What Hardcore Is

But if one scrutinizes social phenomena in detail and the attitudes of gamers as they have been modified by generations, one soon sees how gamers have come to confuse obstacles with sophistication and obstacles with cause.

‘Hardcore’ is, today, said to be those who enjoy epic, long games encased in a digital graphical and musical orchestrations of delight. But this was not who ‘hardcore’ gamers were fifteen years ago who enjoyed shorter, harder, arcade style gaming while the new gamers enjoyed easier, story based, epics. And this was not the case twenty two years ago when gamers preferred the keyboard input and massive scope of computer games over the harder, shorter burst style of the new consoles coming out. It would appear that the definition of ‘hardcore’ changes with the times.

But there is a definition of hardcore that is universal: gamers who prefer the obstacles to remain. This definition would include current ‘hardcore’ gamers as well as Space War! fans distressed at seeing the game escape the universities.


Why Experienced Gamers Prefer Obstacles

I have often asked why wealthy people prefer the obstacles to becoming rich remain (these obstacles consist of the taxes on income, legal walls, as financial education which wealthy teach themselves but universities and government schools do not). Is it raw elitism where the rich got what they wanted and want the rest of to remain poor to they can appear like ‘lords’ over us as if they were special? Maybe. The reason why the wealthy prefer the obstacles is that they spent considerable time, money, and effort to get around those obstacles and would be furious to see younger generations not have to go through those same ‘trials’.

It is not unlike the old man saying to the young, “When I went to school, I had to walk in the snow uphill both ways,” in a sense of irritation that, as civilization advances, those obstacles retreat. But it would be mad for him to destroy school buses and demand the young walk in snow to get to school.

Experienced gamers have spent enormous time and effort at learning games. When computer magazines came out, old timers were irritated that one did not have to learn how to program games themselves. Instead, they could just copy what was shown in a magazine. And those gamers, as they aged, became irritated when games were sold in zip-loc bags in stores. Now, gamers did not even need to put in the code! When the NES came out, computer gamers were irritated that the new gamers, the NES generation, would not know the burn of long loading times or dealing with a complex keyboard for all gaming. Arcade gamers were irritated that the 3d gamers did not have to play and replay a part of the game a thousand times until he got it right to advance. Games were becoming easier and removing those obstacles previous gamers had spent so much of their time and effort to work. Imagine the frustration of a computer gamer, having to create multiple boot discs to get a certain VooDoo graphics to work to play a huge RPG epic, become annoyed at younger gamers who do nothing but pop in a disc!

The people who are opposed to eliminating additional obstacles are those who have spent the time and effort surmounting the prior ones. Along their intense focus of surmounting those obstacles, they become confused that the obstacles were the point in the first place! For new games, they demand more obstacles to be placed in their path. In time, the gamer becomes twisted to think gaming is nothing but surmounting obstacles. The ‘hardcore’ gamer will then begin to label these obstacles as ‘art’. When an obstacle is removed to allow growth, the ‘hardcore’ player perceives that some art of gaming is removed. Using my wealthy analogy, it would be as if the Government removed legal obstacles and the wealthy crying out that the ‘art’ of becoming rich is being lost.

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.

Um, why did you write this? Malstrom isn't going to change his opinion because you cherry-picked his definition of 'hardcore'. And I'm pretty sure most aren't going to read all that, because it's not witty or to the point.

Debating over something with no fixed definition is pointless.

I've seen much worse and pointless topics discussed to much greater length. Every Killzone 2 VS Crysis topic for example...

I actually find Malstroms view on hardcore gaming quite offensive in that article...someone should debate his view. Won't be me tho... :)

Malstrom is such a tool.

Close-minded individual at it's best.

People tend to find a definition offensive when it fits them to some degree. Usually because it doesn't fit them perfectly, and they want to change it so it does. Which is fairly egotistical, but perfectly reasonable. Not many appreciate being reduced to a stereotype, after all.

A proper stereotype (they exist and they're rare) captures the essence of a group without the specifics. The problem comes in when people assume that the stereotype is the sum of the whole group, and not the common parts of it. Which is sadly common.

What Malstrom refers when he talk about hardcore player ? ( Note that the meaning of a word is determined by who speaks ).

Go to Malstrom main site ( where there are his articles, not his blog ).
There is a section with the misterious name of "Glossary".
Among the definations there is this entry:

Hardcore Player-

This is the self-described word for the traditional market (rejecting outsider words such as ‘obsessed’ or ‘freaks’ for ‘hardcore’ sounds like they have mastered a physical sport). Similar to ‘casual player’, the hardcore is a perspective that is a moving target. Once upon a time, The Legend of Zelda was considered a hardcore game. Now, it is considered a casual game.

In my articles, the Hardcore Player is used as the gaming elitists who believe software such as Brain Age or Wii Fit will destroy gaming, surround themselves with black electronics, and confuse the home theater experience with the gaming experience. Often, I will interrupt my merry text to say (for the hardcore, this means X,Y, and Z). The elitists have difficulty understanding some basic concepts so we must be helpful and place notes for them. The ‘hardcore gamer’ is best illustrated as a stuck up who stares at paintings everyone hates, holds a wine glass with the pinky finger sticking out, sips his red wine, and says, “Ahh, have you noticed the way the quality of paint meshes with the material? My goodness! What fine art this is!”

When I use ‘hardcore player’, I do not mean the player who likes Western games or someone who prefers a more PC experience from their console gaming. I mean the gaming snob.

It actually fits 100%. I have yet to find a hardcore gamer that praises the wii or more simply, the idea that more people starts to playing. Or that gaming is changing.

On the contrary, they get "offended" that mom/dad/granpa enjoy wii sports instead of gears of wars.

I am sorry but YOU are the one missing the point.

2. An intractable core or nucleus of a society, especially one that is stubbornly resistant to improvement or change.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hard-core

In our context the hard-core players is a relative small group that is stubbornly resistante to the changes brought by the paradigm shift.