Crysis; gamers had to update their machines to play this game in its full. Why? Because it offered something that other games didn’t, crazy physics (and graphics).

A lot of times we’ll see a game that tries to be totally unique, and hits it, or misses the mark. Assassin’s Creed, hit or miss? No one really knows because it seems like people either loved it or hated it, but it did have something unique. Assassination with knives, and full-sized cities you had to travel to. Really great when you think about it, the developers modeled the game after actual historic cities. Not too many developers take that kind of time to do. Why would they do that? Because we don’t see that all the time, and gamers know this.

What are gamers looking at? Uniqueness. If a game has something a gamer likes, they will buy the game. This uniqueness is really what we’re looking for in a game. Right now you might be asking, Madden 2003, is just as good as Madden 2008… its the same football game. True, but those gamers want to play with the most recent players, and most updated graphics. Those games are still really unique from each other to the gamer thats willing to buy them.

Gaming, unlike other entertainment (movies, or music) is just entertainment but there is also the idea of competitiveness and egoism involved. Gamers want to be the best out of their friends, or out of their region, and more recently the entire world is involved. Gamers are driven people.