Do you try and get other people into gaming?
And don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “And if not, why not?” posts,
but as someone who does try and get people into gaming, I’m curious as to how
many people go out of their way to get other people to play games, and more
importantly, the reasons why they do, either way.
So I’ll start with me, I do try to get people into gaming, but I draw
the line at those who are either too serious (either in their outlook on life
or those who take themselves too seriously), those who have already made
comments along the lines of “Sitting around a table rolling dice is stupid”,
even when those people freely admit to spending hours on line playing call of
duty, and those who take any sort of pleasure in upsetting others.
There are good reasons for the exclusion of those three from my self-imposed
quest. Those who take themselves
seriously, who believe that they need to be serious and that those around them
need to be serious as well, I’ll try once, but if I get the usual “You’re being
a child aren’t you...?” glance, I’ll give it up. It’s not for me to tell them how to live
their life and if they want to be serious, that’s their privilege. Those who’ve invested themselves in video
games are very passionate indeed about gaming, but most of them live for the
thrill of being out there in real time and testing themselves against other
humans in contests of death and glory.
The prospect of sitting down around a table for a few hours without a single
achievement scored is almost anathema to them, and many comments from the role
and board gamers that I’ve spoken to on the same subjects are that they don’t
like the relentless pace of the games on line, they’re not bothered about being
the fastest or sharpest in the room (particularly when a seven year old on coke
has the edge both times), they just want to play games amongst people around
their own ability. Then finally there’s
those that take pleasure in upsetting others, and that’s a personal choice,
when I see that a person likes seeing others upset and takes time to get a dig
in here or there, when they seem to take some form of joy in getting a prod in
and having the other person react, I don’t approach them because I believe that
the world has enough of them in it anyway, and I really don’t want them
anywhere near my corner of the world.
So that leaves everyone else...
I work front desk at a number of Cons, including the biggest games
convention in England, and I do a lot of work behind the scenes in trying to
promote games and get more people playing.
A lot of people presume that it’s because if I get loads of people into
games, they’ll all come to the shows I run and as a result, I’ll get rich...
Not even close...
Someone once said that to make a small fortune in games, you start with
a large one, and while that’s no longer true for a number of the big players in
our industries, certainly a steady paycheck isn’t the primary reason for
getting into games. I have a day job and
it pays more in a year that I’ve made in games in the last ten, so that’s not
it.
It’s because I enjoy games, from the games that test the patience of
saints (Hello Diplomacy) to the games that you can play in ten minutes and then
play again straight away and have just as much fun (Hello Smash Up). It’s
easier on the whole to get people into Board games than it is to RPG’s, because
with most board games, the rules are
clear, they’re present, and it’s easy to see where you can go and what you can
do. Clearly this isn’t the same as
mastering the aforementioned game, but for starting off and getting people on
the go, it’s an excellent way forwards.
The other thing is that most people have, at some point in their lives,
played a game of some sort. To be fair, it’s probably monopoly, ludo, Uno,
yahtzee, or something else by MB, but they will be familiar with the idea of
games and how to play them.
They’re also intimately familiar with the idea that most games that are
mass produced aren’t actually very good, and that the last time they played,
the game didn’t get finished because everyone got bored...
And that’s a perfectly good way to start the pitch...
“What if I could show you a game in two minutes, play it in five, and
you wouldn’t be bored at the end of it...?”
Normally I’ll start with something simple, one of the games I carry around
with me, Mijnlieff, Lords of War, even Perudo if I get a group of them all at
once, and ask them for five minutes of their time. Usually (in the manner of a dealer hooking a
new prospect), I do this away from the rest of the world, because most people
have a great degree of curiosity, but don’t want everyone else to know that...
Get them on one game, let them play it, let them win, and make it convincing...
First hit’s free...
And when you’ve got them interested, back off, let them make the next
move. No pushing, no teasing, no hints,
no follow up. If they want to play
again, you’ve already given them the impetus, you’ve already shown that you’re
willing to play against them, let them come to you for the next game. Of course, always have it ready, but still, let
them come to you.
For some, the truth is that the game was a minor distraction, they may
have enjoyed it while they were playing it, and now they’re back to their lives
and that’s that. For others, there’s a
momentary glance into another world, where they don’t have to be the grown up,
they don’t have to be all responsible for just those few minutes, and they don’t
have to be concerned that they were having fun with another grown up (and if they
do have to be concerned, don’t ever tell me what you were playing...).
At conventions it’s easier, because I’m an absolute introvert
masquerading as a monstrous extrovert and I’ve spent a long time cultivating
that personality to bring out at conventions.
I’ve spent a lifetime working beside and opposite people, you get to
learn what they’re after, you see the slight tells when you’re talking to them
and you can work on that, it’s easier to convince people that playing games is
a good thing when you’re at a games convention because they’ve already done the
hardest thing they could have done.
They already came to you...
And so it’s outside the conventions when the work really has to be done,
to convince people that there’s something else out there, that not all life has
to be serious, and that if it is, then what is there to live for? If all life is just a series of challenges
that are there to test us, and test us again, then again and again, till we
wonder why it’s just us that’s holding the world up, where’s the reward for all
that hard work?
When we get old? When there’s no
life left in us because we spent it all being serious and only now, at the end,
do we realise that it wasn’t so serious and that we should have lived just a
little more for now than tomorrow rather than living for tomorrow, because
tomorrow is built of all the todays that you laid getting to it. If all bricks you laid for your tomorrow were
grey and corporate, you get to the house that you built and it is grey...
I can think of no worse fate...
So I do this because I like to think that when I come to tomorrow, my
house will be built of colourful bricks and filled with people who’ve played
along with me as I’ve been building. I
like to think that in some way, their tomorrows will be built of things that
aren’t so serious, that aren’t mortgage or illness or pain and misery, because
those bricks are cheap, everyone can get those.
Sometimes it takes someone else to give you a new brick before you can
lay it, and that’s all I’m doing.
I’m carrying bricks...
Anyone else...?
Tomorrow, RPG's...
