Diversity in gaming is not a necessary evil. It's just necessary.

It’s almost a month old now, but I came across this article a week or so ago and…it struck a chord. Several, in fact. Like a full bloody symphony.

Leigh Alexander’s thoughts on diversity and assumptions made about its impact – that it equals dumbing down, that the newcomers will destroy the experience for everyone else – is very close to home for me. I am a female gamer who is viewed as an anomaly by those who do not see themselves as gamers, even though they are wedded to gaming apps. I have played games for 15 years and across several generations, but did not own consoles as a child and has never felt welcome in ‘hardcore’ gaming communities. In their eyes, I do not play the right kind of games. On the right (read: insanely hard) setting.  I do not play MMORGs or scarily successful FPS franchises online. I spent ages not owning next-gen consoles. Fuck, I like my Nintendo content as much as my 360 and PS games, possibly more so.

Folks, we have a ‘casual’ girl gamer in the house. Please stow your pitchfolks away for the time being, as I have built up a soapbox especially to talk about this.

What this article and some of the comments (since disappeared) touched upon is that diversity in gaming is not only what we should be heading towards, but how gaming used to be for many people. Console and PC gamers can and do sneer at ‘social’ gaming all they like and I will happily admit that they are not my preferred cuppa – too much sweetness, not enough depth. However, Candy Crush and their like are not a million miles away from the grandaddy of old-school classic gaming goodness, Tetris. And the people playing them are the sorts of people who used to hit arcades after school, but could not afford, or *gasp* just did not want a console, because it was one of several hobbies that they had.

Block-based puzzlers are incredibly simple in concept, but the skill level required to play them is often through the roof; likewise for the patience needed to put in the time for a those easy peasy-looking farming game. A company like Nintendo is always accused by the ‘hardcore’ brigade of being sell-outs who only care about mass-market appeal, but a main part of why their franchises have that appeal is because their apparent simplicity conceals solid and sometimes revolutionary gameplay. I once handed control of Super Mario Sunshine over to my cousin.  Reared on the Playstation and racing sims, they gave up after a couple of minutes because a) they had come in on the middle of the control learning curve, which is perfectly built up over time on Mario and Zelda titles and b) because that game required a huge amount of precision and in-depth understanding of the mechanics. I had always adjusted to the controls, learning curve and mechanics of those franchises as if it was second-nature, and finding out that these mass-market, don’t-count-as-serious-because-they’re-totes-for-kiddies games could be hard for another experienced gamer was a wake-up call. It taught me that good games, classic games, are that because sometimes it is the simplest design and mechanics that have the most impact. It also taught me that ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ as terms are…really problematic.

I am a casual gamer due to playing so-called kiddie franchises; because I do not always complete absolutely everything if it wastes resources for no real reward; and worse of all, because I took a break of several years from proper next-gen gaming to focus on my studies and career and guess, what, it was easy. I am not a hardcore gamer because I have never been able to play on the hardest difficulty of a game, ever. I am not hardcore because I rarely get a headshot in; I am not hardcore because I look at the amount of hours clocked up on super-complex MMORGs and think, ‘oh, to fuckery with that’.

But the thing is, I am a hardcore gamer. Hell, I play JRPGs with a (sensible) completionist attitude that has most people backing away from me slowly with a glazed look of terror in their eyes. Full-on card quest in Final Fantasy VIII, including maths calculations and a gazillion resets to get the regional rules to take? Pfft, done that – several times. Doing three nearly-almost-complete Mass Effect 1-3 within the space of four months? No biggie for this woman. Accidentally delete a 100 hour-plus Final Fantasy X save file? Shrugged my shoulders and started up a new playthrough that was more complete and interesting than the last one. Starting new playthroughs just to nab one achievement? Well, yeah.

Go ahead Samara, I knew you didn't have my staying power!

When you have numerous interests, you have to divvy your time, space and cash accordingly. Something has to give. Gaming might even be your favourite pastime, but you just do not have the resources, full-stop – and as someone who had to take a break from gaming because I simply did not have the time or the cash, I sympathise with that entirely. You might not have the greatest rig of all time, but you might be on your handheld console at lunch, or playing games on your mobile on the bus. Said handheld or mobile might not be able to offer you epic next-gen presentation or the so-called ‘hardcore’ gaming experience; but games aimed at a diverse audience can be beautiful and intricate underneath their outward simplicity.

There are plenty of mass-market, social network or ‘casual’ titles that are sloppily-made and out for a quick buck – although you should never put behaviour like that past a next-gen console or PC games developer. Sometimes they are experiments that did not set the market alight. But that is no reason to dismiss them all out of hand, or assume that their inventiveness is a gimmick. Not only is it self-centred to assume that what does not appeal to you is not significant or not worth having, but you would be tossing the baby away with the bathwater. Bringing new ideas and different people into gaming does not automatically mean dilution – it can and does result in a different way of looking at games and what they can do. That’s the way that any industry works. That attitude flies in the face of what gaming is and what it always has done. And that’s exactly what we need from this industry: so that it keeps producing games that are interesting and inventive, and to make sure that everyone can find something to enjoy.

In other words, I may never be able to play Dark Souls ‘properly’, but there is no good reason to suggest that doing so will destroy someone else’s personal experience of the game. Let us in, folks. Some of us have shiny new ideas. And cookies. Just don’t take it personally if they are Triforce-shaped.