Hardcore gaming is dead forever...

[jthwilliams]

Hmmmm, like many others, I think the problem here is your definition of hardcore game. If you are looking for games that are hard to play/master, there is a game out there that I can't remeber the name of but you can find if you search that requires you to make a man run using 4 keys to control different parts of the legs. I would call that a very hard game, but I wouldn't call it a hardcore game.


I usually consider hardcore to refer to how involved a games is or how many hours you have to commit to the game to get real enjoyment out of it. A casual game is one where you can sit down and under stand all the rules in about 5 minutes. You can enjoy it for hours, but the level of fun you have after say 10 minutes pretty much stays constant. On the other hand, I would consider something like Oblivion to be a hardcore game because you could put 100 hours into it and not master the leveling system or combat, and you can many different levels of entertainment and enjoyment from it and play it in many different ways. It is a very envolved game.


I think you are thinking of games that have an extremely steap learning curve. They can be hardcore or they can be like the one I cite above very casual.

 

[LostAlone]

Did you just say Vanquish was a hardcore game? Thats your definition for hardcore?
...
I guess Hell and Hell in DMC4 counts for shit then.
And Professional in RE4..
And Legendary in every Halo game...
and Hardcore mode in Fallout:NV............. wait a second!

Hardcore is I wanna be the guy.

Viscous, soul crushing trial and error combined with levels designed to fuck with you. Will make you bleed out your ears.

In essence, hardcore gaming in the context of 'hardcore games' has never really existed for at least the past decade and yes that is primarily because games are now very profitable. Any game is hardcore if you are obsessed with it these days, but they can also be enjoyed by anyone on lower difficulties. Developers want everyone to be able to enjoy their games because the more people who can enjoy it the more people who will buy it. But they also have masochistic difficulty settings.

Back before games were big buisness, developers made games basically for themselves. Small teams of people who were very very good at playing games tend to make games that are very very hard to play. Back in the day, completing certain games was a personal accomplishment. It made you feel good to break the code and win. Nowerdays there isn't a code to break, just headbutting a brick wall. The top levels of games are hard, but are basically the same as the lower ones. They don't add in an insanely complex pixel-hunting point and click adventure section (which they should btw), and so its just not the same in terms of hardcoreness. Also, people just go to game faqs for any hard bits anyway *sigh*.

I'm waffling I know, but it irritates me that you don't have to figure something out to win anymore. Just brute force. Boring. Unhardcore. Most everyone I know who completed things on the top difficulty did so basically so they could brag about it later and I hate that.

 

[theheroofaction]

Hmm, he seems to have a case of hardcore deficiency.

I would prescribe 16 grams of dark souls.

 

[upgray3dd]

the people who truly care about video games are greatly outnumbered by casuals

You seem to be arguing that only you and people who agree with you care about gaming, and that people with different tastes just don't care enough about gaming like you do.

Most modern "hardcore" games seem to be focused on competitive multiplayer, where the difficulty scales based on the dedication of the player's involved. That seems like the way to go about making hardcore games in the modern era: make a fun multiplayer game, and let the players be as hardcore as they'd like to be.

 

[Ghengis John]

Just my opinion though. what do you guys think?

I think if it makes pretentious assholes who like to look down their noses at others unhappy that can't help but be a good thing. I also think you're darned lucky to live in a part of the world where this is a pressing concern for you. I also recommend to you sir, a game called dark souls.

Imminent Frustration.

 

[Veylon]

and hardcore gaming used to exist, well not on purpose i would say, but in a sense that it was back in a time where the market was very narrow, so developers had to really make their games stand out to pull people in.

Name names. That's what I'm really asking for. What games stood out? I want to get a feel for what era you are lamenting. When I hear "hardcore", I think Battletoads.

 

[Irridium]

Didn't Dead Souls just sell over a million copies? Or did I just imagine that?

