Peer Pressure and Gaming

We all know what peer pressure is and all of us, in some degree, have fallen victim to it. It's only human nature to have the need to "fit in" with the crowd. Even so-called loners congregrate with other loners because they understand each other.

If you grew up during the '80s then you no doubt remember the D.A.R.E. program which attempted to steer young kids away from drugs at an early age so hopefully when they got older they wouldn't try them and get addicted. Well I consider the D.A.R.E. program at my elementary school to be (as the kids today say it) an EPIC FAIL; even the "smart" kids did drugs in my hometown no doubt succumbing to pressure by their friends to appear cool.

Peer pressure never goes away it simply changes form. When you get older the types of friends you have influence what kind of person and what type of possessions you buy/own. Gaming is no different albeit less harmful to your health than being a crackhead (and cheaper too).

This is evident because we tend to socialize with those who share our common interests. In games we tend to stick with the same genres either consciously or subconsciously. So when your friend tells you about a game that he liked you generally tend to think you'll enjoy it as well. So what happens when a game your friend talks about ends up not impressing you on the same level?

My best-friend is a hard case to crack when it comes to what he enjoys in a game. It seems that despite us knowing each other since we were 5-years-old and practically being brothers, our tastes in games is very different but alike at the same time. Almost every single game I've ever recommended to him he ends up declaring "It sucks!" or nitpicking all of its flaws that I sometimes sit there in amazement to think he derives enjoyment from ANY game. Needless to say I stopped recommending games to him a long time ago.

Take the latest game to undergo his intense scrutiny, The Saboteur, which we finally beat tonight. To hear him talk about this game you would think it was the worst game ever made. And while I agree that it is very repetitive and it can get monotonous in the long-term, I am not turned off by this game yet my friend was so happy after we completed it 100% and HE got the platinum (not me yet it's MY game but that's another story) that he wanted to hurry up and eject it from his PS3 because he (and I quote) "never wanted to see it again." Ouch.

Now I'll be the first to admit the game is by no means perfect, but it wasn't a bad game it was just monotonous. Our end time was 50½ hours. The game wasn't unplayable; the mechanics weren't broken; the graphics weren't atrocious and there were generally no glaring problems with the game other than it was repetitive. Sure we experienced the system freezing up a few times, and some oddball glitches here and there, but again no game is perfect and aside from the rare freezing issues (that occurred only three or four times during the whole 50 hours we were playing) nothing was game breaking about it not to mention it was an easy platinum!

My friend just seems to view games very differently than I do and tends to be way more critical over things that really don't bother me. I can definitely see the flaws in this game but not to the extent that he does. I can play this game again whereas my friend would rather take this game and use it for target practice. He hated it that much yet he kept playing it.

Hence back to the point of this blog about peer pressure: Have you ever felt or been put in a situation where you "liked" a game but your friends completely and utterly destroyed it and they couldn't fathom why you felt the way you did? The differences between my best-friend and I over this game are just superficial and mean nothing in the end; this doesn't affect our friendship at all and it actually provides us for some good ribbing.

On the same token I find myself feeling "weird" (for lack of a better word) because I really don't mind this game despite its flaws, and I simply can't agree with my best-friend over his carefree lambasting of it and questions of "How can you stand this game?" While there's no direct pressure from him towards me to not like this game, I can sense there is this underlying disbelief from him towards me that I don't hate it as much as he does.

Thoughts?