Two Ways To Play

In the world of video games, the spectrum spans between two types of players. There are the casual ones who will play a little of everything that comes into contact with their system, and when they play, they just go until they feel like stopping, and then move on. Then there are the hardcore ones who will start a game and play it to its absolute conclusion. This type does not play just any game, but carefully select their next conquest like a general surveying the enemy. Your average gamer will range somewhere between the two extremes tending towards hardcore on some types of games and casual on others.

I was recently friended by someone who I failed to note played video games and even asked me about the Xbox on a prior occasion. Obviously, this time, I gave him my tag and once he sent the request, I was able to stalk ... er, I mean review the games he has played. Where my list is at 99, his is sitting at 442. Obviously, a part of this is because he has had his Xbox for longer than I've had mine (I found his oldest achievement to be earned on November 20, 2006 vs my December 25, 2011), but based on how incomplete his list of games is, I would put him as a casual gamer.

His list of games is littered with sort of begun games all nestled down around a handful of achievements with less than half being above the fifty percent mark. His overall percentage is 37, which considering just how many games he has on his tag is not exactly terrible. I noted a few games here and there that he was really dedicated to, completing them into the 80 and 90 percentiles, and he did complete 20 of them. None of this is meant to put him down or cause any insult, I promise. It simply indicates what amounts to an overall casual gamer.

I have another friend who recently found the true achievement site, and is casually working to get a higher completion on some of his games, but he suffers from a lack of play time, and as such, many of his games are still fairly low, but he is fortunate to only have 27 of them on his list to work with, but he has completed 3 of them so far.

Personally, I was casual for about a year before I discovered a fascinating achievement site at trueachievements.com where I completely junked out over the games and became a bit more hardcore (though not before I had all the earmarks of casual on my gamertag). As such, I gathered a handful of just really stupid games that I had rented and really disliked, and if I want to bring my overall percentage up, I now have to revisit them. Of my 99 games, I have a completion percentage of 47.89, and my overall goal is to eventually hit 80. I do have 50% on more than half of them, and I hope to hit a 50% overall rating around the end of the month, though by the looks of it, it will be a few days into November before I hit it. That site has some sweet tracking tools that I easily obsess over.

When you think about it, I'm sure we all start out as the casual gamer type regardless of whether it is actual games or other things in life. We begin by exploring and trying different things and build up a little experience with this and that before finding what we like and settling in. When we find our hardcore, we generally focus that attention on a small subset of where we start, much like the friend with nearly 450 games. He tried a lot, but devoted his attention to a certain type of game that he finds himself good with.

There are people out there who have changed gamer tags when they've moved from casual to hardcore so that they can control their completion percentages and ensure that they fully complete everything they touch and more carefully screen their games. While this is possible in the Xbox world, it hides a little of the truth of one's past by painting them as a perfect player when they really aren't. If I went to a new gamertag just to get 100%, I would have to replay so many games that I would lose more time than I would gain by starting new stuff. Yes, my percentage would be higher, but at a cost I'm not willing to pay. My tag with all its ups and downs is an accurate reflection of my Xbox gaming history, and really, there is nothing wrong with it.

This also serves as a sort of life metaphor where you can never escape from your past or even hide it as it all becomes a part of you. Yes, you have that Yoostar game on there with 12 achievements you can never attain. Yes, Transformers: The Game is there will all its gloriously horrible play control, and you never want to see it again. And yes, Child of Eden will forever taunt you with its achievements that are so hard to get, its True Achievement ratings are some of the highest on the site. Yet, how does this differ from bad decisions made and learned from in real life? Maybe you should have done this or shouldn't have done that, and all you can do is move on.

Naturally, the biggest difference is that anyone can look at your Xbox gaming history in all its glorious detail where your mind can be a closed book keeping your history carefully hidden. But just like having the Michael Jackson Experience and Just Dance Kids 2 in your gaming history doesn't make you a dance game enthusiast (ok, yes, and that Dance Central 3 sitting at 94%, whatever), elements of your past do not necessarily define your person at present.

I kind of went down a philosophical rabbit hole on this post, but no matter. Your past can make you who are, but it doesn't necessarily define you. Be yourself.