RolStoppable said: yushire said: As long as gamers are playing a game atleast 2-3 hours 2 times a week, you can call them core gamers. You dont need a 5 hours session in your PC/console everyday just to say you're a core gamer. Many people plays games because of what it meant to be, to play, to enjoy the games, not to be frustrated in a game because you cant find a way or an item and spend your time atleast an hour just to figure out what will you do. Thats why Im not ashamed if Im using gamefaqs or youtube to find walkthroughs to beat a certain game if Im stuck, theres a reason why walkthroughs are made, use it. Nobody would ever need walkthroughs if all games were designed like Castlevania II on the NES.

 Are you kidding? Isn't Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest? The game where you to have to standstill every 10 minutes to read "The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night" but you need to find hidden clues that tell you what to do with your items?

coolestguyever said: oh yeah, Super Mario Galaxy is as hardcore as it gets.

Actually most nintendo games are harder than most ps360 games. My friend who only owns a xbox 360, borrowed my wii and couldn't get past the first planet you get to in metroid prime 3. He asked me how I play such a hard game. Then there is a game called fire emblem, which imo is the hardest game this gen. I just beat a week ago after having it for 6 months. So imo nintendo has the most hardcore games, and the most casual games,but nothing in between.

 

I'm going to repost something I stated in another thread as it pretty much sums up my thoughts on the subject of "hardcore" and "casual" gamers and how people love to throw those terms around, especially when it comes to Nintendo:

********

First of all there will always be a "hardcore" group of gamers... like people who buy several games a month in order to show their support for their fav developers, or follow the industry like a sports fan follows their favorite team  (kinda like us lol).  I mean, hell at least 90% of developers out there would probably consider themselves "hardcore" gamers so that division of gaming is not going to go anywhere. And over time I think that the overall percentage of game players who consider themselves "hardcore" will increase as more and more people get into gaming and play games regularly as their #1 source of entertainment. Yes, Nintendo and, subsequently, the Wii and DS appeal mainly to the "casual" audience out there today, but i can clearly remember back to the days when Nintendo was synonymous with videogames... when my uncle got an NES for X-mas back in the day, everyone in the family including my grandmother played Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong till the cows game home.

Everyone was into Nintendo back in the day, and to this day I'm sure that you all have at least a few relatives who will look at you like you have 8 eyes if you start talking about 360 or PS3, but if you bust out an NES they'll go apeshit and start playing that thing as if they never put the controller down after all these years. So now with reguards to the whole "casual gamer" thing, all the Wii is doing is starting the cycle anew, bringing in more people into gaming, and it's successor will most likely be more of a powerhouse console now that Ninty has a bajillion dollars saved up from Wii and DS sales, so surely they can put some money into making a more powerful system. Same thing that happened with the NES... they sold tons of consoles and games, and when it came time for its successor, the SNES, Nintendo was able to make (what was at the time) one of the most powerful pieces of gaming hardware and a showcase for the future of gaming. I'd also say that the SNES was also geared more towards the "hardcore" gamer with it's epic line-up of RPG games and tough as nails action and platforming titles, and I expect Wii's successor to follow in that path.

 

sc94597 said: coolestguyever said: oh yeah, Super Mario Galaxy is as hardcore as it gets. Actually most nintendo games are harder than most ps360 games. My friend who only owns a xbox 360, borrowed my wii and couldn't get past the first planet you get to in metroid prime 3. He asked me how I play such a hard game. Then there is a game called fire emblem, which imo is the hardest game this gen. I just beat a week ago after having it for 6 months. So imo nintendo has the most hardcore games, and the most casual games,but nothing in between.

 

What the hell is he playing that he thought Metroid Prime 3 was hard??  You should give him Metroid Prime 1 or 2.  Nintendo has a history of gradually ramping up difficulty in games so that a challenge remains constant, but some of the hardest stuff has also come from them.  The original Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 (Lost Levels everywhere else) is one of the hardest games ever made.  I thought Mario Sunshine was immensley difficult after around 80 or so Shines.  Part of this, though, came from the worst camera Nintendo has ever had in a game.

You'd have to be blind to not see that Mario Galaxy is actually very much a hardcore game.  Especially when you start getting toward the end.  Collecing purple coins on the giant Luigi is nightmarish.  I still haven't done that one.

Hardcore, Casual and those that fall in between somewhere.

The above are all elitist notions given arbitrary words to be a beacon of recognition.
What is it arbitrary?

Well you see the term Hardcore will always refer to the panicle of something or how far something can be taken until you are proclaimed superior at some aspect of whatever it is your being elite about. In other words the term Hardcore does exist, but not under the tense that it's recently been given within this industry - but don't get defensive hardcore that read this, the same thing has happened in the past and to help people outside of the loop recognize this the general knowledge is that such terms are meme's.

