So, as a “hardcore gamer”, I read your article “washing the hardcore away” after reading a few others…
This article is a hilarious strawman. You obviously have some sort of issue with people who actually play games for more than a few dozen hours per title.
While hardcore gamers worry about things being streamlined to where there is no more game, hardcore gamers are not defined by just wanting pointless obstacles like being on an old system or pointless inputs, they are defined by putting more time and intellectual investment into games than casual gamers. If a casual gamer buys a fighting game, they screw around against the AI, play against friends some, maybe play online some, and that’s it. They spend maybe a few dozen hours on it. Hardcore gamers really delve into the game, figuring out their favorite characters to their fullest, thinking of strategies, theorizing, testing their theories against other hardcore gamers, etc. They explore the game fully, they thoroughly enjoy it. They play the game as an actual game, as something to be examined, figured out, and beaten, whether “beaten” means discovering almost all information on the character’s various tricks and such, or becoming good enough competitively to win several tournaments, or whatever.
The hardcore does not change much from generation to generation. They are, in essence, those who actually get into the game, think about them intelligently, etc. They are a more varied group in what they do with games than casual gamers, who do not have the time or interest to get involved in games more than superficially. Hardcore gamers are like those who are bored of the same cut and paste action and comedy movies, and prefer only to watch those that are actually significant, whether intellectually, artistically, technically, or otherwise. Casual gamers delve superficially into games. Not that this is a bad thing, but it is hardly the superior, sane group you write on about in your strange article. I also am not sure if hardcore gamers are really the ones who care about Halo/Killzone, since I have not kept up with FPSes for about 5 years now, and can’t examine the audience for those game besides frat boy stereotypes.
Also, you’ll never convince any gamers who enjoy significantly complex games, chess as opposed to checkers, if you portray them as insane people who only care about some arbitrary technological specs and hate games once they become popular. My friends would love if our favorite hardcore games, like Europa Universalis, Blazblue, Etrian Odyssey, Suikoden, or Final Fantasy Tactics became popular, if people appreciated their depth. Shmup lovers still love Ikaruga, despite your forced dialogue claiming otherwise.
And what is this noise?:
“So it is not just the casuals that expand. Everyone does. But what happens to the lower rungs? How do they exist when a higher rung appears?”
“They become disrupted. The water level goes up. And the flood comes in sinking them, and products like them, to the underworld of history.”
Right before that, you said casual titles give more audience for hardcore titles. Then you say that hardcore titles are magically washed away even though there is no mention of hardcore gamers suddenly abandoning their intricate games. What am I reading?
And then you go on with some junk about how casual gamers are better than hardcore ones because casual ones play things that take less time. This is ridiculous. I could pose the opposite to you by saying that hardcore gamers are better than casual ones because they spend their time with games that are more mentally stimulating. Whether someone feels bored if they aren’t doing something intellectually challenging or whether people want to just relax in their free time with something very light, it is silly to act like either is superior.
“The fringe gamer returned with the football players and cheerleaders. I returned with the nerds and geeks.”
What the hell is this? At first you pointed to some sort of strange purity with the sweets example (Which I disagreed with, it’s more like preferring to do mentally stimulating things in your free time, but still sort of understood based on your previous strawman of a hardcore gamer), now you’re just calling people who play complicated or emotionally moving games a bunch of insane idiots. If you had them return with nerds/geeks, “people who are REAL students, who REALLY study,” it would have fit with your purity theme, food for the taste of food, games for being in a game world, books for the sake of fiction(this one is odd). Instead, you just decided to give up and portray gamers as anti-intellectual. Fantastic.
While games can be occasional entertainment, like a short, amusing youtube clip, they can also be, you know, games. Like chess. A system to toy with, to win with, to investigate, to compete with. If you remove all intellectual challenge from all of them, if you reduce Guilty Gear Accent Core and The Operational Art of War to Wii Sports simplicity, you’re missing the point. It is perfectly fine for someone to want their free time to be mentally stimulating, and it is a rational fear that businessmen would shift away from funding games that try to be interesting as games, that try to be mechanically deep, or emotionally moving games, to ones that are simplistic, because they make more money. The market place does not always favor that which is most potent. Most people listen to a few inaccurate sound bytes from the news media, but they don’t have the time, understanding, or patience for a thorough, honest analysis of an issue, or a candidate. It is perfectly sane to be fearful of how markets change through the pressure of money.
I look forward to the article where you condemn people who watch intellectually stimulating movies and talk about how braindead action movies are the future, while the rest will be swept away. Or maybe you’ll write about how those who read original, intellectual books are just petty fringe readers and they will magically disappear as well.
