Are Old School Gamers BAD for the Gaming Community?

Are Old School Gamers BAD for the Gaming Community? By Thana Lee Thana Lee is currently a fresh graduate out of high school. He hails from Singapore and is currently waiting to enlist in the army. In his spare time, in addition to playing video games, he also enjoys playing basketball, writing and listening to music.

I was recently asked to write the above topic, and I personally think that they are not. Most improvements and ideas have to come from somewhere. I personally believe that there has not been a completely original idea since the Stone Age. Same deal with gaming. All games can be linked. However, firstly, I would like to define the term "old-school gamer". This is just my interpretation. I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this definition.

Well, for me an old school gamer is a person that has seen the evolution of games to a certain extent. I personally tend to place the birth of Super Mario Bros. as the line, but some people might argue otherwise. An old school gamer has seen the Sega generation, rocked the Playstation, had a PS2, Xbox, or a Gamecube, and is currently playing the third gen stuff, the PS3s, 360s and the Wii. I would like to estimate this number to be about 5 to 10% of gamers, although that might be an overestimate, simply because if the gamer is in his early twenties, he automatically does not qualify, as Super Mario Bros was released in 1985, and I highly doubt there were a lot of 1 year olds playing that game. I personally only played it because my auntie loved that game, and I honestly have not played enough to be able to declare myself an "old school gamer". However, most gamers who HAVE played Super Mario Bros, and played it frequently at that, generally aren't really in the gaming habit anymore. Sure, they might play some Rock Band with their kids now and then, but that doesn't really count as having detailed knowledge of the evolution of gaming.

So why are old school gamers really that important? It's simple; they know what attracts other gamers. Old school gamers do not have much of an effect on the gaming community through gaming, they affect the gaming world through the development of games. Most people who develop games obviously play video games, and in order for them to succeed in making a good game, more often than not they tend to take elements from other games. Take Crash Bandicoot, a popular series for the Playstation, for example. While some people might disagree, I personally see it as nothing more than an evolution of Super Mario Bros. Yes, the player has more freedom with the character, and the fact that some enemies have to be tackled differently in the later installments is also another difference, but if you strip it down to its bones Super Mario Bros and Crash Bandicoot are pretty much the same thing.

Obviously old school gamers can sometimes affect the gaming world negatively. In the gaming world, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results is pretty much insane. Old school gamers may sometimes fall in love with a concept, only to fail to notice that the rest of the gaming world has already moved on. Think about it. How many titles have you seen go from prominence to irrelevance? The Crash Bandicoot series is only one of them. The Rockman series is another. The number of series that can last more than fifteen years are few and far between. The only one that comes to mind right now is the Metal Gear series, and we all know how much effort went into that game. Metal Gear was successful simply because while the producers stayed true to the game's origins, a stealth game, they also added a lot more stuff in the later installments of the series in order to keep current fans hooked and attract new ones.

Overall, I believe that old school gamers still aid the gaming community than harm them. Regardless of the topic, remembering a little bit of history never hurt anybody, and gaming is no exception. Still, with the evolution of gaming moving at such a breakneck pace, perhaps the old school gamers will not be able to keep up soon.