Desroko said:
I get you. The hardcore were always outnumbered, but it's only nw becoming aparent. The last generation provides a good example - there were roughly at least ~70m PS2 owners who never felt the need to purchase an Xbox or GC. That number isn't precise, but it's undoubtedly a good deal higher than the combined number those systems sold, less than 50m. Now, does a one-console gamer fit your mental picture of a "hardcore gamer?" Not mine, for sure. I don't see myself as a hardcore gamer, but I own two of the current-generation consoles, and we started less than three years ago. I owned all three last gen. It would help if we had better information (i.e., we know that roughly 165 million consoles were sold, but how much overlap is there?), but any way you crunch the numbers single-console owners were the plurality, and probably the majority. The maximum number of three-console owners last gen is defined the ~22m the GC sold. The max number of two-console owners is ~25m, the Xbox's number. They're dwarfed by the minimum number of single-console owners. There were 3 to 3.5x as many minimum single-console gamers as there were maximum two or three-console gamers. Even if you don't accept the definitions as precise (and they're not - there were almost certainly single-console hardcore gamers), they do have illustrative value. The hardcore utopia that is fondly remembered was a fantasy. But because the hardcore, mainstream, and casual all favored the same console in previous generations, the illusion of hardcore supremacy was maintained. The "shift " in the industry is a shift of perception, not of reality. For that reason, all the fear and recriminations are pointless. The number of games amed at the hardcore isn't going to shrink, because the number of hardcore gamers hasn't shrunk. An rise in casual or mainstream gamers won't change a damned thing, because along with an exanded audence comes expanded revenue. As we've seen, there's no reason you need to shift resources away from one sector to concentrate on another, as long you're growing. |
I hear you, and I agree 100% that the "casuals" have always been the majority of gamers, although not necessarily the bulk of the software purchasers. But the reason I personally mock the snobcore is not because they're fewer than they think, not because they're less important than they think, and certainly not because of their tastes in gaming (which for a large part I share). I look down on them because they look down on others, simply because the others are different.
Too many of the people sneering at the "casuals" do so because they enjoy games that the snobcore think are a crappy waste of time. "Mini-games lol" sums up far too many of their opinions, and the fact that the people playing the games are enjoying Carnival Games or Mario and Sonic can't mean that the game is actually good for some people, it means that those people have crappy taste. I wouldn't care much if they didn't shove their opinions in our faces all the time, except that that type of attitude is ultimately harmful to our hobby.
The "bigger is better" philosophy that the snobcore demand has been killing off companies and forcing mergers and consolidations. Even as more money pours into the industry, more companies are posting losses and shutting down their doors, or simply becoming another bauble in a giant's diadem. We MUST move away from that, and the Wii and DS are the best vehicles we have for doing so.
Worse yet, alienating the new players runs the risk of turning them off of gaming, leaving the industry back in the dying state it was going. And I don't just mean financially (although that's important): I mean socially as well. It's cliche, but the Wii and DS really are becoming mainstream in a way that even the PS2 never was: it's not something that's played by just a handful of the same demographics, but something which is trying to offer something to everyone. And it seems to be succeeding, which means the image of the gamer as the loser who's still in his parent's basement might finally go away.
Shall we become the next comic book industry, with its stale offerings and ostracized fanbase? Or do we want the industry to have something to offer to everybody, which not only brings in more money but also new ideas? If the snobcore have their way, we will go the way of the former, and that's something I really, really don't want to see happen.
