It’s not because games are easier, though. It’s because you’ve already built up that skill, and so have millions of other people. The genre has evolved past the mindless deathmatch mentality that you speak of, “making your team win by yourself”. Being able to run out and gun down everybody in your path is fun and satisfying (which is what quake3 deathmatches are for), but a lot of people have grown past that stage in FPS’s, and want a more strategic, teamwork based experience. That’s where Counter-Strike and Battlefield come in. These aren’t deathmatch style games, you’re not supposed to be able to go commando and destroy a whole team by yourself. You’re going to get horribly beaten. This does not make every player “average”. This makes YOU a poor tactician because YOU practice poor teamwork.

In conclusion, stop whining because you got owned by “average” players on a Battlefield server. You’re not the only person that’s been playing FPS’s since Doom.

As for your WoW example. I think people love WoW because it simulates elitism on a very sophisticated level, with time being the skill factor. What you call “build up” a character in the old days goes in the same direction. You were willing to take that burden back then, most “causal” “mainstream” gamers weren’t or didn’t even know about it. Niche and elitism goes hand in hand. I don’t think the gaming world is worse today than it was once. I actually think it’s better than ever and there’s more glorious stuff to come.

Firstly, I think we are treating ourselves if we think that mainstream culture has sullied our sacrosanct gamer culture. In my opinion, with the exception of its’ increase in size, the quality of the gaming community hasn’t really changed all that much in the past few years. That is precisely what mainstream has done; it has magnified the scope of gaming by a HUGE factor. We now have a massive influx of new people, which has created a population discrepancy. I believe that, proportionally, we have remained relatively static in terms of “people who are fun to play with” vs. “people who are not fun to play with”.

Why? Well, I know, for certain, that there have been griefers and asshats since when I first started to go online. People who try to get an edge by using glitches, bugs, etc. – they’ve all been around forever. In fact, nerds and gamers are among the most socially irresponsible people I know. I mean…if you are considering perhaps the time of BBS and pay-to-play by the hour, then yeah…maybe I can see a relative decline in the quality of community (I don’t know, though – I didn’t participate). But in comparison to the days when we were first able to play games over the internet, this decline is, as I said before, merely an expression of proportion.

This HUGE new community of people is where I see the negative influence from mainstream culture. With more and more people, it is increasingly difficult to identify ourselves with our own culture, and we grow more disconnected. From the replies in this thread, it feels like many of us feel like we are losing control of our precious subculture. Feeling this way is completely understandable. Any level of cultural assimilation will bring about feelings of “loss of control” and “marginalization”.

However, when I look at how gaming has progressed within mainstream culture, there seems to be more of a balance between contemporary culture and gaming subculture than ever before. Earlier, when you were a nerd, you’d be ostracized, and be less likely to fit in with the rest of society. But now, it is acceptable to be a nerd or a geek in mainstream culture. If we must find fault with mainstream culture (scapegoating?), it is the way we have constructed our society, and our communities – there is far too much hierarchical marginalization going on.

And while we can put blame on mainstream culture, subcultures are guilty of the same kind of hierarchical marginalization. Even as a gaming subculture, we have marginalization based on knowledge, gaming experience, gaming skill, and technological “e-penis”. If anything, if we seek to fit in to society, we should be thankful that gaming has hit such crtiical mass in contemporary culture.

“But, Rice-Rocketeer,” you ask “What does this mean? Why is it so hard to find a decent person to game with?” It is true: we are finding that our multiplayer sessions are much more difficult to arrange, and we find ourselves spending less time playing and more time idling. Ironically, if we look at how pervasive gaming has become in contemporary society, there are TONS of gamers out there. Well, in my opinion, the problem with multiplayer right now is that our match-making/multiplayer services haven’t innovated enough to address this massive new influx of gamers.

Our dinosaur-like response to all these new gamers everywhere is precisely why I am excited for endeavours like X-BOX Live, thomw’s gamewith.us, and Steam Community. I don’t know about you guys, but I RARELY play on public servers anymore. I mostly play with friends, or with the Shack. In my opinion, that is absolutely fine. I am supremely happy with Steam Community’s smoothly integrated concept of individual niches where like-minded individuals can join their own, individual communities such as what we have on the Shack. Steam Community as a PART of Steam is exactly the kind of innovation I am excited about when it comes to establishing casual social gaming. We already have working communities of non-casual gaming such as MMORPGs (thanks WoW), but for us hardcore casual gamers who want more than roleplaying (which is a hella easy entry into gaming, to be honest), these services are our salvation! While these services aren’t quite “there”, they are spearheading the movement to make mainstream gaming a viable social experience in an audience of hundreds of thousands of gamers. I’d really like to see them develop these ideas further, pump research money into these systems, and in time, multiplayer gaming can become a relatively painless experience once more.

In conclusion, identifying the ideal of gaming as a period of time that didn’t have to address the scope of SIZE the contemporary gaming community must deal with is being protectionist, and anti-productive. If you are one to decry the decline of the gaming community, then the Shack is a perfect place for you to be. We are essentially a pocket of gaming sub-culture that has remained relatively unchanged since sCary’s Shugashack first appeared. With these new multiplayer technologies, we can REMAIN a pocket of insulated subculture within mainstream culture. It is an exciting time for gaming, so don’t be upset! Participate and adapt to these changes so that you can continue to enjoy gaming!