 

[MightyRabbit]

But just because a game IS more accessible doesn't mean it can't still be difficult. My brother beat Mass Effect 1 at age 10 on easy but I couldn't beat it on the hardest setting after over 15 years of gaming. Not saying that ME1 is necessarily 'hardcore', but it does fit your pretty loose definition BUT still is appealing to and completable by a 'casual' gamer.

Besides, the more people play games and grow to like them because they're accessible, then there will be more fans of the medium. This could mean all those 'casuals' become 'hardcores', or that the industry becomes big enough to support niche genres, or that they then go discover classics like Castlevania or Baldur's Gate and decide they want mechanical challenges offered by 'hardcore' games too.

Also, there's a lot of indie developers catering to the 'hardcore' market, just recently I played Zombie Shooter 2, an isometric RPG-shooter that thoroughly whooped my arse on level 2 of Easy Mode. And I Wanna Be The Guy is...well, it's I Wanna Be The Guy.

Consider what Jim Sterling said too, that just because a game doesn't offer traditional difficulty challenges hardcore gamers may crave doesn't mean their isn't challenge there. Like trying to solve every puzzle in a Professor Layton game with no hints, trying a Solo Character Run in a JRPG, trying to get every collectible in a LEGO game, trying to do a No Damage Run on Kingdom Hearts. It's all there, perfectly feasible in the game mechanics.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChallengeGamer

As for more conventional challenges, what about superbosses in RPGs? Expert or equivalent difficulty modes? Trying to get Silent Assassin ranking in a Hitman game? Completing all those increasingly difficult side missions in games like GTA and its ambulance minigames?

To address the point of 'noob tactics' for a moment, developers are including characters and weapons that are easy for beginners, but deliberately balancing them so that once you get a firm grasp of the mechanics, you'll find it's actually inefficient for high level play and discard it.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SkillGateCharacters

Also, no 'hardcore' titles? Off the top of my head I'd classify these fairly recent games as mechanically hardcore, and I'm not even a person with an interest in hardcore gaming:
Zombie Shooter 2 (and presumably everything else in the franchise)
Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode
Hard Reset
High level play on any beat 'em up e.g. Marvel vs Capcom 3
Dark Souls
Any halfway decent RTS/Turn Based Strategy/RPG e.g. Starcraft 2, Empire Total War, Civilizaton V
High level play on any decent multiplayer FPS e.g. Team Fortress 2
Bastion with the optional Shrine challenges

OK, so it's hardly a detailed list. But you may also have noticed I specified that many of these were only 'hardcore' as a deliberate choice to flick a difficulty switch or join a non-newbie server. That's the thing, FarmVille or Wii Sports Resort aren't the threat. They're being made for completely different people. It's the complacent studios and publishers playing everything safe and by the numbers. They're the ones making bland, cookie cutter games.

TL;DR 'Hardcore' gaming is far from dead, in fact between being able to buy/emulate classic games and actively seeking out challenge in newer ones, this is probably the best era of gaming for hardcores. Just because a game isn't made exclusively for your subset doesn't mean your needs aren't being served.

 

[Supramaan]

i actually kinda agree with the OP, game developers now days seem to make more games for the causal gamer and for the people who only seem to play games online. really decent games with a good longinsh single player are getting few and far inbetween imo. everyone has diffrent tastes in games when it comes to what they think is hardcore, just because 1 person thinks a game isnt hardcore dosent make it true.

 

[lacktheknack]

Indie games. That is all.

(Spiderweb Software is a good place to start.)

 

[AD-Stu]

*shrugs*

Two words: market forces.

As has been mentioned above, there's no reason for the so-called "hardcore" market to have shrunk - if anything it should be bigger than it was 10-20 years ago because there are more people playing games than ever before, and they're not all playing Bejewelled and Wii Sports. Likewise, it's unlikely that much of the existing "hardcore" fanbase has converted to casual gaming... unless they thought there was something wrong with hardcore games in the first place, in which case the market was artificially inflated. Actually, I probably fall into that category because dating all the way back to the Sega Master System I always hated the idea that games needed to be difficult for difficult's sake.

