I'd like to take a moment to address something that, frankly, irritates the hell out of me: the recent divide of the gaming demographic between the "hardcore gamer" and the "casual gamer."
And no, it's not what you're thinking. Well, probably.
I'm not going to argue that this division doesn't exist (it does). The problem is, we seem to have reversed the meaning. Somewhere along the line, casual gamers adopted the moniker "hardcore," and the real hardcore gamers? Honestly, I'm not sure they even exist any more. Well, before we go any further with this, perhaps it's best to define the terms.
What is a casual gamer? A casual gamer is someone who doesn't really care about games. (That plurality is important!) He or she will only ever play a handful of titles out of one or two genres. He or she will not be interested in the medium at all, and will not explore older games due to the shallow level of interest he or she has in the medium. Basically, the casual gamer plays games, but doesn't know or care to know much else.
And the hardcore gamer? The hardcore gamer is someone who has been playing games for a long time. He or she has played hundreds of games from every era and every genre. He or she has explored the medium from every possible angle. From Japanese visual novels like the sublime Clannad, to almost impossibly dense strategy games like Universalis. The hardcore gamer actively seeks out old "classic" games: he or she cares more about content than style. To the hardcore gamer, gaming is more than a simple hobby--it's a pastime. It's something to research, to ponder, to discuss.
At least, that's how I define the terms. Seems pretty simple and straight-forward, doesn't it? I think so, at least. But that brings me to the chewy caramel center of my little diatribe: the reversal. The people who, today, identify themselves as hardcore gamers--I see them as casual gamers. No different at their cores than the soccer moms who sit down for ten minutes of Peggle or Wii Fit every other thursday. I am talking, of course, of the "Shooter" crowd.
When Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 console in 2005, they gave birth to a new era of gaming. Just as the Wii introduced gaming to older audiences, the 360 broadened the gaming demographic to pretty much everyone in the much-lauded 18-34 demographic. Young men who had never played games before because of the "geek" stigma attached to the hobby soon found it socially acceptable--encouraged, even--to pick up a controller and play some Halo.
This stereotypical individual is commonly seen through the stereotypical lens of the "jock" or the "frat boy." They got into gaming with the 360 and Halo 3, and ushered in the era of the First Person Shooter.
And do I really need to say much more? For the first several years of the the current console generation, all of the big games were first person shooters: Halo, Call of Duty, Resistance--and there was little else. Like RTS games? Too bad. Like RPGs? Too bad. Like adventure games? Too bad.
For a while there, gaming seemed dead. Every game: look down the barrel of a gun. Every game: lots of brown and red. Every game: Fuck, fuck, fuck, dialog writers only know one fucking word.
In much the same way that "Nintendo" was once synonymous with "video games," First Person Shooters became synonymous with games, period. This new breed of gamers lapped up the shooters and didn't just care little for the other genres--they didn't even seem to realize other genres existed! These are the people who call themselves "hardcore gamers" today.
But they're casual. Casual as it comes.
These are the "hardcore gamers" who will profess to love a genre, yet refuse to play the classic, older games of that genre because "old games suck."
These are the "hardcore gamers" who throw tantrums when they play any game that doesn't let them murder someone within the first few minutes.
These are the "hardcore gamers" that toss out racist epithets on Xbox Live; Who disconnect before losing matches; who fixate entirely too much on the minutiae of differences between nearly-identical shooters. Who think taking a generic shooter's leaderboard as the premier measure of social status makes them hardcore, but fail to realize that just playing one or two similar genres, no matter how much, does not make you a hardcore gamer.
And the worst bit about it? For as casual as their exploration of the gaming medium is, these "hardcore gamers" take themselves far, far, far too seriously.
Today, "hardcore gaming" has come to mean ultra-simple controls, quick-time events, poorly-written drivel filled with violence and profanity, and "hyper-realistic" environments (lots of brown and dust). The move toward appeasing these "hardcore gamers" has ruined several venerable franchises already, and has helped more than anything else to transform the once vibrant assortment of gaming genres into one big, homogenous pile of samey dullness.
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