My sister is not a gamer. She doesn't abstain entirely - we did used to play a multiplayer game on the Amiga called Wiz 'n' Liz (I think there were bunnies involved), she remembers my NES games and thinks that the idea behind LittleBigPlanet is cool. Oh, and she loves Rock Band; we play it whenever all three of us (me, her and my 360) can get in the same room together - which is rare nowadays. So she's not entirely ignorant of all things game-like.

On the other hand let's be clear we're talking about someone who asked me recently whether the Xbox 360 comes with a controller. Actually, she didn't say 'controller', she said 'that ... thing... you use... to make the game ... umm... go.' But for all that naivety, sometimes she says something about a game that surprises me and gives me pause for thought.



For example, a little while ago my sister and I were back home (funny how I call still home 'home' even when it isn't anymore, really) and I was playing Mass Effect. That's a game I enjoyed a lot but I also thought was lovely to look at, framerate issues and pop-in aside. I was wandering the Citadel, marvelling at the sights and generally feeling very pleased with myself until my sister walked past, glanced at the TV and said with a derisive laugh 'Heh, that's gonna look so rubbish in ten years.'

My initial reaction was very defensive, or at least I made a surprised whiny sound and wanted to say 'But... butbut! These are some of the best graphics I've seen!' but then I realised: she's probably right. It will look dated in ten years. I can see how someone might think this isn't good enough. As graphics improve there may be diminishing returns in how much better it can get but there's a way to go yet.



It genuinely made me reconsider some things. Non-gamers, of course, see games in a very different way - they don't look at a game and compare it to how previous games have looked or whatever the limitations of the hardware are. They don't care if Game X is the most realistic-looking yet because they don't see all the ways it looks more realistic than ever before. They just see the ways that it still doesn't look realistic enough. Sure, the demands my sister makes on graphics may be unrealistic with current hardware but it really puts it into perspective just how much further things can be improved. This is naturally ignoring art direction, which is another matter entirely.

It doesn't just extend to graphics, though. On the occasions when I get her to play a game she'll often have trouble getting to grips with a certain aspect and I'll have to patiently explain it, saying: 'Oh, it's really quite simple, you have to hold down Y while wiggling the thumbstick but the game can be a bit picky so try it a few times and make sure you're in the third stance and...' etc, etc. Eventually, I have to admit: 'You know what? You're right. This bit is fiddly, they could have done it better but I just put up with it.' We as gamers are not only used to how the controllers work but also some of the flaws in design. The big ones we will call out and criticize and the smaller ones will occasionally get a passing mention. Playing with my sister, however, made me realise that games also have this sort of 'background noise' of annoyances that most of the time we don't even notice because we have long learned to tune them out.



I'm not sure what the lesson is here. Graphics won't improve overnight and I don't think we'd ever get rid of all the things that can make a game annoying to a non-gamer, even if we'd want to. Perhaps it serves as a reminder, then, that there remains an extremely high barrier to entry for games. All those things that are easy to ignore, second nature or even brilliant for us are completely alien to a non-gamer. Maybe some of us like it that way, seeing greater accessibility as a sign of a 'casual onslaught' that will surely destroy us all. Whether that is true or not, you shouldn't be surprised when your non-gamer friends and family look at what you're doing and wonder what on earth you see in it.

Let's not be so arrogant about our favourite pastime that we think that anyone who doesn't like it is just ignorant or doesn't understand. Perhaps they understand all-too-well and have simply come to the conclusion that it's not for them.