[Aptorian]

http://armchairdiplo...ng-me-a-casual/

Quote

We've been hearing a lot about hardcore and casual gamers this week and, for once, not just in forum flame wars. The defining announcements coming out of E3 have primarily been catering towards the family market. Microsoft's controller-less Kinect, Playstation's motion controller Move and the sans-glasses 3D of the Nintendo 3DS are all products geared with an "everybody plays" approach.

Which has lead, perhaps understandably, to a lot of backlash from gamers and reporters alike. There's been no question in anyone's mind that Nintendo made far and away the best presentation this year, followed by Sony and then Microsoft in a far-distant third. While both the 3DS and the Move both demonstrated some interesting and innovative applications for core gamers, viewers could only sit bewildered as Kinect showed off a series of upgraded Wii-style games and training regimes. Playing jump-rope with a tiger, running up and down on the spot, air-steering a cart, while the tech might be somewhat impressive it was content for casual gamers and if you weren't a fan of first-person shooters then it was really the only thing on show.

Which has reignited the time-tested argument over core and casual gaming once again. But before we all start screaming "fucking casuals" at our E3 recaps once again, maybe we should stop and think about exactly how casual all of our games have become.

A couple of months back Moose discovered his old Nintendo Entertainment System covered in a layer of dust in storage and, Moose being Moose, decided to come and clutter up my ever shrinking lounge-room with yet another console. He was interested to see if, as a gamer, I'd retained my ability to play retro games or if I'd continually adapted my playing style to whatever platform was currently in favour. To this end he made me play several games he'd had bundled up with the console: Solstice, Terminator 2 and The Adventures of Bayou Billy, just to name a few.

Long story short, I didn't fare so well. Over time the ability to save your game's progress has become integral to me, and to play games now without it feels like a strange and unusual punishment.

Of course this wasn't always the case. When I was a child I'd sit for hours on end playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World, the game that came pre-installed on my Master System 2. Looking back it's hard to see how I'd had the patience, because if you got hit it was an instant death and there were around fifteen levels to make your way through. I did eventually finish the game, something I probably attribute to memorising the solution for entire levels as I played them over and over and over again. To this day my father still swears blind that he once heard me muttering a safe path through the game's first level while I slept.

Looking back it seems unimaginable now, because gaming as a hobby has changed completely. If Sega were to re-release Alex Kidd for a current-gen market, all the marketing in the world wouldn't help it sell to more than a handful of nostalgic older gamers. It's ridiculously difficult, and with the modern level of choice we have with our gaming you wouldn't blame anyone for not even bothering to try.

Enjoy a shooter where your health regenerates after a few seconds? Congratulations, you're casual compared to health-packs. See that message at the beginning of the game that tells you not to switch it off during the auto-save feature? Numerical save codes are staring down their nose at you in disgust. How long does your new game take to complete? 10 hours? If you had of flawlessly played Transbot since it's release, you still wouldn't have finished it.

Games have evolved over time to be easier to jump into and out of. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (I believe it's quite the opposite), but you have to admit when you compare the games of today to early console and PC games, things have been made a great deal more user-friendly. More accessible. More casual.

Try not to sweat it, however, because the common aversion to casual gamers is just another way core gamers tend to wave their e-penis. I mean can you believe that casual gamers don't care that Band Hero is just a recycled neon pink version of Guitar Hero: World Tour? And how stupid they are that they'll pay money for fake funds in FarmVille? Chumps! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go pay my monthly subscription to World of Warcraft.

And it's the same with most other major forms of entertainment. There will always be someone there to tell you that X is a more hardcore rapper than Y, or that the German-language edit of Apocalypse Now is far superior to the original. You can't begin to enjoy any medium without first being a casual, and acting snobby about the whole affair usually doesn't detract newbies anyway.

Casual gamers are also big buisness, something that you only have to look at Zynga's Facebook games to realise. In the 2009 financial year, Zynga took approximately $250 million in gross revenue. To put that in context, that's $10 million more than the estimated revenues from World of Warcraft in the same period. This from a collection of browser games delivered over social media.

