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[Dr_Cogent]

Non-gamer = my girlfriend (24).

I showed her dozens of games, from Sanitarium, Halo, Wolfenstein, Diablo to Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Zelda: TWW, Klonoa etc.

She always laughs how stupid and childlish gaming is.

Stupid and childish?

What are her hobbies?

What is stupid and childish about having fun?

 

[djtiesto]

Non-gamers cannot grasp the motion on doing a fireball in Street Fighter.

I have a friend who's been playing games since the 16 bit era - owned Genesis, SNES, N64 and most recently Gamecube. Went for 14 hours straight playing Smash Bros. Religiously played C&C and Total Annihilation till 4 in the morning every day in HS. Then, he came over my house a few weeks ago, and I showed him GGX2#R. He asked me how to do some moves. And I'm like, just do a hadouken and hit this button. And he looked at me, like "hadouken"?? How do I do that? And I'm like, just roll from down to towards. And he's like, I have no idea. I'm like, you've never used a hadouken before? Oh my god! And I've never been so taken aback, because I seriously thought this guy was a hardcore gamer.

 

[Tempy]

Interesting thread with some hilarious replies

As for my take on what a "non-game" is:

I don't agree with that a (video)game has a winning condition in the sense that you can finish the game with a victory screen. This would exclude what I call "endless" games such as Tetris, which seems silly.

I'd classify it a bit more as an activity requiring user interaction in order to achieve certain objectives by overcoming certain challenges (what the user does has a noticeable affect on the outcome).

* This excludes Visual Novels which only requires the user to press a button to watch the next bunch of text, but does include those Japanese "adventure" games where there are story branches to choose from. One objective in those games is "collect all the possible endings". Granted, it's not very deep gameplay.
* As for Tetris, the objective is to survive for as long as possible, and lower level objectives would be to clear lines.
* This includes Animal Crossing, The Sims, SimCity, Nintendogs and other "simulation" games as they do clearly have objectives/challenges. In Animal Crossing these objectives would be things like getting a rare fish for Tom Nook. In The Sims it would be to get your Sim a job promotion. The most fun in these games is usually derived from creativity in the ways of interaction. Note that a lot of these objectives are not mandatory in the game, and the player can even decide his/her own objectives.
* This excludes Mario Paint, the DS dictionary, and that Tarot cart for the NES. But does include the DS Brain Training game as it does seem to have challenges the player must overcome in order to proceed (correct me if I'm wrong here).

None of this really matters though. If people want it, they'll buy it. And there will still be "games" out there for you, whatever your definition is.

 

[sprsk]

non games are pc software you use on your consoles like brain training.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

an activity requiring user interaction in order to achieve certain objectives by overcoming certain challenges (what the user does has a noticeable affect on the outcome).

Good lord, think of how many activities that encompasses. I'm using both hands to achieve one now. No, not that one.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

non games are pc software you use on your consoles like brain training.

you're not even trying

 

[Borys]

Stupid and childish?

What are her hobbies?

What is stupid and childish about having fun?

Shopping new clothes and sex.
Can't say I'm disappointed but reading through many stories about wives playing Diablo Co-op or WoW, or even F-Zero GX with their guys makes me jealous.

Games = cartoons in her eyes. For kids and childlish adults. That's why I try to game only when she's not around. Yeah, it's not the best situation for a gamer :|

 

[sprsk]

you're not even trying

do i haaaaave toooooooooo

 

[Musashi Wins!]

c-

 

[sprsk]

c-

 

[norinrad21]

My girlfriend hates videogames and sometimes hates me for playing them,but for some strange reason, she's addicted to the DS all her girlfriends own a DS now too. I guess Nintendo is doing great in attracting these kind of people with easy to pick up games that doesn't look complex, I mean its far more easier to get used to the stylus than a regular controller for these so called non-gamers

 

[JJConrad]

I don't think you can define a "non-game" as an objective-less game or a game with no clear ending, because that would include nearly every game from Atari days of gaming, plus there are many unquestioned "non-games" that have both objectives and even endings.

I would define a non-game as 1 of 2 things:

-a game that breaks away from or doesn't conform to the current gaming formula.
-a game designed for non-gamers, or one that attracts them.

Non-gamers are those who don't play games, and wouldn't be considered "gamers." Your parents, your sister, your girlfriend...


Non-games over the years:

Nintendogs
Animal Crossing
Harvest Moon
The Sims
DDR
Pokemon
-Those 6 have all seen a larger percentage of girls playing them than normal games.

Tetris - saw large gains with older business men
GTA3 - probably converted more casuals into full-time gamers than anything, but the underlying concept is there.

 

[GDGF]

A non-gamer is a person who is incapable of playing a video game.

For example:

This is a baby. Babies don't play video games. They're not smart enough yet.

Uh-uh. I know that baby. He kicked my ass in Street Fighter last week.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

Non-gamers cannot grasp the motion on doing a fireball in Street Fighter.

It's like I want to give you a "huzzah!", but back in the early nineties when I looked over the SF2 movelist for the first time, in a GamePro, I was like "What the fuck?"

And then my life became centered around that motion...

 

[ToxicAdam]

My wife likes your typical "non-games" DDR, Donkey Konga, Sims, PS2 Baldurs Gate (Ohh.. burn). But her attention span for it is about 20 minutes, then she gets bored.

