Why casual games didn’t kill hardcore gaming?

I started to look at this battle from an objective perspective some time ago (after the Wii became a casual game magnet is my best estimation). No company in any industry would ever turn its back on the customers and consumers that got them to where they are today for fear of eventual entrepreneurial suicide.

[TheSuperior]

good stuff!

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

.
Look no further than CoD. Casual games are slowly but surely killing the hardcore gaming. A lot of developers are now dumbing down their games to make it appeal to the masses.

FPSs are now being dumbed down to the point that almost every shooter plays like CoD. You can hop from shooter to shooter and dominate because the games have been dumbed down to CoDs level.

RPGs are starting to add third person shooter elements into their game in attempt to attract casuals too.

While I have nothing against causal games themselves (I believe that all types of games should exist as they have their own purposes), but when my core games are being affected because producers and developers alike are getting greedy because of the success of casual games, I have a problem with that.

[guitarded77]

I disagree... gaming is more diverse than ever.

I know many have their differences with CoD, but CoD was the first to do a lot of things right and many other shooters have adopted many of CoD's traits. Some to a fault. But to say there are no original shooters out on the market is just not true... there are more available then ever and some damn fine ones at that.

As for 3rd person RPGs, I wouldn't call Demon's Souls/Dark Souls a casual experience.

I do agree that there is nothing wrong with casual games... the more the merrier I say. Gamers who don't support diversity are kinda like bigots.

[ape007]

two different fan-bases, im not saying i hate casual games, i enjoy them once in a while especially with friends N family, good times

[ape007]

and btw i hate the term "hardcore" it has many meanings that come to your mind, CORE games is the BRST term to explain imo

let's see.....some people might think that hardcore games is the ones that have violence, strong language, gritty setting, the "YEAHH FULL TESTOSTRON" themes,sexual themes, gore etc... some people don't consider mario "hardcore" cause it's very colorful and beautiful while its more hardcore than dozen "HARDCORE" games

a CORE game is the game which is hardcore in its core(hope u get it) and that include all the games that GAMERS love despite the its tone, theme, colors, music,presentation story etc.....

[abombletap]

well said man..bubble up.

[zero_cool]

*correction*

casual gamers only play simplistic games

core gamers only play core games

hardcore gamers play all of the above

Cheers Gamers & Happy Gaming!

[CloseSecond]

To me its more the gamer and not the games that differentiates casual and hardcore.

[abombletap]

agreed. The only time i play casual games is when I am at my friends house with a group people, so we play WII or PS Move.
Otherwise I play hardcore games all the time. Playing casual games by myself is not for me.

[SnowBlu]

because it has HARDCORE in it

[HeatherbSpears]

Hardcore all the way, not saying there is anything wrong with casual games, i love playing them with my family.

[lumley666]

I preferre a hardcore machine like my ps3 and pc, but also I cudnt live without my Nintendo fix :) Mario kart is just awesome with friends

[WillGuitarGuy]

*Plays Angry Birds on iPhone*
*Plays Battlefield 3*
...
*Puts down iPhone*

[ZippyZapper]

Funny how the sellng point of both games is knocking shit down. One is with birds and the other with guns.

Some people play Angry Birds for hours at a time and play every level just to get a high score. Basically the same as pumping quarters into an arcade machine playing Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.

That sounds like a core gamer to me.

[scrambles]

lol bf3 is the most casual bf yet. the irony in all of it

[Pintheshadows]

Casual games are basically the lowest common denominator in our prefered medium. That's why they'll never kill off proper gaming.

In this case i'm referring to Phone and Social games.

[solar]

Once gaming went mainstream....the end had begun.

[ReflexGamer]

Yep, cod has ruined shooters.

[ZippyZapper]

CoD is an FPS how can it ruin FPS?

[scrambles]

CoD the game that anyone can pick up. Yet hasnt changed more than a foot in the last 5 years is still selling better and better every year. While other more innovative games dont sell nearly as well. So many game developers want a share of that casual pie that cod owns. So they dumb down their games and make em easier play and less learning. Look at battlefield 3 it is by far the most casual bf to date and people said bc2 was the most casual one yet. Atleast bc2 had a learning curver. If you didnt learn u got stomped on and thrown away. Bf3's learning bump is so shallow that bad players can do decent and when that happens good players get annoyed cuz jimmy no skill sprayed and prayed his way to victory!! where as in a good game jimmy would have gotten wrecked then cried and went home.

