I'm so much better than you at being a gamer!

[nirojan]

I merely brought up personal experience as an example as to demonstrate how useless I think it is to argue about what qualifies one to be a "hardcore gamer." I'm not worried that you don't care as that wasn't the point of bringing it up the first place; rather, it was to demonstrate the evolution of my opinion towards so-called hardcore gaming, which I think is such a bull concept as to not be deserving of argument.

Which is kind of what I thought this thread was supposed to be about.

Well I actually intended it to be a PSP vs DS thread with the concept of which platform is more appealing to the hardcore gamers out there. Didn't think it would get twisted like that I do apologize for letting it slide that far.

[Hollycat]

NGP for the win

[nirojan]

NGP for the win

lol cactuar did you hear what it stands for?
"nintendo got pwned!"

Super excited for both NGP and 3DS! HOpe Sony announces the final name, price, release date soon!

[Wolf Kanno]

Wow, this thread got ugly fast...

I won't really quote anyone but I do have to agree more with Yearg on this. Giving a designation of "Hardcore" and "causal" is pretty silly to me, and ultimately is just people trying to create some imaginary pseudo-social group that makes them feel superior to a larger group we know as gamers.

Yet, often people who utter this phrase to create distinction from themselves and others fail to realize that they are making up the rules that apply. What makes a game hardcore? What actually makes it casual? Difficulty? The majority of games are easy compared to the old days. No more use of "lives", infinite continues, regenerative health, and not to mention overpowered moves that often make you feel more awesome than the amount of effort you actually placed in it. Even in terms of difficulty, the old games were only hard cause they followed the arcade format and games had to be hard to force a player to put in more money.

It has to be real and gritty? Most games are certainly not realistic, and as for gritty, that's just an art direction and does not actually equate any more merit than saying water colors are less "art" than traditional oil based paints. I can bore you to tears by deconstructing the common tropes and cliches that people often use as descriptors for differentiating the two groups. Its pretty much subjective, and there are no actual "rules"or in stone defintions for either word. Who is more "hardcore", the guy who occasionally plays Halo with friends on Saturday nights, but has never even touched hard mode let alone Legendary, or the guy who spends every night playing Mine Sweeper til he gets so good he has a 98% success rate and can tell where every mine is after the first two moves because he recognizes which of the hundred pre-set scripts the game is using. I can tell you which one is probably getting more out of life.

Hell, by some people's definition of "Hardcore" I would say you can't count RPGs, simply because they hand you victory by playing. If you get stuck in an action game, you can't advance until you the player personally gets better. In an RPG, you can just keep fighting enemies repetitively until the game awards you with higher stats so you can beat the boss. That's not challenge, that's just work. You get a treat for playing, not because you better yourself.

Like NeoCracker I would say a hardcore gamer is simply someone who loves games and sets apart some time to play them. A casual gamer only whips out Rockband or Guitar Hero when friends are over, or to kill time before a movie comes on. A hardcore gamer is someone who goes home to play games to relax and has them as an active part of their lives.

[Hollycat]

Wow, this thread got ugly fast...

My bad

[Jiro]

This reminds me of the PS3v360 arguments. A lot.

I found a list of PSP titles and three lists of DS titles (not including DSi only).

The fact that there are more for DS proves nothing, I just thought it would be easier for everyone to continue fighting with examples

[Bolivar]

Short Answer: there are no casual consoles, only casual gamers

First, "Hardcore" and "Casual" are terms invented by market analysts to divide people who play games on their iPhone and Facebook-type browser games, as well as people who play non-traditional games on the Wii (Casual) from gamers who have PC, Xbox 360, or PS3 and play traditional games like Call of Duty and Madden. It's useful for identifying the two very different demographics who collectively spend an insane amount on games, but neither end of the spectrum represents true, real gamers and certainly not here.

The second divide comes from game enthusiasts on the internet who misinterpret what the divide actually means. They think it's a genre question, that shooters, racers, and sometimes RPG's (the 3 staples of the 360 and arguably PS3) are played by hardcore gamers, while social, music, and puzzles are played by casuals. This is very ironic, since the most popular shooters, Halo and Call of Duty, are widely played because of how quick and easy their matchmaking systems are. Games with more detailed gameplay like Killzone or more complex interfaces (most PC games) are shunned every week in mainstream podcasts like Invisible Walls or Epic Battle Axe by self-proclaimed "hardcore gamers."

Before this hideous, horrible generation of video games started, and the terms hardcore and casual along with it, a hardcore gamer to me was someone heavily involved with the modding community on counter-strike, or playing Japanese imports on a modded PlayStation. A casual gamer, to me, is someone who plays popular games every now and then, a couple games online here and there, and maybe sometimes dabbles in deeper games like Bioshock or Fallout 3, but then again, they probably wouldn't touch either of those or Mass Effect if those games weren't so much like the shooters they venerate.

People who play iOS games or Facebook-type browser games aren't "hardcore" or "casual." They're simply not gamers.

So saying the DS or PSP is more hardcore than the other isn't entirely fair. Both games have plenty of awesome experiences to immerse yourself in, a lot of traditional games that explore the boundaries of their respective genres. Summoner of Leviathan made an awesome point about Pokemon - it clearly has the casual appeal, but I'm playing Heart Gold right now and I'm stunned at how many options and concepts the game throws at you to lose yourself in. To me, that's just the hallmark of a great game designer.