 

[iapetus]

Non-games over the years:

DDR
Pokemon
Tetris
GTA3

No.

jinx, if you're not happy with the term 'non-gamer', how about 'gamer'? Because you can't take one without the other - a 'non-gamer' is simply anyone who doesn't fall into the category of 'gamer'.

My vague stab at definitions for some of these terms:

A 'gamer' (in the video gaming sense) is someone who, given a list of checkboxes and asked to select which of these activities they participate in in their free time would tick the box next to 'play video games' if answering honestly.

A 'non-gamer' is someone who would not.

A 'casual gamer' is someone who enjoys playing games but has no interest in them beyond that; they don't care about the history of games, the theory behind them, or the process of 'mastering' a game - they'd rather just play.

A 'non-game' in the sense it's used here is something that's harder to define, largely because so many people have their own meanings for it. By the strict definition it is any thing that is not a game, but the overtones it seems to imply that it's an entertainment product which runs on a system generally seen as a gaming platform that does not conform to the definition of 'game' used by the person describing the product. Normally it's pejorative. I don't agree with most uses people put it to, though this may be partly because I wrote a number of 'educational games' (basically maths testers with pretty graphics) back in the days of the BBC Micro, and if they counted as games, brain exercisers and dog simulations certainly do.

 

[Ash Housewares]

I think a non-gamer is someone who hands the controller to somebody else at every hard part or can't beat RE4 unless they use the infinite rocket & tommie gun that I unlocked the ungreatful swine...

 

[Justin Bailey]

Non-gamers also includes the group of people that used to play games but have stopped playing for one reason or another. Nintendo seems to be very serious about this group of people.

Yes and I think the majority of that group consists of females that owned NES' when they were kids. They stopped playing when the industry started focusing more on teenage males than anyone else.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I think it's fairly clear that if I walked into a game store and bought DMC3, Tetris, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing and Gabriel Knight 3 at the same time that there would be no question that I was buying games. And that the notion has something to do with our concept of play.

And I also have no doubt that a game sales list that has Norton or Excel on it seems incongrous because of our notion of play or work. But that Nintendogs or Sims wouldn't seem out of place.

Also, if I met a football player who was always angry and never relaxed and who lived to smash his opponents but was so unhappy, I would still think he was playing a game. I might even say to him, "relax crazy man, it's only a game." Even if the activity had nothing to do with taking something less serious than other things we would call work.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

Obviously, the term gamer\non-gamer is refering to something different on this board than within a gambling community or sports community.


Maybe a non-gamer is someone who doesn't at least partially identify or define themselves with videogaming.

I watch movies and listen to music, but I am not invested in any either of those things to even list them as "interests" beyond the amount that I am culturally assumed to be, even with my rather large iPod budget. (define myself as a gadget guy)

I majored in English in college and still dabble in short fiction. I identify myself, partially, as a writer because of my investment in that craft.

 

[Lord Error]

Non-gamer = my girlfriend (24).

I showed her dozens of games, from Sanitarium, Halo, Wolfenstein, Diablo to Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Zelda: TWW, Klonoa etc.

She always laughs how stupid and childlish gaming is.

Games like GTA, Halo, Mario, Diablo, etc. despte their quality will actually do nothing but support her notion. Try showing her Ico. It's one game that definitely has an impact on people who don't normally like games (and not the 'tetris' kind of impact, but that of actual interest and respect towards what's being shown)

 

[Belfast]

There are games where you never "win". The Sims is a game. World of Warcraft is a game. Neither involve winning anything.

There is a distinct sense of progress in each of those games WoW involves competition against other players. Rather, most MMORPGs *are* giant chat rooms with "games" dispersed throughout. For instance, a PvP battle is a competition based on skill, progress, and strategy with a clear winner and loser. Quests also have a win/lose state. You complete the quest, you win. The only difference between WoW/MMORPGs and a standard, linear game is that you can engage in these activities whenever you want and are not confined to complete them in a certain order.

In other words, there is no end to these games, but there certainly ARE many elements of winning and losing based on individual events within the game that influence eachother to create a coherent whole.

 

[Flynn]

To define "non-gamer" its best to work backwards.

What is a gamer?

Is a gamer simply someone who plays games? I'd posit that the answer is no.

Today, the label "gamer" describes a gaming enthusiast -- someone who is into playing, talking about and perhaps even collecting games. A person involved in the culture of gaming.

Then, the definition of "non-gamer" is much easier to come by. A non-gamer is now anyone from someone who has never picked up a controller in their life to someone who has a dusty PS2 and plays GTA Vice City twice a year when they're high.

The non-gamer is a non-enthusiast, the casual or the completely unexposed.

 

[imastalker co.]

i figured we'd stop using non-gamer for some reason once Iwata labled them the "Touch Generation".

 

[Shompola]

gamer = playing videogames is regarded as a hobby to them
non-gamer = playing videogames is not a hobby

EASY!

 

[TheDiave]

In case nobody's beat me to it:

This thread will not end well...

 

[GDGF]

In case nobody's beat me to it:

This thread will not end well...

It's gone on pretty well so far...

 

[teruterubozu]

Don't forget, the new term for "non-gamer" is VELOCITY GIRL...

 

[MattKeil]