To me overly successful games - as mature, violent, deep, entertaining they may be - are never "core" games.
I avoid the terms core and casual but when a game is known to every and any gamer and even people who do not play video games, that game can only be casual in my eyes, as in people (lots of them) just play it occasionally/casually.
Core games - as in "only the core of gamers plays this" or "only for hardcore players" (I think games are for anyone but this is how I interpret the core/casual debate) - are complex, difficult, hard to get into material. There's crazy debates about whether video games are art but in this case I like to compare it to other forms of art. There's the mass (pop) market and art that doesn't fit there and therefore doesn't "succeed" the way business works. That's what core (odd, forward-thinking, innovative)/casual (mass market, polished, known mechanics) should suggest in my opinion. Mostly, it's the other way around, though, because people feel insulted when they play a "casual" game so GTA or Dragon Age would never ever be a casual game, of course.
To write even more: I love the Mario Kart series. To me, it's a casual game series because it's easy for everyone. I got into competitive gaming with that series and won multiple national tournaments, becoming a well-known player in the "core" community. Lots of people say (and keep saying) that MK Wii was the best in terms of competitive gameplay and balance. But in the end, it was just the most successful game because it didn't have complex techniques to be way faster than other players. When I tell people that Wii was the most casual game in the series they go all nuts because why would they like a casual game, of course it was the most core game of the series. I haven't read/heard any real argument why Mario Kart Wii is the most core, just that it is and it is just because.
Generally, I agree with this:
| spemanig said:
Most of the time, when people talk about "hardcore games," what they really mean is "western style games who's target audiences are people over 15. |
or games they are good at themselves.