Well, this is definitely a matter of opinion and if I had to weigh in on either side I would go with the PSP. Out of the RPG's I've played, even Pokemon with all of its options doesn't come close to how deep PSP titles are, which is why I feel like I'm playing "Big Boy RPG's" when I go back to my PSP. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together just came out last night, and it can be added to the growing list including Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Valkyria Chronicles II, single games that blow every DS game out of the water. THe DS has more "pick up and play" allure, games that are specifically made for handhelds, and certainly a lot of PSP games fail because they try to be like console titles. But for games like Gran Turismo and Motorstorm, the console experience actually fits extremely well on a handheld, and if you can make games like Metal Gear fit that mold, and still have the same quality as the console experience, why would you ever go back to anything else? Ok, obviously that's a dumb statement cause I've gone back to Pokemon, but I was very dismissive of the PSP in the past and getting one in the last year totally changed my opinion on handhelds.

But like I said above, you can't totally dismiss the DS, hardcore gaming is a mindset and not tied to any platform. I know friends with 360's who only use it for downloadable games and mostly puzzles at that, I'd say they're far more casual than my friend who just got into video games and is playing Pokemon on her DS. Nirojan's ultimate question, which console would hardcore gamers lean towards, is a clear cut case for me, but both machines have withstood an usually long span of time, and still have awesome games coming out every year. You couldn't do wrong with either.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Short Answer: there are no casual consoles, only casual gamers

The Wii.

/thread

[Skyblade]

Before this hideous, horrible generation of video games started, and the terms hardcore and casual along with it, a hardcore gamer to me was someone heavily involved with the modding community on counter-strike, or playing Japanese imports on a modded PlayStation. A casual gamer, to me, is someone who plays popular games every now and then, a couple games online here and there, and maybe sometimes dabbles in deeper games like Bioshock or Fallout 3, but then again, they probably wouldn't touch either of those or Mass Effect if those games weren't so much like the shooters they venerate.

So, what do you call someone who doesn't mod, but who spends 95% of their free time (ie: when not asleep or working, but including meals) playing video games? Because I don't seem to fall into either of those two groups. Maybe I'm just a gamer. Something to be proud of.

[Mirage]

A gaming enthusiast. I don't see a reason to want to be in the "hardcore gamer" category anyway. It just sounds silly and "tryhard".

I like games in the same way a gearhead likes cars (and stuff like that).

[ljkkjlcm9]

Short Answer: there are no casual consoles, only casual gamers

The Wii.

/thread

Monster Hunter Tri

Thread re-opened!


Anyways on a more serious note..... anything can be hardcore and anything can be casual. In the end this all boils down to preference. I don't consider games in and off themselves to be hardcore, only people who play them. I hate playing most FPS online, especially on consoles, because you have people who play them hardcore, as in that it is the only thing they play. They make it their life, and it detracts from my enjoyment of it.

The DS/PSP debate is the same as ANY OTHER debate in existence. I can take my own gaming history for a good example. Before I lived on my own, aka last gaming generation, I didn't have a lot of money. I always had nintendo systems growing up, I always enjoyed nintendo games, so I had a Gamecube and only a gamecube. I saw plenty of games on PS2 that I wanted, but I didn't have the money to own both. DS came out, had GBA games, wanted more nintendo games, got one. PSP came out had no games I wanted. Years later, in college, working some, buy a Wii. Same situation. PS3 way too expensive, 360 had no exclusive games I want. I graduate college, have a job, PS3 drops in price... I buy one. Now I have a PS3, went back and bought a PS2 for games I missed (plus as a DVD player), a Wii, a gaming computer, and a DS. Still want a PSP for a couple games, but not enough for me to warrant buying the system. Maybe in a few years it will be cheap enough for me to warrant it, like the PS2. 360 and pretty much any microsoft system will almost always have multi-platform games (shared by PS3 or PC) except for a few exceptions here or there, so I have 0 desire for the system.

So what am I? Hardcore or Casual? I have at least a dozen games sitting around that I haven't got the time to play because of my actual life and other games, spread out across all my systems. I have tons of games I started and stopped playing before I finished. A number of them I quit because I MISSED something early in the game, that I can't go back and get and would have to restart, and I like to get EVERYTHING, but can't be bothered to replay that stuff. I guess wanting to get everything makes me hardcore. But the fact that I don't finish games makes me casual right? So which is it?

Ask people in this thread, I'm probably casual. Own lots of games, enjoy a lot, rarely master any etc. But ask most people I know who game a lot less than I do, or even the same amount, and I'm hardcore. I'm always expected to win multiplayer games among friends. I buy more games than anyone I know, and I just have a greater general knowledge, even about games I don't play or hate.

SO, it's perspective. I personally define myself as someone who enjoys games, can pick up any game and catch on rather quick, and am constantly trying to find a game that can really grab me so I actually CAN do everything. Last one was The World Ends With You... on the so called "casual" DS, but I had over 100 hours on that game. Next will probably be Dragon Quest IX, at the rate I'm going, again on the DS. On today's home consoles, my most hours is on Monster Hunter Tri, 200+ hours, on the "casual" Wii. So really, what does that mean?

THE JACKEL

[NeoCracker]

I won't really quote anyone but I do have to agree more with Yearg on this. Giving a designation of "Hardcore" and "causal" is pretty silly to me, and ultimately is just people trying to create some imaginary pseudo-social group that makes them feel superior to a larger group we know as gamers.

Pft, like I need 'words' to feel superior to you fools.

[freemmorpg]

I prefer to play pc games

[Hollycat]

freelancer all the way.











all night long.










every night

[DMKA]

I won't really quote anyone but I do have to agree more with Yearg on this. Giving a designation of "Hardcore" and "causal" is pretty silly to me, and ultimately is just people trying to create some imaginary pseudo-social group that makes them feel superior to a larger group we know as gamers.

Pft, like I need 'words' to feel superior to you fools.

I thought that's what Trophies/Achievements were for?