Similarly, Nintendo most likely owes it's success in the current generation of consoles to casual gamers, be it with the Wii or the outrageously popular DS. All you need to look at is the retail sales figures for games released each week. Sure, sometimes a big game like Red Dead Redemption or Halo 3 might top the list during it's release week, but 90% of the time the top of the ladder reads Wii-Play, Wii Sports Resort and Just Dance in no particular order. You can pass off Wii-Play as a bundled game if you like, but Sports Resort and Just Dance are both full retail titles. Also, if you do want to pass off Wii-Play as being inflated by bundle sales, what does that say about the number of Wii consoles flying off retail shelves? And while we can crack jokes about the amount of shovelware all we like, the profit Nintendo makes from licencing such games does go towards continuing some of gamers favourite series.

So before you decry someone for enjoying Mafia Wars or Imagine! Ponies, or before we begin the inevitable battle over who's console has the more hardcore motion controller, just remember this: deep down inside you, your inner child is spitting Jolt Cola all over your copy of Modern Warfare 2 and casting inappropriate aspersions against your mother while you play Gears of War.

Oh, and if you really want to gain your inner child's respect back, they released Alex Kidd in Miracle World as a downloadable title for Wii a few years back. Have fun with that.

--------------------------------------

I made this thread based on a short discussion in one of the other gaming threads. I believe it was Gothos who was lamenting the pussyfication of the difficulty levels in Shooters especially and I thought this article was a good opener on the subject-

Do you consider yourself some kind of elite gaming champ or do you only play to have fun?

Do you think that gaming has changed for the better or worse over the past 30+ years?

EDIT: Here's a video of an Alex the Kidd in Miracle World, I owned that game for the Sega Mastersystem. It was fucking hard.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 June 2010 - 06:11 PM

[Illuyankas]

I had no idea how to do the rock-paper-scissors bosses.

[Aptorian]

Besides raging at how casually the guy was just going past all the money and stuff in the boxes the rock paper scissors boss did bring back memories.

As far as I can recall there was some trick to it. I think that you, unlike in this video, could some times see what they were thinking or something. I think there was some trick where if you chose one thing and then changed it in the last minute, you could fool the boss and beat him that way.

Man it's been so long since I played that game.

That bubble flying machine broke when ever you touched something with the propeller but I always had to try and catch all the money sacks, because even as a kid I was a greedy fuck.

I tried an emulator of Wonder Boy a while ago, that game was so rage inducing I had to stop playing or die from an aneurysm.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 June 2010 - 06:24 PM

[MTS]

I'd like to think I'm an 'hardcore gamer'. I hate most of the casual titles that are out, never play them and still play older games on the NES and SNES. I don't really mind the pussyfication of games though. Sure, they're easier, but no less fun. I think the emphasis has moved away from creating a challenge to creating more complex and immersive environments you can have revel in without having to live in fear of a aneurysm because you live in the video-game equivalent of Australia and everything you touch kills you. That might mean you're not as 'hardcore' as your 12 year-old self clocking Ninja Gaiden for the first time, nor might you feel the awesome sense of accomplishment in completing it, that you've survived every nasty trick the developer could throw at you in spades, but the challenge is not the sole reason I approach gaming. I game to be entertained, the challenge is simply a bonus.

That said, I generally remember and enjoy far more those games that were a challenge (like Duke Nukem 64 on 'Damn I'm Good'), so in my opinion a great game has to have some teeth to it. There are obviously exceptions, like Zelda or GTA, but they're their own brand of fun.

Never played Alex Kidd the original, but I played it on the Mega Drive Collection for the PS3, and damn that was hard.

[chill]

I'm as casual as it gets for a PC owner.

Even when I actually had time to kill playing video games, I mostly played RPG's, and at easy or normal difficulty level - I do enjoy some challenge, but I have a low threshold of frustration.

The only game I've played through in the last year is Dragon Age. I've found it somewhat difficult but entertaining, well-paced and flashy, which is more or less everything I expect from a video game.

