While reading a top about games which promised more than they could deliver, I found the following quote about Super Mario Sunshine:

“SMS doesn’t ease you in, either — it lacks a smooth difficulty curve, instead throwing the player to the wolves straight away. Fine for me, as I’ve been around the Mario 64 block a few times, but not so good for the average player.“

I read this, and it sounded weird. Only after a while I understood why: it has been a long time since I’ve heard about “average gamers”. Checked the date, the article was written in the end of 2003. Yep, at this time the Wii hadn’t launched yet and the term “casual” was rare in videogame writting.

(this is ipsis verbis from a post I’ve written)

Yup, “Casual” is just a BS word that has been made up this generation to explain the Wii phenomenon. But since the “Games Industry” wants to make up BS words, we can make up BS words for them as well such as ‘Birdmen’.

Another BS word would be ‘Hardcore’. Discovering where this term began would be more difficult. However, I am convinced that ‘Hardcore’ was nothing more than a marketing word.

For example, it is your job to sell games that are expanding in violence and time needed. Saying ‘nerd gamer’ won’t sell. But if you say, “Hardcore Gamer”, the nerds will go, “Yeah! Yeah! I am a Hardcore Gamer!” as if they ride around on Harley Davidson motorcycles.

I am not making this up. Recently, I was in several game specific shops (such as Gamestop) and, sure enough, one of the songs that came blazing over the speakers was Highway to Dangerzone. It is like the Hardcore National Anthem or something.

Hardcore has become a marketing psychosis. It is to get people to move and operate not unlike a cult. The game developers become the ‘rock stars’. The game’s release becomes an ‘event’. The game journalist becomes the ‘expert critic’ (*snork* hahahaha). Game magazines and media ‘hype’ the release of the product as if it were a second coming and to create the illusion that the games industry is like some never ending ‘party’ (whereas in reality, it is extremely hard and stressful work). It is no wonder all these young men want to go into the ‘games industry’. Who wouldn’t want to be in a never ending party?

The seeds of the Modern Hardcore Cult had to have begun during the 16-bit generation. But the full marketing push behind it had to have been from Sony and, especially, Microsoft. The Cult of the Hardcore made nerds feel ’special’ because they were experiencing gaming, were experiencing ‘culture’, where no one else was. This is going to hilariously backfire on companies like Microsoft when they try to take the Wii route. Their Hardcore Cult are going to go nuclear. If gaming includes everyone, there can be no ’special cult’ about it anymore.

The “Games Industry” truly believes it has its main customers so programmed, whipped, and manipulated that they believe the ‘Hardcore’ will do anything to get into the latest and greatest game. The “Games Industry” has no shame about putting out all this DRM, horse armor downloadable content, and even not letting you own the game. The “Games Industry” believes the ‘hardcore’ are faithful wallet openers. Now, the Expanded Audience cannot be manipulated in such a way. No wonder the “Games Industry” hates these new customers. It also makes sense as to why companies like EA see the Wii as ‘exploiting’ the new users since that is how they look upon current ‘hardcore’.

There is a video I want to show you. The guy uses tons of bad language, so beware. The video is a little old but still very timely. He is enraged over the DRM in his game and how he has to crack his game to get it to work. His rage is appropriate and should send alarms at those high up in the food chain of game companies. But, ultimately, the guy ended up buying the game multiple times. And despite the guy’s anger, he will still keep buying games. This is why the “Games Industry” feels it can just get away with ‘digital distribution’, ‘horse armor downloadable content’, raised prices, and so on.

I think we are on the edge of the hardcore’s breaking point. They are going to realize, “Hey! I am being used by you suckers! This was not part of the deal!”

The “Games Industry” is currently taking its Core Market for granted. Sooner or later, something is going to give.

When this generation is all done and over, perhaps we can eliminate the words of ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’  and just return to ‘gamers’. But it would take something drastic for this to happen such as the Core Market imploding.