It's really up to you to have your own opinion on what Hardcore is, but know that everyone else who believes that such things are rule governed will have an opinion also - mainly because it isn't rule governed just a generally accepted (but not understood) term or meme.

The point of Hardcore in this market has died out slightly and soon that meme will find a new definition, but for now it will continue to annoy me as posts will refer to it and talking points will revolve around it, so it's really up to me if I want to get annoyed I guess.

Here's a good one that applies to meme's of this breed.

Generalizations generally don't do much to prove anything more than a person’s ignorance.

Note: (All your, and you’s were to target the audience that use (rationalize) such terms in this industry minus the first one used.)

RolStoppable said: yushire said: As long as gamers are playing a game atleast 2-3 hours 2 times a week, you can call them core gamers. You dont need a 5 hours session in your PC/console everyday just to say you're a core gamer. Many people plays games because of what it meant to be, to play, to enjoy the games, not to be frustrated in a game because you cant find a way or an item and spend your time atleast an hour just to figure out what will you do. Thats why Im not ashamed if Im using gamefaqs or youtube to find walkthroughs to beat a certain game if Im stuck, theres a reason why walkthroughs are made, use it. Nobody would ever need walkthroughs if all games were designed like Castlevania II on the NES.

 I agree. Crouching on a suspicious corner selecting a suspicious item and waiting for a suspicious tornado to take you into the next area is something every gamer should be able to figure.

I guess the only problem that I have is that classifying gamers into "hardcore" and "casual" is bound to generate the type of elitist culture that there now is in video games. This is where "hardcore" gamers, or those that classify themeselves that way, look down their noses at those who like party games or family oriented games. They also tend to trash the system with the lowest perfomance stats and least impressive graphics regardless of how fun the actual game play is.

 To me, a true hardcore gamers is one who spends 20+ hours a week playing and owns multiple systems of the newest generation.

 A dedicated gamer is a gamer that might have an affinity for one particular brand (nintendo, ps, microsoft...ect), pretty much buys every console they put out, probably buys almost every game under their flagship line (mario, Halo..ect), might own another console but they don't have loyalty to it.  They may play more than 20 hours per week.

Part-time gamers, these are players that could fit into "hardcore" if they had the time/$$ to play that much and might be a dedicated gamer as well. They may or may not own more than one system and it might not be of the latest generation. May wait untill the prices start to drop on the nextgen consoles before buying them.

mcrow said: I guess the only problem that I have is that classifying gamers into "hardcore" and "casual" is bound to generate the type of elitist culture that there now is in video games. This is where "hardcore" gamers, or those that classify themeselves that way, look down their noses at those who like party games or family oriented games. They also tend to trash the system with the lowest perfomance stats and least impressive graphics regardless of how fun the actual game play is. To me, a true hardcore gamers is one who spends 20+ hours a week playing and owns multiple systems of the newest generation. A dedicated gamer is a gamer that might have an affinity for one particular brand (nintendo, ps, microsoft...ect), pretty much buys every console they put out, probably buys almost every game under their flagship line (mario, Halo..ect), might own another console but they don't have loyalty to it. They may play more than 20 hours per week. Part-time gamers, these are players that could fit into "hardcore" if they had the time/$$ to play that much and might be a dedicated gamer as well. They may or may not own more than one system and it might not be of the latest generation. May wait untill the prices start to drop on the nextgen consoles before buying them.

I'm not hardcore. 

Words Of Wisdom said: mcrow said: I guess the only problem that I have is that classifying gamers into "hardcore" and "casual" is bound to generate the type of elitist culture that there now is in video games. This is where "hardcore" gamers, or those that classify themeselves that way, look down their noses at those who like party games or family oriented games. They also tend to trash the system with the lowest perfomance stats and least impressive graphics regardless of how fun the actual game play is. To me, a true hardcore gamers is one who spends 20+ hours a week playing and owns multiple systems of the newest generation. A dedicated gamer is a gamer that might have an affinity for one particular brand (nintendo, ps, microsoft...ect), pretty much buys every console they put out, probably buys almost every game under their flagship line (mario, Halo..ect), might own another console but they don't have loyalty to it. They may play more than 20 hours per week. Part-time gamers, these are players that could fit into "hardcore" if they had the time/$$ to play that much and might be a dedicated gamer as well. They may or may not own more than one system and it might not be of the latest generation. May wait untill the prices start to drop on the nextgen consoles before buying them. I'm not hardcore.

 

Me either and I don't care. I'm probably more of a Part-Time Dedicated Gamer.

 

^ If they ran part-time dedicated servers half the time on mmo's the world would be a better place for it.

Hardcore is no more than a self indulgant pathos resource for a mythos that can replicate and sustain itself based on amazingly not how much it replicates but by how much it can indulge.