In the beginning, SkyNet invented “Malstrom” as a whimsical jester to mock gaming, its “industry”, and her “analysts”. It is my job to mock all, not even Nintendo is immune to the mocking.
Reader, the above email had no bold. I bolded the parts I roared with laughter. If you read only the bold parts, you can see why I am smiling.
I am amazed that an old article written over two years ago can strike such a response from someone. Apparently, E3 2010 has made our hardcore friends extremely nervous. I suspect someone linked to the articles on a ‘hardcore’ forum in as if tossing in an apple with the words “To the fairest one…” onto Mount Olympus.
Let me take your letter seriously. In early 2008, the marketplace had a different tone. Wii was always sold out. What could be observed since the DS skyrocketed over the PSP is a pattern of hardcore gamers becoming angry that ‘uncouth’ and ‘uncultured’ games were messing up their sales charts. “How dare this game [Brain Age] enter our sales charts!” The so-called ‘casual gamers’ were now defiling the pristine gaming! When Wii Fit was introduced, it was considered “the end of gaming”. The responses to the Expanded Market games were so over-the-top and so hilarious. Being who I am, I mocked it. “Washing the Hardcore Away” is mocking the hardcore ‘enraged’ that gaming is becoming simpler and more accessible. At the time, everyone was bashing poor little Wii and the brand new gamers.
Why should a gamer attack any other gamer?
And why can the hardcore not laugh at themselves? Is there some rule that everyone is allowed to be mocked except the hardcore gamer?
Your email seems to be revolving around two main points.
1) ‘Hardcore’ gamers are the smart and intelligent gamers. ‘Casual’ gamers are stupid and idiotic.
If this is true, why are the hardcore so easily manipulated? “599 US Dollars…” Red Ring of Death. $60 games. Horse armor. Scantily clad woman on the box art. Overrated looking woman in front of a microphone to deliver ‘gaming news’. The list goes on and on.
And if the so-called ‘casual’ gamers are so stupid, why are they so difficult for companies to sell to? Why is it easier to sell to the so-called ‘hardcore’ than to the so-called ‘casual’?
If there is anything that can define the ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ gamers it is the attitudes both of them have toward gaming. The so-called ‘hardcore’ gamer will allow gaming to replace his life. The so-called ‘casual’ gamer is adamant that gaming only be a supplement to his life. This would mean that games have to be made to integrate into the lives of people. And this is hard.
When you hear about the ‘hardcore’ WoW player, do you think that person commands respect? Instead, he commands pity. Everyone recognizes that the hardcore WoW player is sacrificing parts of his life to play a video game. I’ve never heard of such regret from a gamer than a ‘hardcore’ WoW player. “This game has stolen years of my life,” they shake their heads with sadness. Most ‘hardcore’ gamers are a smaller slice of that.
If it is true that the ‘hardcore’ gamer is truly excited about ‘intellectual’ works and all, then can you explain the utter trashheaps spread across the Internet known as ‘Gaming Message Forums’? Can you explain why this intelligent and suave gamer engages in constant ‘console war’? If the ‘hardcore’ gamer was so smart, so sophisticated, why can’t he properly dissect the games to see how ‘poorly’ they are compared to other mediums. In other words, comparing Final Fantasy Tactics to Shakespeare is an insult to Shakespeare. The two don’t compare at all.
The ‘hardcore’ believe that ‘casual’ gamers are dupes to slick marketing. But are not the ‘hardcore’ using projection here? If anyone is the dupe of slick marketing, it is the ‘hardcore’ whose market habits clearly demonstrate they buy their games “day one” or within the first week, are easily misled by ‘bullshots’ or fake trailers, and manipulated all the time by viral marketers.
The entire idea of ‘hardcore gaming’ is a marketing fiction created to dupe gamers that ‘gaming is cool’. Instead of making games more popular, more in tune with society, marketing divisions have tried to perfume the stigma stink by saying how ‘cool’ you are playing games. If you notice in your life, everything that you do that costs little or no money is made out to be ‘not cool’ and everything that you do that costs ‘lots of money’ is made out to be ‘very cool’. The expensive beer is ‘very cool’. The upper class restaurant is ‘very cool’. The 3d movies that cost more than regular moves are made out to be ‘very cool’. However, reading old books like say the classics is ‘not cool’ because no one is making money off that. Lying in a field of grass staring at the blue sky filled with fluffy clouds and letting your imagination run free as a child is ‘not cool’ because no one is making money off that.
