Converting the casuals...

[SineSwiper]

Anybody made any attempts at converting normals into casual gamers or converting casuals to real gamers? I've got two people I've converted under my belt.

First is a 50-year-old lady at work. She's the OCD librarian type. (Business analyst, go figure :) Coming from lunch one day, I mentioned that I was busy playing Phoenix Wright half the night. When I told her the what kind of game it was, she flipped. She was a big fan of mystery books, so she was all about a murder mystery on a portable system. I show her the game and the new demo that was on the web site (for the 4th game).

Anyway, I convinced her to get a DS and R4 when she got her birthday money. I loaded up the R4 (PW games and a bunch of puzzle, Brain Age, etc.). She bought a PSP, then bought a DS and sent the PSP back. (Just to show how much she didn't know about gaming systems. At least she still did some research on some of it; she bought it because she thought it was better with e-books.) Long story short, she's really enjoying it.

The second is my parents, mostly my dad. My parents are no strangers to games. They played computer games since I was 5. However, my mom didn't play much for a while and my dad now usually only sticks with flight simulators, space sims, and the like. (Jets, tie fighters, WWI bi-planes; he's flown them all.) Then 2 years ago, he kinda surprised me when he said that he's gotten into a MMO called Jumpgate. Fine, it's a space-sim MMO, but it was a step that I never thought he'd get into.

Six months ago, we let them borrow the Wii after we were getting stuff moved around during the house fire fiasco. Both of them couldn't stop playing WiiSports. So, we gave them the Wii for Christmas. (My thought it that I'll take it when I'm tired of my 360 and want to go through the Wii collection.) But, that was really all that they played: the sports games. For dad's birthday, I figured I was trying to get him into something more mainstream for real gamers. I got him Tiger Wood's golf to satisfy his sports craving (that and people call it the best golf game of all time), and grabbed Resident Evil 4. Shellie didn't believe that he would play it, and he didn't really touch it when I gave him the gifts. But, the next weekend, I get a call from my sister (who lives over there) and he's played it for 9 hours in two days! So, good call on my part. (Though today, he's spend about 20-30 hours or so in the game, and he says he's only about 40% into it. Didn't think the game was that long.)

Today, we met for a Sunday dinner, and I give him a copy of Metroid Prime 3 (to replace a crappy bowling game that we bought and put back in 30 minutes). Even better, we got Rock Band today, and we're all playing it. My dad used to be a drummer, so he seems to be a natural on the drums on Rock Band. Played Medium on his 2nd song, and keeps getting long streaks. Plays on Hard for one song, and he at least survives. (I can't say that there's too many regular gamers that can go that quickly on Hard for drums. I have a hard time on Easy.)

Anyway, long post, sorry. Anybody else have any stories to this effect?

[Zeus]

I find it more with younger gamers having games as a relatively primary source of entertainment. When I was growing up, it was still for geeks and nerds in the open, but everyone had at least played. Then you had some of the jocks with the sports games, mostly on the Genesis. But now I've finding with some of my cousins' age group (early 20s), they play a lot more. Non-hardcore stuff is what they prefer mostly (Rock Band and Wii Sports are big) but they at least want to play.

There is also my father-in-law. Hard-ass retired cop guy (he's a living stereotype) who got a Wii for Xmas. He loves the thing, I couldn't believe it. All the time I sat there playin' the DS and he didn't get it (or didn't want to) but I had him here playin' with the Wii for an hour and a half once and he loved it. So he got one for Xmas. Amazing.

We're starting to see games approaching the level of movies in terms of an entertainment choice IMO. Essentially, it's not "weird" or "anti-social" anymore and the majority game at least occasionally. Not quite as all consuming yet but then again, the movie industry has had an 80-year head start. But it's much more prevalent in the consciousness of the public that in was even 10 years ago.

[SineSwiper]

True, but right now, it seems that people are getting into games with just the "casual" stuff. It's still a step to get people to enjoy adventure games, FPSs, or even RPGs.

[Tessian]

Got a friend who bought a 360 about a month ago... can't take credit though as it was his son, who is currently taking classes in New Zealand, who convinced him to buy it. He's been having a blast with the Call Of Duty games (owns 4, let him borrow 3) and even broke down and paid for gold too. Haven't gotten to play with him yet, but I may try to sell him my old 23" LCD HDTV now... can't play Xbox on standard def!

So yeah, plenty of people just need that little push. He originally got it so he could play with his son online and they could talk for free over the voice chat.

[Zeus]

A lot of it is getting their minds over the whole idea that video games = Pac-Man or SMB or Donkey Kong. So many have no clue about the ridiculous advancements we've seen in the last 10 years or even 20 where their first exposure was.

[Zeus]

You could also try just getting the controller in their hands

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167171

[SineSwiper]

A lot of it is getting their minds over the whole idea that video games = Pac-Man or SMB or Donkey Kong. So many have no clue about the ridiculous advancements we've seen in the last 10 years or even 20 where their first exposure was.

At least they had that far. Back in the old games, the trick was convincing people who never playing video games period.