Forbes - Ignited by Nintendo‘s original Wii system and propelled aggressively forward by iOS releases like Angry Birds and Temple Run, the casual games market is poised to become an $8.64 billion industry by 2014. But how did it perform in 2012, and could hardcore games become an endangered genre?
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Rochard, Outland, Sound Shapes, Journey, The Walking Dead etc.
This would enable them to take advantage of sales from both markets.
The hardcore gamers are just bored of this gen. sales are down because this gen has faded. i dont need to spend 60 bucks on games i have been playing for the last 6-7 years.
Also a lot of hardcore gamers have moved to PC.
But "hardcore" AAA games are definitely disappearing. The industry as a whole simply cannot keep up the momentum. Developers can't afford to make multi-million dollar games that only end up selling 750k, or 1.5 mil, or 2 million. EVERY game has to be a 3+ million seller just to break even because of the massive budgets demanded by the "hardcore". HD graphics, huge game worlds, voice actors, etc. all require a lot of money. Look no further than THQ. They have dozens of AAA, highly-rated games under their belt, and yet they're going bankrupt because they cannot seem to pull that 5+ million seller out of the hat.
There needs to be a back to basics revolution like the old SNES, Genesis games. A lot of reasons so many of those games were good was because of the limited resources and tech devs had to work with. Devs had to be more creative when telling a story or making gameplay designs.
Smaller teams definitely cater better creativity.
This industry is going to end up like the movie industry (if it hasn't already). Release small movies throughout the year and then drop their big budget whoppers during the summer only.
Correct! But my concern is,
Are we going to have to buy these new $300+ consoles in order to play these small/indie downloadable games?
Or how about all those casual wii owners and yet the Wii U say on store she else throughout the holiday.
Many casual gamers follow fads and trends (Angry Birds and Wii Fit), without the core gamers, gaming would be a pitiful industry.
Casual gamers outnumber us (core gamers) but they don't out spend us despite their numbers.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
All the dlc, online codes, long gen,journalist, and over priced games are killing gaming for me
But it's far less important than it used to be.
Now before I say anything else, let's define "hardcore." If you're the kind of person who visits sites like NeoGAF or VGchartz to argue sales figures you are definitely NOT hardcore.
If you spend more time posting on places like 4chan or GameFaqs than you do playing games, you definitely are NOT hardcore.
If you own only one console, or only play games on PC, you are definitely NOT hardcore.
First thing is the PC gaming market, a market dominated by hardcore titles, rose in 2012. Secondly, the console market is what you could consider a mature market, with consoles being sold of late adopters who aren't necessarily going to be the ones who are the day-one 'hardcore' gamers if they're jumping on the HD generation this late anyway. So while the console market looks like its in decline, what it's awaiting for is new hardware and games to jump start it. It happens with every console cycle.
Thirdly the decline in software sales for consoles in 2012 can be summed up in a few words- a dearth of awesome games. If anyone remembers, we had Mass Effect 3 sometime in the beginning of 2012 which did amazing numbers, then we had almost zero games of note until Sleeping Dogs came out in August. After that we had a rush of games leading up to Christmas, but really nothing you could consider mind blowing for the entire rest of the year. Assassins Creed 3 was an 8 out of 10, and Far Cry 3 while brilliant, is a Far Cry game. Compare 2012 to the previous 3 years and you see what I mean. Also note how much everyone is looking forward to 2013 after a pretty lacklustre 2012.
Hardcore gamers also cross over into casual, but it doesn't come at the expense of hardcore titles IMO. Eg. I'll play angry birds, but I'd rather play GTA V or Skyrim or Last of Us. Ask any hardcore gamer the same thing. There's not less hardcore gamers, there's more casuals, people who never played games before, and even ridiculed them are now saying them on Facebook and smartphones because its more socially acceptable to someone like that (usually a girl) to play something nice and simple that everyone can see rather than to be doing it in front of a tv and investing hours into a game, that can be for all intents and purposes an anti social activity in the eyes of many (who don't understand it).
HArdcore gamers exists everywhere, it's just that the market is so full with only commercial AAA games, that people dont care about others games that arent'em.
We are just waiting for actual quality games to be made instead of passing off gameplay gimicks as evolution.
Give us customization...give us options on how we want to play...give us variety and a GOOD story.
Don't give us 6 Worlds....Give us 16 Worlds.
Don't give us 15 hours of gameplay...give us 55 hours.