‘Hardcore gaming’ is a big joke. Why do you think this generation that game companies think they can rip you off with higher prices, ‘horse armor’ downloadable content, digital distribution only, and other tactics? Why do you think Microsoft went ‘totally casual’ this year in their marketing? Do you think Microsoft gives a crap about you? Do you think Microsoft cares a damn about the gamer? You recognize how fake and hollow the Kinect marketing is. But why can’t you connect that falseness to the ‘hardcore gaming’ marketing?
People like me do not fit that ‘hardcore gamer’ type persona. This is why we can see the ‘hardcore marketing’ more clearly and point out what an insidious manipulation it is on the young consumers. Microsoft’ s E3 2010 performance is really no different than their previous E3 performances. It is just that the ‘hardcore’ can recognize the marketing stink because it was aimed at a different consumer.
In my Birdman article, I mocked those who adopted ‘casual games’. So it goes both ways.
2) Due to the stupidity of the masses, quality and art becomes impossible.
You even make a political claim on this regard. While it is true that if a politician promises to ‘cut taxes’ and ‘go through the budget line by line to remove waste’ only to raise taxes and spend trillions after being elected, the pubic will punish such a politician. The underlying belief in ‘liberty’ or ‘democracy’ is the belief that the individual is capable of self-government, that is the individual making the best choices for his or her life.
Interestingly, I’ve come across different viewpoints on this notion with businessmen (which goes to show you how diverse viewpoints are in the business world). There are some who believe that a product, that is compelling enough, that has marketing to let people know it exists, will sell because people demand quality products. Then there are those who believe that people are a bunch of morons and slick marketing and packaging will “create demand” for their product. This is important because we go back to the ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ gamer stereotypes people make.
Companies like Blizzard and Nintendo believe that quality products create sales. Of course, quality is defined by the customer and not by the developer or businessman. Underlying this is the belief that the person will rationally choose their product because it is the best one. It is the belief that the person is smart and savvy.
Then there are companies like Microsoft that believe the person is stupid in that they will not rationally choose their product. Marketing is to “create the demand”. Quality product is not the concern. The focus is to cast such a spell over the person to keep buying their stuff.
I think people responded so poorly to Kinect’s unveiling because underlying that was the unstated belief that “How stupid do you think we are, Microsoft?” They even had people ‘acting’ to the screen images during the conference. But if you notice, none of this works. None of the ‘shovelware’ sold on the Wii, for example. Consumers are savvy and smart much to the disappointment to people who subscribe to the belief that ‘consumers are dumb and can easily be manipulated by marketing’.
Years ago, if someone thought it was possible for gamers to speak business language of Blue Ocean Strategy or disruption, language that many business execs do not understand, that someone would have said, “Impossible! Gamers are dumb. They don’t care about business.” You sure about that? I don’t think gamers are dumb at all. This is why I love how when a company thinks it can easily manipulate consumers (e.g. Microsoft with their ‘Kinect’), the gamers will ram the product back up the company’s “ass”.
I’ve always noticed that stupidity in people comes when they think they are smart. Intellectuals, for example, are the dumbest people around with the least amount of common sense because they believe the degrees hanging on their walls automatically makes them “smart”. This is perhaps why in disruption literature there is a call for the business execs to “be paranoid” or as Iwata says that Nintendo “must not become arrogant”.
Now let me nuke this idea of ‘quality’ and ‘art’ not being part of the masses. This myth was invented by academics who write books no one wants to buy.
When the United States was a young country, there was no such thing as ‘American literature’. Of course, everyone wants to be an ‘artist’ even back during those times. So there were people who wrote books and made plays and all in an effort to make ‘American literature’. Why didn’t they succeed? They kept copying Europe’s style of literature and European values. This is fine if you are in Europe. But America would never accept that.
Then came an author whose books sold to the mass market. He did not obey the ‘European style’ or ‘classical style’ or whatever. He wrote his books in the dialogue and style of average Americans. “Uncouth!” it was said about him. “Not art!” it was said. But yet, these books not only became “art”, they really began American Literature. This author went from rags to riches and even had servants waiting on him due to his success. Who am I talking about? I am talking about Mark Twain.
Much of the ‘literature’ you read during the ‘literature class’ were works that were very popular during their day. And then there are other works that became more popular after their time like Moby Dick. “The Scarlett Letter”? A very popular book at the time. Charles Dickens books? Again, a popular writer. Shakespeare? He was also very popular, and he made ‘blockbuster’ hits.
The path named “Mass Market” is the only road where gaming will become an “art form”.
