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Columns > LongShot > #83: Going Casual
Dave drops all the hardcore gamer crap and turns into a couch potato for a couple weeks during gaming's biggest party of the year, E3.  It's time for a unique experiment for this hardcore gamer. For the next two weeks, I'm going casual! I made the decision last week but didn't bring it up to Bub until the last minute. With E3 arriving next week, it's time to find out just what the casual videogame fan (or even non-videogame person) hears about videogames from the mainstream media. We often talk about how the casual gamers react to announcements and new product information, but being on the inside we often lose perspective on just how much (or how little) game info reaches those people who don't look at Gamespot or GamerDad every day. So next week here at GamerDad, you can read my recap of E3 from a mainstream news source perspective. I won't be visiting any dedicated videogame web sites. I won't be visiting any of my favorite forum haunts for the entire week starting today, Thursday the 12th. In fact, I haven't looked at game news since Wednesday night around midnight, so if something big has happened already, I haven't seen it. Since MTV has promoted the Xbox 360 unveiling, I think it's within reason for me to watch that tonight at 9:30, if I have the time. I'm definitely not going out of my way to see it though. I'm casual now, so if something else comes up, or I forget, then so be it. I'm hoping that this little experiment will give both myself and the readers some insight into just how big or how small gaming is these days. I suspect there will be a lot of info available through mainstream media during E3, but I also think it's going to be very much built on PR. Because of that, I think I'm going to have an interesting view of the show that may exclude a ton of information that gamers will find fascinating or exciting. With three consoles due to be unveiled next week, this should be a big event for both the tech and regular media. I wonder how much I'll hear about Nintendo next week, too? Have they become so much of an also-ran that mainstream media will only talk about Revolution in passing or will they be right there with Sony and Microsoft? I certainly have a lot of questions about what I'll find out. I've wanted to do this for awhile now to try and find out what it's like to NOT be tuned in to everything happening in gaming. Having spent so many hours in the last fifteen years reading about games and the industry, it's a huge adjustment to stop clicking on my favorite videogame news and forum haunts. I've considered removing the links from my browser altogether as it's almost automatic to click on them. If I do that though, I'm no longer casual. The guy who buys a couple games a year isn't going to visit web forums. He probably won't even know GameFAQs exists to help him if he gets stuck in a game. I'm curious what other folks think of the idea, but I won't even be checking the forums here at GamerDad so don't expect any responses from me on this topic until I've completed next week's write up and get through the following weekend. Once I've done that, I'll start looking for all the information that I missed out on and see just how many games the hardcore gamer in me would have missed. That will appear in the following week's column. So this is a two week experiment that's starting right now. Wish me luck on my journey into ignorance. I've got Jade Empire to keep me company. You'll get a review of that soon from me for this very site. Maybe I'll get some more games finished in my time away from the rigors of being in the know? Maybe I won't want to go back to being hardcore? Anything can happen, so stay tuned to GamerDad each Friday for the next two weeks to see how the other half lives!
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