I never understood the point of being an experienced or elite gamer - I'm not trying to insult anyone, I just don't understand why would someone invest his time in perfecting something that is supposed to be simple entertainment.

[General King]

Games aren't just getting easier, but they are shorter also. How many games recently have had a new mechanic or any new ideas to play games of that genre.

In my view the most original game mechanic that was seen in a shooter that worked was either portal or prey I mean deathwalk it actually turns dying in the game a feature.

A lot of games now just feel like clones of each other.

[Stalker]

I absolutely consider myself a hardcore gamer, which is why I have been disappointed with the seemingly more casual turn in the industry. That isn't to say that the M-rated, non-casual games are in short supply but there seem to be fewer new IPs than years past. Rather companies are turning to their blockbuster franchises and adding to them (Halo, Gears, CoD, Fable, Zelda, Killzone, Twisted Metal, etc.). I love most of those games but refreshing new games are great too, Dead Space and Dragon Age being favorite new IPs of mine.

edit: I also think games are getting easier at normal difficulties. I always start at the hardest difficulty and that is getting easier as well. Hard difficulties on most FPS games are too easy. Exception is Mass Effect 2's Insanity mode, that is so hard.

This post has been edited by Stalker: 20 June 2010 - 12:39 AM

[Silencer]

Alright, an interesting anecdote.

I remember the first time I played Modern Warfare 2 right through. Just under the 5 hour mark on Hardcore, did in one rental day start to finish, then moved on to 'Spec Ops' with a friend on Veteran. I bought the game several months after everyone else, then played it through on Veteran, pretty much around the 5 and a half hour mark. I'm no gaming god, but it was pretty easy and short, and the only reason it took as long as it did to finish was a couple of the idiotic bits where your superior is yelling at you to 'Get moving!' when in fact sticking your head around the corner will get you insta-killed.

So, a month ago, my progress on MW2 along with Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Halo 3: ODST got nuked due to a gamertag recovery so that I could actually play online in the Reach beta. Just the other day I decided to start regaining that progress. Modern Warfare 2 on Veteran has so far taken me around 4 hours, I'm on the level where you, as Roach, get killed. Fuck me sideways, that run to the chopper is frigging IMPOSSIBLE. Since I started counting, I have died over 50 times from halfway to the helicopter, let alone a number easily in that ballpark getting to that halfway mark. I ended up saving and quitting, because there is only so much punishment I can take before heading for a break, intend to come back to it soon.

Then I realised, when I saw this thread, that I'm essentially playing the bonus boss level, on the hardest difficulty available, and I'm getting frustrated at maybe a hundred deaths? Sure, the odds are stacked against my survival, but I've done it before, I know it's possible...and really, the only reason I'm so fucked is because my checkpoint saved when I had a bullet in me.

My problem isn't with the fact that you can actually survive repeated sets of 4 bullets in your body (though a fifth immediately kills you if you haven't been out of fire), or the fact that you can't even see the enemies half the time, and that you THEN have mortars dropping on you so you can't slow down to line up a shot. Hell, the enemies even go down faster than you do. No, the problem is that it's a ridiculous scenario. There are plenty of reasons why I would never have to run that gauntlet, not least of which is the presence of friendly air support, or the scary fact that out of my initial team of 20 there are only 3 left, when they all could have camped the house like sensible soldiers and survived (and why the hell didn't the enemy drop a mortar on the house, I wonder?), but the very purpose of this final run is to combine epic 'final scene' style on easier difficulty levels with a ridiculously hard end to an already difficult mission on higher difficulties.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's no different to the myriad of crazy traps that you had to evade on some of the older platformers - many hours of frustration were generated by much sillier goals and obstacles which were also harder to get past.

