What makes you a "HardCore" gamer

[Ikasury]

beat the Demi-Fiend in Digital Devil Saga... seriously, that guy has to be THE HARDEST BOSS EVER!! got the freakin' Amala ring in DDS2 to prove it .-.

course i range my 'hardcore'-ness on obscure titles and knowing details of the story off the top of your head... by grind/level standards i suppose the most 'hardcore' thing i've done is gotten all 150 pokemon in Blue version legit and grinded a full water based team to 100, legit, and beat the elite four... i used to have so much patience as a kid, huh, ironic, cause i know i couldn't do that now .-.

grinding in titles nowadays just doesn't seem as... satisfying as it used to be... hrm...

does beating Xenogears at least 10 times count as 'hardcore'? *snickers*

 

[Arcade Hero X]

What makes me a hardcore gamer eh?

Nothing because I play all games, I mean I'll whip out pocket planes on the train or dropping the kids off at the pool while I equally enjoy playing some dark souls and a quick game of cod. The term Hardcore was made up to make people feel better. I personally dislike the term casual gamer to me also you're either a gamer i.e someone who plays a game 10+ hours a week or not a gamer i.e less then 5 I don't give a fuck what you're playing tho.

I'm so sick of this separatist bullshit Seriously why do we need a title, Hardcore or casual either way to a non gamer you're are a nerd and always will be. So fuck it if someone wants to play farmville for a few hours let'em how does it affect you.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

The term 'hardcore gamer' is very difficult to define. That being said I would consider myself a fairly hardcore RTS, RTT, 4X, TBS and grand strategy gamer.

The most hardcore thing I have done recently was when I broke through the Soviet lines and exploited the hole all the way to Stalingrad in Hearts of Iron III while playing as Hungary. It was that action, in combination with a Hungarian-led assault on Moscow, that led to the collapse of the Soviet regime in game. Thanks to some weirdness with war goals, I ended up annexing basically the entire Soviet Union.

 

[Cabisco]

What I feel makes someone a hardcore gamer:

You have had an absurd over the top reaction to something that doesn't really matter to do with the gaming spectrum that to an outsider looks like a you're a crazy person. Examples include the following; "HOLY S**T F**K why is [insert 30 second segment of 20 hour game] not in this trailer of this game movie?! I must write hateful things online and to my friends". "THAT GAME IS AWFUL BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE IT!" "Everyone who uses that tactic, weapon, character is gay. Apart from when I use it correctly." "HOW DARE YOU SAY [insert game, developer] IS NOT THE BEST THING EVER, YOU MUST BE retarded/gay/insane/troll [delete as appropriate]."

If you haven't acted like a five year old you're just not a hardcore gamer I'm afraid. Sadly I am, I remember doing quite a few of these things over my time as a gamer and boy do I regret it now. Thats how I'd define hardcore anyway, blood rage over pointless things.

 

[southparkdudez]

I play more than just COD I actually Play games Like MGS, Dead Rising, Street Fighter, MK, UMVC3, and many more

 

[PoisonTaco]

I consider myself to be hardcore because I play niche games over the mainstream AAA games. I'm not afraid to dig in and explore mods. I'd rather put my money down for a game at Kickstarter than GameStop. I'm willing to do research and find games that suit my tastes and look for ones that offer completely new experiences. I guess that's what I consider to be hardcore. If I find anything I like I'll share with my friends and get them to expand their horizons.

 

[Mocmocman]

Edit: honestly this was supposed to be a thread about cool stuff people have done in games, could one person tell me something cool they've done in a game just one? pretty please?

Kinda stepped on a landmine using the "Hardcore" word.
At least looking at the numbers for this thread you got a couple of shiny new badges, eh?

Anyway, just today I made a Big Daddy not exist. Not just killed him but destroyed him so hard there wasn't even a corpse. The poor little sister didn't know where to stand and cry without it.

EDIT: Ended too many sentences with a question. Must be the Canadian on my dad's side.

 

[l0ckd0wn]

What makes me a hardcore gamer...?

My expensive gaming rig... My expensive, gaming oriented peripherals... The nearly 40+ hours/week playing games outside of work...

Those are decent enough reasons I suppose.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I love the dichotomy in the thread, people who just read the title and people who read the post and subsequent edit asking for moments of badassery.

Also I would say the "hardcore" term can apply and is a valid term to describe some gamers, It's not a hardcore v casual, if you aren't one then you are the other. I think of hardcore gamers as not bound to one game genera or developer or series. Not even those who devote hours of time to their obsession. The hard core are those who go above and beyond for their games, feel the need to better themselves almost compulsively. Give me our equivalent of the chess grandmasters and Olympians. Show me the man (or woman) whom scours every block of super mario 3 not because it was the flashy new game, but because they heard from a friend of a friend that there was a warp whistle in level 1-3. Those who practice until their moves are pixel perfect on any given fighter game because you have friends who can beat you as chung lee and screw those people. The hardcore are those who want to be the very best like no one ever was... to catch them is their real test and to train them is their cause. They travel across the land searching far and wide. Each pokemon to understand the power that's inside. pokemon, gotta catch 'em, its you and me. You know its our destiny. Pokemon oh you're my best friend, in a world we must defend.

