PopCap Hiring for a Triple-A Game

[SonicWaffle]

No, they really aren't. We're supposed to have moved past the egocentric "hardcore" bullshit by now, and all be too busy enjoying our games to give a shit whether somebody else enjoys Farmville more than CoD and whether that makes us better gamers than them.

You saying people don't have a varying commitment to and involvement in gaming? Stop having kneejerk reactions to simple terms.

There is a difference between simple descriptive terms and terms which are used in a hostile and insulting fashion. Gamers take pride from a label like "hardcore" and take umbrage to a label like "casual", because the terms have gained deeper connotations than just playing games more/less.

I happily admit that I play games casually, but when someone calls me a casual gamer I know that the majority of times that isn't what they mean. They're attempting to belittle and insult while simultaneously massaging their own ego; they are hardcore and therefore superior, whereas the casual is inferior and "not a real gamer"

At no point was the article even remotely mean to casual gamers.

No mention should have been made of casual gamers at all. As already stated, casual and hardcore have evolved beyond being a reference to how much someone plays games and have become more about egotistical elitism.

That Battlefield and Pants vs. Zombies are aimed at different audiences is a matter of fact, and I don't get this need to play pretend and do things as vapid as restraining oneself from specifying further than "gamer".

It's like the tired, pointless old "it's just different" argument.

Are they truly aimed at different audiences? Because if we took a poll of the players on this very site who played and enjoyed both, I imagine we'd get some high numbers.

The only difference is that it's OK to belittle people who only enjoyed PvZ as "casual", whereas people who only enjoyed Battlefield are "hardcore"

 

[Entitled]

In that case, that "we are too busy enjoying our games" line is just a thought-terminating cliché.

How so? Way I see it, if you're actually up in arms about how people who play Boomblox or Zynga games are inferior to you, you've got a problem. For those of us who play video games because we enjoy video games, hardcore vs casual is meaningless; it's just more people deriving enjoyment from gaming.

It's a thought-terminating cliché, because you are using this phrase to create a false dichotomy, "you can either just play video games because you enjoy them, OR you can debate the definition of hardcore and casual".

It's also a borderline No True Gamer argument. I find the whole elitism/inclusiveness/subcultural identification/etc. debate fascinating, and I often participate in them, on whichever side appears more symphatetic at the moment. Does that mean that when I play my games, I'm not truly enjoying them?

Besides, it's also quite hypocritcal to claim that, while you yourself are the one in this thread who started the whole definition-debating:

I made my original comment with the benefit of doubt that the article used the two terms to referred to levels of commitment and involvement, as opposed to gamer supremacism, and accordingly commented that this might not necessarily be true, an AAA game, especially one that one might expectfrom EA, can be just as if not more shallow, and simple, and easy-to-use, and generally casual, as a 2D puzzle game, or a tower defense, while many low-budget games can demand lots of involvement and have a steep learning curve, being much more "hardcore" than EA's average AAA game.

You somehow escalated that into ranting about gamer supremacism anyways.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I'll get started on Pop-Cap's grave-site. I reckon I can squeeze it in-between Westwood's and the plot I just finished for Bioware.

 

[weirdee]

EVERYTHING MUST BE SHOOTERS

LONG LIVE EA

tbh i would play madden if it was turned into a shooter

 

[Arkley]

People can whine and cry all they like about it, but I would play the hell out of a PvZ shooter. I'd like an X-com style TBS even more.

 

[RicoADF]

Hey, Popcap. Did you fire George Fan (you know, the mind behind PvZ, possibly your biggest game ever) because you knew there would be violence if you pulled this bullshit with him still in the building?

I don't know if it's true. I hope it's not true. But even if it isn't, whether this particular shock of bourbon-and-airplane-glue inspired brilliance to turn Popcap towards AAA Frostbite-powered console development came from within or from the Evil Archenemy, it's the worst move since someone decided a dialogue-and-plot-centric company like Bioware should be tasked with handling a multiplayer-only version of the C&C:Generals franchise.

(Who was behind that decision? Oh, right...)

I still can't figure out how that's a good idea. Seriously EA truely are idiots that have no idea what their doing. It's official, their no longer a game company, just an investment business trying to make money from IPs they've bought out.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I'll be amazed if they turn PvZ into an FPS. That would be so unbelievably stupid. And cool. But mostly stupid.