Also, there's also no real reason for "hardcore" developers to jump ship and start making purely casual games because it's overly simplistic to look at the casual market might as a great big attractive money pile - the reality is that it's super-competitive and you need to find a way to cut through the clutter and sell massive volumes of your game at a low price in order to make anything.

So if there's no logical reason that the market has shrunk, and there's no logical reason for developers to be abandoning the market... what gives?

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Here's a thought: Making up challenges for you to do in the game. You know, like get all the treasures in 15 minutes or evade the cops in a high speed chase for 30 minutes. (I still remember getting away with three popped tires and nearly managed to pull this off in NFS:MW. It was awesome!)

 

[trooper6]

You could play Dungeons of Dredmore...a Roguelike. Dying over and over with no savepoints may make you feel superior and hardcore.

I'll go and play games I enjoy. And maybe I'll play those games non-stop for 20 hours a couple days in a row. The minute Thanksgiving break happens, I'll get all intense in Skyrim or whatever else I've got going on. And you can poo-poo me as casual because I don't play the narrow niche of games you have deemed hardcore.

That's okay. I'm not interested in getting into some sort of "who's more hardcore!" contest.

 

[Chanel Tompkins]

And why is it such a bad thing? Maybe I like being able to watch my granma's eyes light up with glee when she wins a level of Plants VS. Zombies. If you really insist on playing super hard monstrosities, indie games and ROM hacks will be happy to oblige you.

 

[zehydra]

I'll set up the funeral. Should I be surprised when noone RSVPs?

 

[Hisshiss]

for a simple reason really, now that video games have become a profitable market, there really is no incentive to make a good hardcore game anymore that really pleases an increasingly niche section of gamers. Every year i see less and less hardcore games coming out( i think the last one i played was Vanquish, and that game wasn't very successful. I don't even want to think about FPS). The fact of the matter is, the people who truly care about video games are greatly outnumbered by casuals, and the gap will only increase. Its even making its way into PC, which for a long time was protected from too much casual entry due to it being somewhat expensive, and not completely easy to pick up, but now even it is becoming more accessible and watered down. This is a serious problem guys we need to consider, but there's not much we can do about it. one day everything's going to be a wagglenoobtubenolearningcurve casual fest, and devs are still going to make millions.


Just my opinion though. what do you guys think?

As you said yourself, "hardcore gamers" are a minority, and as such are not worth catering to. That's just the way it works, you can't expect to be in control in a business when there just aren't enough of you.

It's also not nearly as big of a deal as your making it out to be, play on a higher difficulty, set handicaps, go for 100%. There are plenty of ways to push your time and abilities in almost all modern games.

Alot of Raider's in WoW have the exact same mentality as you, it isn't about there not being plenty of hard content, because there nearly always is, its about there being easy content that normal people can do.

I don't know, maybe your all just too arrogant for your own good.

And for the record, Ive been playing games as my primary hobby ever since I was 7 years old, and I don't consider myself a hardcore gamer. It has nothing to do with "truly caring about games". That line is just a cheap way to make your kind sound like noble martyrs when in reality it's just a simple difference in taste.

 

[blizzaradragon]

for a simple reason really, now that video games have become a profitable market, there really is no incentive to make a good hardcore game anymore that really pleases an increasingly niche section of gamers. Every year i see less and less hardcore games coming out( i think the last one i played was Vanquish, and that game wasn't very successful. I don't even want to think about FPS). The fact of the matter is, the people who truly care about video games are greatly outnumbered by casuals, and the gap will only increase. Its even making its way into PC, which for a long time was protected from too much casual entry due to it being somewhat expensive, and not completely easy to pick up, but now even it is becoming more accessible and watered down. This is a serious problem guys we need to consider, but there's not much we can do about it. one day everything's going to be a wagglenoobtubenolearningcurve casual fest, and devs are still going to make millions.


