But he's arguing that 'hardcore' means something different than what it actually is. Hardcore means that your the core group of, or a die-hard of something. He argues that the type of games make you hard core. They do not.

He's mixing up 'niche' or 'cult' gamer with 'hardcore'. Playing Katamari Damacy or Okami does not make you a hardcore gamer. It makes you a gaming snob. Playing Katamari Damacy for 2hrs every day till you perfect it, makes you hardcore. The game does not matter as much as the way it's taken: He argues some of the 360 games are mass-marketed, and they are, but they are focused on capturing a gamers' attention in a way that makes the gamer play for hours on end. That makes a gamer hardcore, I think.

Hardcore = mainstream these days.

Maddox, as ever, is a visionary. Check out his site and read everything there. Check out his timeless review of Contra III (hilarious; but be warned, for those of you who are more naive: he's not being 100% serious with all of his hyperbolic analogies and outrageous statements).

Anyway, as for his definition of hardcore...one of the best I've seen.

It's like this: if you listen to Britney Spears, Fall Out Boy, and Beyonce (even if you listen to them furiously and frequently and memorize all the lyrics), are you a 'hardcore' music fan? No. A hardcore music fan goes through an album a week, listening to a an ecclectic medley of both obscure and popular bands in an on-going attempt to broaden their musical scope. To experience as much different music as possible.

Same with gaming. Playing a game a lot, particularly a mainstream game, does not make you hardcore. Stretching yourself thin to expand your gaming experiences and diversify what you play; giving every new game the benefit of the doubt just because you enjoy new experiences for the sake of experiencing them...that is hardcore.

At the bolded: I think that's a perfectly acceptable definition of "hardcore." It's also far from universal. The underlined sentence, in fact, comes closer to how many forum posters and game bloggers use the term.

Look at it this way: if your definition was the commonly-accepted one, the term "hardcore game" and "casual game" wouldn't exist, let alone be tossed around so much. (Non-game would most definitely have never entered our lexicon.)

So while you may be correct in how you use the term, so too is Maddox. In fact, Maddox is attacking what seems to be the more common definition of the term. And even if it isn't the more common definition, your earlier remarks would still be wide of the mark, since he is clearly using "hardcore" in a manner different than you are. You can correct him for that (although I still think he's more in the majority), but his comments wouldn't be wrong.

This pretty much nails it. I work with a couple of guys that play the hell out of "Guitar Hero", "Halo" and "Madden insert year here", they can kick my ass at any of those three games. But I would never in a million years consider them hardcore gamers. Why because they don't know what the hell I'm talking about if I mention "No More Heroes", "Valkyria Chronicles", or even "Fallout 3" and "Final Fantasy XIII". They don't even know what those games are. But they sure play a hell of alot of Madden, so I guess they must be hardcore gamers. That's not how it works.

Here's how I look at it.

Forget gaming. Look at any other hobby that you could be considered hardcore in:

Wine for example. Are you a hardcore wine lover if you drink a whole heap of cheap stuff or collect a vast range of different wines?

Model trains. Are you hardcore because you play with your trains all the time or because you have a large collection and are knowledgable in all different eras and types of trains?

Film buffs. Pretty hardcore to me. They go to all the artsy film festivals, they see the movies we don't, they see the big flicks and the niche ones, they also make sure they've seen the movie back catalogue.

There are just a few examples and I don't know why people confuse 'mainstream gaming' with hardcore gaming. Actually its more like 'mainstream HD console gaming' is deemed hardcore nowadays when its just the 18 - 25 demographic gaming

I should incorporate most of this into my personal manifesto of my gaming tastes

Dude is spot on for most of it, saying exactly what needs to be said (except that, yes, many 360 games end up on PC, but since they were designed for 360, they end up sucking on PC, except for Gears where they actually gave you more for your money)