I think what defines a 'hardcore' gamer these days is someone who attempts to speed run the highest difficulty level of the latest shooter. It's not someone who plays old games, because those are retro 'core gamers. It's not someone who plays a game to 100% completion, because most people can achieve that these days, as there isn't much in the way of hidden treasures or coins to try and collect. Hell, it's someone who shows up online (like I've seen people doing on the Medal of Honour beta forums) and complains that the guns aren't realistic enough, or the recoil doesn't look right, and at the same time moans that the game is too easy. (Little do they realise that this is because the game is trying to simulate recoil with crosshair movement and controller vibration, while allowing for the fact that your player character is an elite member of the military...pretty hard criteria to meet.)
For some reason people who play Dragon Age 6 times to get all the Origins done and explore every piece of available dialogue are not considered hardcore in the modern sense. Those are the completionists. Unless they do it on the top difficulty and moan it's too easy, THEN they're hardcore. But it's not a shooter, so it doesn't really count.

But wait! Doesn't half the community complain that all the new shooters are CoD/Halo clones? (They never quite specify what they want in the place of these, though, except 'harder' or 'more realistic' or whatever...then they go and complain on the ArmA forums that it's 'too complicated'.)
And what about people who play racings games? Can they have a hope in hell of being hardcore? Doubt it.

But what is even the prestige of being a 'hardcore' gamer? Does it make people look upon you with awe and respect? Not really. It used to - back in the MLG days of Halo 2 people had respect for those players, until they became more of a sidelined group of players whining about the nerfing of the BR or whatever. Before that, though, it was still a matter of nerd pride more than anything, which meant that even your gamer friends didn't think that much of it, and the 'casual' gamer of the time probably didn't even know what the game you're talking about is.

I just like to mock people who take games too seriously, even though I do on occasion get pissed off at people who fuck around and lose the game for their own team. So I guess I switch between 'srs bsns' and casual gamer - but never hardcore, despite my recent attempts to run Veteran on Modern Warfare 2. That's just regaining lost progress, and believe me I left it the prefect amount of time to replay that campaign - just in time for it to have some impact again. But outside of my RPG's and Halo, and Modern Warfare 2, I don't even play that many games. I play a lot, but not to completion, or not all of the new 'big' releases - I only rented BF:BC2 for example. The new MoH and CoD this year will probably get a rent and then either a purchase or a discard depending on the level of enjoyment I get from them. I've already pre-ordered the Reach Legendary Edition, though, because it's the last Halo game, and promises to be really good fun from the beta alone.

And I'm not even sure where I stand on changing the 'stale' formula for shooters any more. It works, it's often fun...but something else could be more fun. Hell, Halo is the least realistic shooter you can have, but it has really entertaining multiplayer, and has challenging but reasonable single player campaigns. Something more realistic with massive distances involved (making sniping a safer, but more annoying endeavour) could go down well, if it doesn't go to the lengths of crazy controls that ArmA did, too.

Bah. Rambling over.

[Silencer]

Stalker, on 20 June 2010 - 12:36 AM, said:

I absolutely consider myself a hardcore gamer, which is why I have been disappointed with the seemingly more casual turn in the industry. That isn't to say that the M-rated, non-casual games are in short supply but there seem to be fewer new IPs than years past. Rather companies are turning to their blockbuster franchises and adding to them (Halo, Gears, CoD, Fable, Zelda, Killzone, Twisted Metal, etc.). I love most of those games but refreshing new games are great too, Dead Space and Dragon Age being favorite new IPs of mine.

edit: I also think games are getting easier at normal difficulties. I always start at the hardest difficulty and that is getting easier as well. Hard difficulties on most FPS games are too easy. Exception is Mass Effect 2's Insanity mode, that is so hard.

This, also. Dragon Age's hardest setting just made fights take longer, rather than making them harder.

And I forgot in my rant above to address things like the Wii/Kinect....you don't have to use them. If the industry abandons traditional games, then we can rage, but it's just opening up to other people. It's not 'betraying' the more traditional gamers, it's just expanding.

I do think that IPs are getting more and more recycled. It's frustrating, but I'm sure we'll snap out of it. There's a new generation of developers arriving, too, don't forget.

And let me just say: we have a LOT of PC gamers on here. GO US! But I put myself down as hardcore, plus gaming getting easier (not necessarily worse, though) because despite my earlier statements, compared to some of you who must've put hardcore, I'd easily consider myself the same.