Just my opinion though. what do you guys think?

To be honest, while the casual market is picking up speed I feel that hardcore gaming has never been stronger. Sure you don't get games of brutal difficulty from years past, but instead there's the challenge of being better than your fellow man. Look at competitions like MLG or GSL, they've never been bigger than they are now. Hell, there are more people now watching the MLG than there were watching last year's NBA finals.

If you don't want to put your hat into the multi-player ring or just want to look at single-player, then I have this to say instead: What it seems to me is that games aren't necessarily catering to a weaker audience, but that gamers have been improving to the point that games these days seem easier than games of 10 years ago(not going to compare today's games to games from the early days of gaming cause that was brutal repetition and muscle memory over skill and strategy, despite how much I love old games).

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

Do you even know what's a hardcore game? Go play ESP Ra.De, DoDonPachi, Mars Matrix, or Radiant Silvergun... and learn.

 

[Smeggs]

For a moment I was actually considering what OP was saying and trying to see where he was coming from. I even said okay to his mention of Vanquish being hardcore. It was an ok game, I guess.

Right up until he complained about "noobtubenolearningcurve."

So I now must rant over a phrase that did not even use proper grammar.

What you said right there is, "Damn those people using a weapon that is superior to mine in firepower, oh if only they would fight fair and use a shittier weapon so I could kill them." Which, in turn, made me laugh at the entire first post. Have you ever actually tried to use a grenade launcher in the CoD games? If so, have you gotten decent kills with them? I'm assuming the answer is, "No," because if you had I guarantee you'd be using it to raise your K/D spread.

It's very easy to tell when someone uses the launcher for suicidal attempts at gaining kills, and when someone is using it out of skill. Apparently you cannot tell the difference, and how could you? You've obviously branded a viable weapon choice as being beneath you simply because you can't use it effectively and are often killed by it.

Just to clarify I don't use the launcher either, as I'm quite shit with it myself, but I've seen enough people using it effectively to know that trying to claim something is "noobish" or "cheap" simply because others are too lazy or not skilled enough to counter it quickly is stupid. It was the same shit with the dual-wielding "noob combo" in Halo 3.

 

[Grand Master Sage]

*shrugs*

Two words: market forces.

As has been mentioned above, there's no reason for the so-called "hardcore" market to have shrunk - if anything it should be bigger than it was 10-20 years ago because there are more people playing games than ever before, and they're not all playing Bejewelled and Wii Sports. Likewise, it's unlikely that much of the existing "hardcore" fanbase has converted to casual gaming... unless they thought there was something wrong with hardcore games in the first place, in which case the market was artificially inflated. Actually, I probably fall into that category because dating all the way back to the Sega Master System I always hated the idea that games needed to be difficult for difficult's sake.

Also, there's also no real reason for "hardcore" developers to jump ship and start making purely casual games because it's overly simplistic to look at the casual market might as a great big attractive money pile - the reality is that it's super-competitive and you need to find a way to cut through the clutter and sell massive volumes of your game at a low price in order to make anything.

So if there's no logical reason that the market has shrunk, and there's no logical reason for developers to be abandoning the market... what gives?

well i guess thats just our differing opinion of what the gaming market is now. It transcends difficulty and mechanics, but also just the overall quality of gaming. Devs can get away with things like releasing "new" DLC a month after a game's release or selling content keys for games because they know that even with the die-hards' support they may or may not lose from those kinds of practices, there are plenty of casual players to fill the gap and continue their profits. Like i said before this isn't the casual user's fault, but the devs knowing they can get away with less quality work than they used to be able to, and still make more money.

and to the other guy that said it, yes i associate a game's "hardcoreness" or whatever, with its difficulty, because more often than not its a good measure of the game's overall depth and play-ability in my opinion. Granted there are some games that are just senselessly hard and aren't fun to play more so than a grind fest to just finish, but you get the idea.