 

[Ishal]

Anyone who uses the term 'hardcore' unironically, deserves to be lynched by a mob of angry badgers, garrotted with their own intestines, and then strung up, semi-conscious over the edge of a cliff, so that when the young folk walk by they can see, and then they will proclaim, 'dude, that's hardcore'.

I've been playing video games for more than 20 years.

You kids probably think that's pretty hardcore huh?

Am I accepted now? Can I be cool?

I don't understand such vehement opposition to the terms hardcore and casual. Lots of people have different variations of what they mean but after visiting several threads on the matter they don't seem to be all the different when you get down to brass tax.

"Hardcore" someone who is invested in gaming as a hobby and is one their main forms of enjoyment in life. They have passion for it and take it seriously. Whats so bad about people who want to self identify as that? I don't get it

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

I don't care if you consider me to be "hard core" or not but I certainly ain't "casual".

I once played sins of a solar empire for exactly 24-hours.

Yesterday I played Fallout New Vegas the whole day (also did that the day before) and went to sleep at 3:00 am and woke up at 2:00 PM today, then got back to it.

I downloaded hundreds of gigabytes of games last week that I lost when my hard drive failed.

I beat all the mass effects on the highest difficulty several times.

I spent three years saving up and building an expensive high-end rig to game on.

There are lots more but I think I've made my point.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

I would be hardcore b/c of how long I've played games, and the fact that I play more than what's popular (like first person shooters and RPGs). I'm a fan of gaming, and that includes all of it.

I've been gaming since Pong, went onto the Atari 2600, messed around with the Commodore 64 and Colecovision, did the NES, SNES, Genesis, the arcades in the 80's and early 90's...then I took a break while in college. From 94-98 I left the scene. I stayed with my SNES and maybe played with friends on Genesis, but I didn't get into Neo Geo or anything like that.

When I came back from college, I got a PS1. I messed around with the Dreamcast in the hopes of finding SF III, but that never happened for some reason. Then I got into the PS2, which was like the second coming of the NES for me. I was still in the arcades but they were dying out. Strangely, after 9/11/2001 one of the arcades that I used to frequent in a mall had shut down. I held onto my PS2 for a long time. I eventually got the original XBOX. Then, after waiting a year or so, I jumped into the current gen with the 360 and the PS3. I couldn't move myself to get the Wii, even though it had some killer titles back when it debuted.

So again, I'm hardcore b/c I started when I was like 3 or 4 years old and I haven't stopped. There are many other factors and things that we take for granted as gamers - like the ability to play with a controller. That's actually a sophisticated piece of technology/hardware. If you don't believe me, give it to someone who has no clue. I'll stop there.

 

[ronald1840]

- I finished Persona 3 and 4 back-to-back inside of 28 days. P4 took 14 days and P3 was 11 (I finished FES the Answer last month - 50 hours).

- I played through Silent Hill 3 (HD Collection) from start to credits in one-sitting starting at 8pm. Not a good idea.

I won't game like that again, but it is a hobby just like swimming and learning how to cook. "Hardcore" gamer? Yeah, but it's not something I wave around to people. I keep up with sites like this, Siliconera, GiantBomb, TGS, and other media and I enjoy it.

 

[MammothBlade]

I need a difficulty curve that's at least 45 degrees. I consider anything less than that boring, unless it's a sandbox. Am I hardcore now?

 

[TrevHead]

I just like a game that challenges me in some way, I like the feeling that I've overcome some obstacle and achieved something. Yeah I know that in the grand scale of things it doesn't amount to much but it's my free time and I'll spend it how I please.

 

[JagermanXcell]

What I do that makes me a hardcore gamer is, you all ready?! Don't freak out ladies:
I play video games a lot. *gasp*

You know what else? Hold on to your pants folks!:
Its a.... hobby. WOOOOOOAAAAH SO H4RDCOR3 YOLOSW4G 420 #MLG

OT:
The closest thing that makes me fell like a so called lol"Hardcore gamer" in a video game is Dark Souls PVP
Going into the forest to invade.
Usually 3v1 spawn campers/gankers.
And coming out killing all three, with melee only, dual wielding.
Oh and the hatemail from the butthurt... icing on the cake.

 

[sageoftruth]

Basically, I associate hardcore with exclusion or discomfort, the sort of things that made geeks and nerds unpopular in the past. Basically, they were all hardcore about something. I think that if you are a hardcore X, then you have to modify your speech when talking about X so those who aren't interested in X can understand. It's been referred to in psychology as the "Curse of Intelligence", where you become so informed about something that you forget what it's like not to be as informed. A hardcore gamer can be capable of talking about games to a non-gamer or a casual, but he'll usually have to consciously dumb down his speech a bit to do so, whereas a casual gamer usually won't have much to talk about beyond the things that are already accessible to people who don't game.