Mono-Gamers and my lack of understanding.

As a gamer I always thought it was worth while to give every game I can get my hands on that looks appealing a chance, which, for the most part anyway*, worked out for the best, I feel like I have a relatively good taste in games, which gives me a good basis to form an opinion around. Recently however a new form of gamer has come to my attention, the "Mono-Gamer", 

*emphasis on for the most part, this abomination made me weep.

Don't worry, a Mono-Gamer isn't a gamer with glandular fever, it is a gamer, as the name implies, who will literally only play one specific genre or series of games and nothing else, these people will play the same or similar games whenever they use their platform of choice, this baffles me. 


The most obvious example of this Mono-Gaming culture, and possibly a pioneers of the movement is, of course, Call of Duty. This game has a fiercly loyal fanbase (who apparently recently stopped giving a shit about a decent sized singleplayer campaign, but I digress) some of whom will go out, buy some CoD games and all the DLC and then nothing but that.

1337

Now, to clarify, I have nothing against the Call of Duty franchise, I am partial to the occasional game, I mean being some sort of modern Rambo with a Golden AK-47 and some grenades in the least realistic "realistic" game in existance is fun sometimes, I just dont understand how people can just play that one game and nothing else.


I get that people like the idea of leveling their character in video games, its basically the only reason I play Gears of War, but I just cant get my head around how it isnt the most monotonous experiance to always play the same game, on the same maps, and if it is boring, then WHY NOT PLAY ANOTHER GAME FOR A WHILE?

I'm joking, but this thing has seriously good graphics!

But that's just specific to Call of Duty players, people only play certain genres too. I understand this a lot more, you have a sense of stability in your game genre of choice,  you know what your doing to a degree because the controls for the game are very similar cross-games, but most importantly because there's at least a degree of difference between the games. But its still ONE genre, there are lots out there. I couldn't stay exclusively in my favorite genre [RPG] because sometimes I just want to shoot shit and not really care about anyone in the game, sometimes I feel like being trapped in Aperture, sometimes I wanna build a world and sometimes I want to watch that world burn.

See?

I wrote this article because I dont really understand them, and I wanted to put into words why, also, to anyone reading this who IS a mono-gamer, or plays mostly the same genre I have one question, why? there is a whole world of incredible games out there, you could be wandering the streets of albion trying to gain peoples affection one minute, shooting nazis after that then eating cake in aperture the next, step out of your comfort zone and give some other games a chance!


Hasta la vista internets!


- Ben