It’s been a blast reading you all these months since I found about your site. I would like to tell you: the fall of the hardcore is near.
Check how much money is spent in games that want to cater to the hardcore’s tastes. Check how much backslash they’re getting, like DMC and such. “You wanted edgy, mature games! You wanted rockstars as developers of such games! You wanted deep stories and symbolism! Why do you hate us then?!?!”
To me, hardcore gamers seem to represent those teenagers that want to stand out the crowd by being “different” and end up being pretty much the same to anyone else. They don’t make sense. They don’t really know what they want. They despise anyone who thinks different than them (casuals, they call them) and think the world should e centered around them. Yet, when someone try to hear them, they act as rabid dogs.
On the article about Japan, one thing stands out: they’re catering the otaku and yankii to earn money, but they’re alienating the rest. No wonder anime is taking a nose dive, they’re no longer talking to us (they never did, but the middle class values were good enough for the rest of the world to tune in).
Bottom line: the more they cater to the hardcore, they will not only alienate the casual, but also the rest of the world. And the hardcore are dying. We do not need to move a finger for that to happen.
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I wonder if the hardcore would be best personified as genre specific with some who only play ‘hardcore’ with every genre.
Here is what I mean.
PONG comes out.
PONG creates gamers and makes money while the hardcore game, Computer Space, did not.
Tons of PONG clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
PONG genre becomes super saturated and dies.
Space Invaders comes out.
Space Invaders creates gamers and makes money while the hardcore PONG games did not.
Tons of Space Invaders clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
The Space Invaders genre becomes super saturated and dies.
Pac-Man comes out.
Pac-Man creates gamers and makes money while the hardcore Space Invaders games did not.
Tons of Pac-Man clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
The Pac-Man genre becomes super saturated and dies.
Super Mario Brothers comes out.
Super Mario Brothers creates gamers and makes money while the hardcore Pac-Man games did not.
Tons of Super Mario Brothers clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
The Super Mario Brothers genre becomes super saturated and dies.
Tetris comes out.
Tetris creates gamers and makes money while the hardcore Super Mario Brothers games did not.
Tons of Tetris clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
The Tetris genre becomes super saturated and dies.
………………………………………………….
You can see the pattern.
Wii Sports comes out.
Wii Sports creates gamers and makes money while other hardcore games did not.
Tons of Wii Sports clones come out to chase the money. The clones become hardcore.
The Wii Sports genre becomes super saturated and dies.
………………………………………………..
What we are going to see next is the Call of Duty franchise whither on the vine and the rise of a new hardcore from Minecraft. Kids growing up with the game will take it ‘too seriously’. There will be more clones. And soon enough, the genre will die.
The New Gamer is a sign of revitalization, of growth, of renewal.
The Hardcore Gamer is a sign of death, decay, and destruction.
I don’t think the hardcore will die. What will happen is that they will spring forth anew from a healthy genre and proceed to destroy the genre. I think Minecraft is the next area for the hardcore to demolish. These hardcore… they are like locusts.
The hardcore must be destroyed!
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