In short, CASUAL FPS's are the future. NO MORE SHALL U NEED TO THINK ULL JUST BE BORED AND SHOOT THE NEXT GUY WHO POPS UP IN FRONT OF U

[Blastoise]

It does kinda irritate me when games like Just Dance 3 are higher up than Dark souls and Uncharted 3 in the charts. Just seems wrong...

[Ulf]

Good article. Anyone who believes phones will eventually displace dedicated handhelds should read it, because that's the new "casual will oust hardcore" myth.

[Gen0ne]

Well... it looks like it's time for another episode of Grammar Nazi. Everyone's favorite. Today's grammar/punctuation mishap we call into question, is the actual headline. How is that heading even a question? It's a statement. The real heading should look like, "Why didn't casual games kill hardcore gaming?" And that's it for today's episode...

[mike1up]

Lol.

Funny.

[AlecBaldwin]

Megatron, I wondered the same thing and I wrote this article for gamersbliss.com. I don't know why the question mark is there.

Thanks for all of your responses. I wanted to state that the differences in what I saw in the two types of games, both "casual" and "core", are differences in priority. Both types of titles require many or all of the qualities listed, but casual and core games need the ones listed for them most of all or the games do not work.

A few of you talked of how casual games corrupted the core games. A few more said that casual games contain core elements. Both of you are right. It's part of the changing lanscape of games. Right now games need a wide market to survive. In time, when t.v. can start showing professional gaming tournaments, the skill factor will return with full force.

[Shackdaddy836]

Seriously, this gen got really annoying with the amount of fanboys and elitists who have nothing to be elite about. I really hope next gen isn't this bad...

[mike1up]

Well said.

Gamers have such a gang mentality this gen, and it's so pathetic. Terms like "hardcore" and "casual" are relative with no clear, universal definition.

[Achtung]

Just by looking at the picture implying that uncharted is "hardcore"...

Makes me want to punch somebody.

[AlecBaldwin]

I didn't make the graphic for my article, unfortunately. My laptop sucks. One of these days it will improve.

[Game3s]

Defining hardcore gaming and casual gaming.

Hardcore gaming is when you spend long hours playing games example some people spend long hours playing skyrim, while casual gaming is when you just play a game to pass some time example being on the bus and playing angry birds to have a little fun to pass the time until you reach your destination. Now i see some people trying to give hardcore gaming and casual gaming a new meaning, they say hardcore games are games that are gory yes with lots of blood and violence, while they say casual gaming is games that are easy and has little to no blood and violence in it. I will put uncharted as an example of how they are flawed uncharted is a easy game to play (for me i don't know about you) but because it has violence in it they call it hardcore but by their definition it would fall under casual. Under the real meaning of hardcore gaming uncharted is a hardcore game because it is a game that needs long hour to progress. People say COD is casual, that is kinda true since most people just go online to pass some time killing people.

About this article it is not credible and a bit biased showing the wii as casual and uncharted as hardcore when most wii games under the real definition of hardcore gaming are hardcore games i can't beat Mario galaxy in 2 hrs o.o. I do not like where the industry is going as only seeing game with violence as hardcore and others as casual. What do you think?

[Graey]

You know what I'd like to see.

A real tactical/valid FPS but with a bit of updated mechanics. Something like this.

1. Real money tradiing. A fully functional game economy. Built around the premise of governments/business's selling players, weapons, upgrades etc.

2. Tournaments: Meaningful not this crap they have now. Example. You get a txt via, say phone or email. Okay your part of a team so you log unto the game and your greeted by your handler who tells you your mission objective. Say to assassinate someone. Your going to need a diversion, a spotter, sniper. prob even a contingency plan.

Or there is a tank squad rampaging a village. Your job is to stop it. Now keep in mind the missions are dynamic in nature.

You can in fact die, so no running and gunning spawn fest. Dying in this game warrants a serious penalty. Team work is stressed. You dont level up so quickly, but you do get great perks.

3. Perks: ever perk you pick means something. every choice is substantial. Guns, camo, heavy armor it all means something. This would be a lively world like second life, psn home, wow, meaning its persistent. It integrates with facebook, phones, email, etc.

You actually win real money from your playtime. Whether through bets via team bets, bets on the team, tournaments etc.

This is an FPS, not not a ginger bread one where you can just run in and expect to dominate. You want to win $ 10,000 then your gonna work for it.

You put up your money up front. Their are tournament ladders, say every hour or so ppl play. Different tournaments and ladders within those tournaments. 1, 2, 5, 10 man teams.

[TheGrimBunny]

This is quite a topic...