The Mainstream is Coming!

Every gamer knows the moments when he or she realized their hobby had opened up to the mainstream. Tycho Brahe reveals his moment, and the emergence of what he calls 'Gamer Mark II'.

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Tycho... On the Escapist....
I can only hope there will be more in the future. I myself am indubitably Mark II, but mainstream isn't always a bad thing. It means gaming will be accepted more quickly, and there's more money in the industry to make good games. No matter how you look at it, the more games made, the better. Well, maybe not, but that's my opinion.

If anyone else wrote this article I'd be linking to the Penny Arcade comic where Gabe and Tycho go and buy Halo 2. Now I feel kind of small and sad for considering it.

Anyhow, I've been watching the gaming industry swell over into the mainstream and feel a sense of satisfaction out of being a part of it for some 21 years of my 25 years of life. The fact that it's a multibillion dollar industry now, that gaming tournaments are now being taken somewhat seriously and growing in popularity every year: these things don't surprise me exactly, but I'm pleased by it. I like videogames and the more mainstream recognition they receive the better. The fact that there's so much media coverage over the desire to implement an R18+ classification for videogames in Australia to keep so many games being banned by default after they were refused classification by the OFLC kind of blows my mind. Of course being federal/state government policy it needs to be discussed seriously by serious men in expensive suits, but the fact that it's such a big issue is kind of insane. It's as though the mainstream media is taking it seriously and almost in a positive way, though some do have a tendency to jump to the FOX News style alarmist reporting that has people believing that R-Rated games would either consist entirely of porn, or ultraviolent games that teach us how to viciously murder like Manhunt 2. As if allowing this evil into the country would suddenly corrupt children, like they have no faith in our ratings system and the regulations for sales of these items. Yes, some children get ahold of alcohol, tobacco, and porn. But then, some manage to get their hands on narcotics and firearms. Clearly it's not a point-of-sale ID check system that's failing us.
Me, I just want to play Dark Sector - hopefully I'll be able to sometime soon.

Granted, with the advent of the Mark II gamer as you put it there's been a plethora of drawbacks - I feel that if the gaming community were still made up primarily of the core audience we'd be having more fun in online multiplayer, but without developments that led to the expansion of the gaming community I guess we wouldn't have such well developed online multiplayer. I guess being subject to unsportsmanlike conduct in Halo 3 (more commonly referred to by me in my living room as "an assraping") is something I can tolerate given how much more I've gained.