In life there will always be stereotypes and gaming life is no different. According to Masanobu EndÅ a game designer, president of Game Studio and Mobile & Game Studio and the director of Digital Games Research Association Japan; he divided gamers into two classes. One type is known as a “game elite†and another as a “light gamerâ€.
As the name indicates, a game elite is someone who takes gaming quite seriously more than normal people would. They consider gaming a lifestyle and would most likely enjoy a career out of it. Light gamers are casual gamers who simply plays for the enjoyment of it usually to de-stress and meet new friends on the side.
Here is the infamous chart Masanobu-san demonstrates in his presentation he made to audiences at the recent CEDEC 2010 (CESA Developers Conference):
| Game Elite | Tendency | Light Gamer |
| Enjoys strategising themselves | Strategy | Likes reading hint books whilst playing |
| Likes to clear games quickly | Time | Doesn’t like to play under time constraints |
| Likes to play at their own pace | Time | Doesn’t want to spend too much time on each game |
| Likes sophisticated controls | Control | Complex controls = boring |
| Buys on release day | Purchase | Buys when free to do so |
| Game magazines | Info | Friends |
| Discount stores or Amazon | Budget | Buys normally if they can’t get it for free |
| Excitedly waits through loading | Loading | Long load = off |
| Likes games (also anime and comics) | Interests | Interested in games amongst other things |
| Must play to be satisfied | Play | Satisfied just to watch others play |
| Virtual | Love | Real |
Game Elite:
- Has played eighties game
- Remembers pleasures of pixel perfect control
- Likes high risk/high return trade offs
- If a PC gamer, likes FPS and RTS, also MMO
- Prefers Xbox 360 for consoles
- Prefers PSP for handhelds
- Often single
- Lacks endurance for Wii sports games
Light Gamer:
- May be female
- Often young
- Has little time for games
- Email is more important to them than games
- Won’t install
From a layman’s point of view, this is certainly a labelling concept. Before writing this article I showed it to several friends and most of them said the same thing; “But I fall both on the same categories. What does that make me?†I can also certainly say the same for myself. No one really likes to be told that they are limited to this certain type of class.
Then again truly serious gamers might say otherwise because of the hard work and passion (obsession maybe?) they put into gaming so they would surely like to be cut above the rest.
So whether you call yourself a light gamer, a gamer elite, both or none at all we all have our different reasons for playing video games. The gaming industry at present tries to please both serious and casual crowds with having as much range in genre and difficulty as much as they can. Do you think classifying people as a certain gamer type will help narrow down what kind of games we should play?
base on the first picture, i have about 11 more years XD
14 years for me 😛
So how would you categorize Game Bloggers? We don’t really play most of the time but we talk about games most of the time.
it really depends on where you want to be placed– it’s just that this time someone dictates *points at masanobu-san* where we are “categorized”