Any games that got no blood, guns or boobs are not hardcore.

It's the same as congress, it's not necessarily the opposite of progress. So, "hard" in hardcore doesn't necessarily means hard.

Oh wait, what was the topic again?

Here are my personal opinions:

Hardcore game: A game that meets at least one of the following colditions:

• Huge ammount of depth, to inmerse the player more into the game world and identify as one of it's characters (if there is one).
• Complexity, takes almost a lifetime to actually get to play it well.

Casual game: A game that meets all the following conditions:

• Simplicity to play and improve
• little depth

Non-game: A game that meets all the following conditions:

• No depth
• Application presented as a game that may actually help them in life

Example: [Anything you can came up with] training series

Note: games that don't fall to any category are just games

now for the gamers

Hardcore gamer: Gamer that follows at least one of the following conditions

• plays the game to get indisputable mastery in a GOOD way (like Speedruns)
• has a game-industry related tatoo.
• fanboyism (which is bad)
• builds up a PC from parts for he main purpose of playing games on it

Casual player: Gamer that follows all the following conditions

• plays games from time to time
• favors simplicity

Non gamer: gamer that plays a game because he/she gets something from it.

Note: the rest are just gamers

 Returning to the topic.... Monkey Ball : BB is neither Hardcore, Casual nor a Non game 

it should be this game get hard in the end i had to replay levels a million times before i had any success

is so cute and not have blood, guns or sex.

 i was gonna say something in this thread...but you already covered for me...

man do u enjoy playing it ?
do u see it challenging ?
then
its up to u to decide
people dont consider it hardcore cause the wii isnt considered "hardcore"
and besides.. the game doesnt have a guy with a big gun
it has a monkey with a remote
what would u expect people to think ?

Surely hardcore simply means killing things and driving with non cartoony graphics.

question:

if they had released monkeyball on ps360, but replaced the monkey with a demon and the ball with a metal spiked cage...and everywhere u rolled, a path of blood was left...and instead of collecting bananas u collected body parts...but beyond that used the same level designs (updated to look like they came straight from hell of course) so it was still hard to beat...would it have been considered 'hardcore' by 'gamers'???

what if they added in unnecessary fmv sequences between every few levels to give it a 'story'?? AAA?

Sadly, the answer is almost certainly "yes". Super Demon Bloodball would likely be called a hardcore game, and praised for its difficulty and deep gameplay by the same people who currently dismiss it as casual trite.

I've really enjoyed some of the responses in this thread, as they've made it absolutely clear how ridiculous and arbitrary the whole "hardcore" label really is. As far as I can tell, this seems to be the definition of hardcore:

• Games on the 360 and PS3 are hardcore. Games on the Wii are not.
• Games that feature graphic violence and sexuality are hardcore. Those that lack them are not.
• Games that *I* play are hardcore. The games (and genres) I don't like to play are not.

None of this has anything to do with a game's complexity, difficulty, or gameplay. These factors are usually cited as what separates the hardcore from the casual, but when you dig deeper, you realize that there's little more than fanboy prejudice at work. How else can painfully difficult and complex games keep getting labeled as casual? Sadly, even professional reviewers are guilty of the same biases as Internet fanboys...