[ansible]

I guess I consider myself an intermediate gamer. I enjoy playing most games on hard difficulty, and I'm certainly a completionist, but probably not hardcore. I just don't have the time to do it, and even when I did, I preferred to play MORE games rather than playing one game for so long that I became a master at it.

As for the state of gaming today, I would say it's improved in some areas and gotten worse in others. There is still the occasional great game that gets released, and sometimes even these games include "casual" mechanics (e.g., Bioshock and its Vita-Life Chambers). But the market is still saturated with terrible, terrible games and their terrible derivatives; perhaps it was always thus, and it's only nostalgia that makes me think things were once better. Either way, I play fewer games today, but I still enjoy playing and completing many that come out. For instance, I had a lot of fun exploring Dragon Age and really putting my time into it.

As a side note, my most recent brush with "hardcore" gaming was in the early days of World of Warcraft, when life was good and I could spend literally every waking hour farming and raiding and killing dragonz.

[SilenceYourTongueAndWitness]

i'm not sure i agree with the fact that unless your playing a shooter your not a "hardcore" gamer, i condsider myself a hardcore player, yes i play shooters such as mw2 CSsource and halo but those are more of a side project i play WoW and i consider myself hardcore, i play almost every day, play end game content in the hardest modes and am very deep into theorycraft and improving my gameplay constantly, Any genre of game can have hardcore players. even in racing games, the guys that hold the top lap times on the xboxlive leaderboards should be considered hardcore lol (if you dont beleive me try to unseat them >.<) every genre has players that take it above and beyond normal levels and THAT is what i consider hardcore

[Aptorian]

I think there is different areas to be hardcore in.

Some people put in an amount of time and dedication to a game that it has to be considered hardcore. Playing all their free time, doing extensive research, discussions, experimenting, etc. This is usually where you just say that people are sad and need a life, but some body who dedicated so much of their life to playing a game is pretty hardcore.

Other people are obsessed with being the best at what they do, the ones who seem to be extremely skilled. The kind of people, like Silencer above, who want and can go do a speed run at the highest difficulty and make it look easy. People who do those crazy twitch kills, people who know just how to shift the gears, and use the accelerator and breaks in a racing game to take every curve perfectly. The kind of people who make you doubt if they are even human.

Years ago, I was the type that had to play every game on hard. I had to do every instance right, I micro managed my health and armor, had to collect every coin and piece of equipment, quick saved and quick loaded religiously just to shave of some time or damage.

Now a days I've sort of calmed down a bit in that sense. I don't really feel a need to stress myself out getting frustrated trying to be the best at a game. It's much more fun to play a game on normal mode and play the game at leisure. But I am still obsessed with picking up everything and exploring every nook and cranny of the gaming world. That is actually the only thing I miss about the World of warcraft, the exploration.

[Silencer]

SilenceYourTongueAndWitness, on 20 June 2010 - 07:03 AM, said:

i'm not sure i agree with the fact that unless your playing a shooter your not a "hardcore" gamer, i condsider myself a hardcore player, yes i play shooters such as mw2 CSsource and halo but those are more of a side project i play WoW and i consider myself hardcore, i play almost every day, play end game content in the hardest modes and am very deep into theorycraft and improving my gameplay constantly, Any genre of game can have hardcore players. even in racing games, the guys that hold the top lap times on the xboxlive leaderboards should be considered hardcore lol (if you dont beleive me try to unseat them >.<) every genre has players that take it above and beyond normal levels and THAT is what i consider hardcore

Ah well, I wasn't talking about whether people are hardcore gamers or not, I'm talking about the definition of 'hardcore' to most people. Sure, I'd consider you a hardcore gamer, but that's still the 'retro' 'core gamer I mentioned.
It's just a random tangent I went off on. XD Did a Doctor moment. Happens sometimes.

[General King]

I mean I remember from my days games like the final fantasy series before the full graphic upgrades, I mean 60 or more hours to complete a game ok that a bit of dicking around but mass effect games just seem to end at 25 hours no matter what you do lol.

