My Take
I think he misses the mark completely when defining what the "hardcore" is. To find the true definition of hardcore beyond the self declarations of a few individuals you must find an inclusive definition which can be equally applied to individuals within the "gamer" subgroup and without. So the characteristics of a hardcore chess player should be similar or equal to a hardcore tennis player or a hardcore gamer.
Based off a little web research and my own thoughts, hardcore; by my own definition is defined as an intensity of pursuit of any activity above and beyond what is typically average. It is not a definition of how well someone plays, but how someone goes about playing. The hardcore is always a minority by definition. Many people tend to use the word hardcore with the real intention of defining enthusiasts.
The hardcore group is a subset of the larger "enthusiast" group. A person who buys 10 board games per year would be defined as an enthusiast, whilst someone who plays Scrabble and reads a dictionary would be hardcore and would be at the same time part of the wider enthusiast community. I am personally an enthusiast when it comes to gaming and pretty much everyone on Vgchartz could be classified as an enthusiast. I feel he has gone off on a tangent and completely mislabelled whole communities of masochists and luddites as hardcore gamers.
Compared to movies, games in the barest sense are an obstacle in themselves. If one could make more money by simply removing as many obstacles as possible, games would essentially become movies. What he should have done was define the obstacles and classify them between either those which would prevent the climber from getting to the mountain or the obstacles which the climber has to face when climbing the mountain. "The princess is in another castle" is an obstacle which games would enjoy overcoming (For a while at least) "Press X, Y, X, X, Y, Y to execute a punch" would be one which they wouldn't enjoy.
This article appears to be more a sophisticated rant than a researched opinion piece. He repeats his points often enough that many paragraphs could be edited out without diluting the meaning of the others. He fails to adequately define both the term "hardcore" in the context of gaming nor the relevance of obstacles in the context of games. To get it this wrong he either has an agenda or truly is ignorant, perhaps both.
Tease.