I meanwhat I class the intro to final fantasy 7 that gets the story going and establishes whatyour mission is, that only really happens i final fantasy 7 after you leave midgar, that like 5 to 7 hours in the game maybe you could cut it to four if you don't dick around talking to people. And that gameplay no cut scenes. The intro bit of mass effect relies on side quests to stretch out the intro, not that I'll complain but there noting to stop you reporting to the council after the get to the citadel immediately instead of doing 10 side quests or so.

Maybe I'm so cynical now, I remember as a kid the awe I had with the vision of some games, sure they still do it but there just doesn't seem to have the same pull into it now a days.

[Aptorian]

According to my Steam account I spent 60 hours completing Mass Effect 1. I did every single side quest and explored every moon/asteroid/ship I could find.

The first time I played through FF7 I spent well over a hundred hours and I suspect it may have been closer to 200 hours. But I also spent ages and ages travelling back and forth trying to figure out where to go next and grinding the levels on the characters and my materia. (Remember this was back before the internet and its fancy walkthroughs)

I'm replaying FF7 right now and I've already clocked in at 8 hours and I still haven't reached the top of Shinra HQ (Just met Jenova the scary bitch for the first time, so cool)

[General King]

II have replayed Final Fantasy 7 at least 5 times with over 40 hours at least, still never completed the game.

[Illuyankas]

I decided a while ago that if I was going to have played the recent FF games, I might as well do them thoroughly. So I went through VII, VIII, IX, X, and X-2 and utterly annihilated them. Yes, X-2. It had a really good battle system, the mute button made most of it tolerable, and if you squinted and read Job instead of Dress the class system was pretty sweet too. Of course, because I have some remnant of a life, I ignored the bigger timewasting sidequests like the card games and blitzball, but I got every cutscene, hidden boss and weapon and generally rendered them unreplayable.

I can't be assed to deal with XII, with its prancing bellyshirt Offical Fangirl-Pandering Leadtm and douchebag game design (preventing you from getting the most powerful weapon in the game if you open any of four chests that are unmarked and unremarkable in any way shape or form? Fuck you, Square Enix) and XIII pissed me off beyond redemption within ten minutes of its THIRTY FIVE HOUR TUTORIAL so to hell with that one.

In conclusion to hell with FF and to hell with all their fans. I didn't really have a point beyond that, is what I'm saying.

[Aptorian]

I've played a bit of FF5, completed FF6 and FF7 and played half way through FFX in the past. I've decided now that I'm going to go through the list from FF7 and up (except the horribly outdated MMO). FF7-9 are on the PSN Store, I bought FF13 at a bargain last week, now I just have to figure out some way to get my hands on a PS2.

[Cause]

I also said I was an intermediate gamer. I think everyone is. For example I would never buy a game that has me pet virtual tigers at the same time I feel no compulsion to go after the trophy for god of war that you get if you complete the game in five hours or less. However when it comes to devil may cry 4 I am hardcore. I remapped the controller to give me the most suitable and efficient control scheme for me. I searched out every blue orb, I grinded the bloody palace for souls to buy new every new move. I could pull off combos that made even me go 'holy shit'. Even then though I am not that hardcore, never did beat wave a 100 of the bloody palace. Not for lack of trying but I have over ten other games to play and I wanted to try them out and my time is not infinite. I will go back at some point though.

For all of us their is a game that is just perfect for us. A game which we want to know where every power up is, where every shrtcut is, the weakness of every boss. Thats the real test, a hardcore games needs a hardcore game.

[Sindriss]

Really apt, that is in my opinion the triology of FF. And in that order even! No. 6, 7 and X. Ofc, there is a few FF's I havent played, which could positively surprise me.

And agree with Apt, that the migtiest weapon in XII was unattainable because you opened a freaking chest in the beginning of the game drove me insane with fury and anger. I mean, it is loot, of course you freaking open it, you do that with all chests, it is in your gatherer nature