I don’t really see hard core games as likely to disappear altogether; however, I do fear that some hardcore games will be “watered down.” Developers might compromise some of the complexity or difficulty from a franchise, so the game will look like a more tempting buy for casual gamers.

That’s just bad economics. As long as the hardcore market is there to be profitably tapped, it will be tapped. Think about it: which made more money last year, a toilet paper company or Apple? Probably Apple, since they’re making a ton of cash from iPod/iTunes. And yet, the toilet paper manufactures haven’t closed up shop so that they can make iPod rip offs instead. Why? Because toilet paper is still a profitable niche and their manufactures are already set up in the business and would be lost if they tried to do something else.

Same thing applies to video game companies. As long as you can earn more money by also releasing hardcore games than not, companies will continue releasing hardcore games. Otherwise, they’d be leaving money on the table, which is just bad business.

T to da B makes no sense.

He’s moaning and crying about a grandma buying video games? Seriously, why? What does it matter if anyone wants to play a game they might like?

Then he switches gears and says it’s great to bring new audiences in? Did I miss something?

This guy has no solid reason for disliking the Wii except that it’s not an Xbox 360. It’s a shame really, his fearmongering would’ve been more entertaining if he had a point.

man.. I remember writing that basic article up like a year ago, basically the same way rap music has been ruined…

however, I don’t think it will happen with gaming, atleast not to rap’s extent

*expects rap bashing*

Nintendo just opened a new market and these “Hardcore” games are complaining? They should be praising them. What this means is that now the casual will think more about games and the new gamers will do some casual gaming.

Look, the market won’t fall. Hardcore gaming will never go away. Its that they feel the heat and they know they are loosing people due to having “lives and families”. I see this tactic as saying that they are afraid to vanish.

I believe if it was not for Nintendo then the Video game market will have nowhere to go. They keep telling people to pay up a high price for gaming. That just deters the audience.

I just hate these gamer complaining and not adapting to the current market. You know, things change.

I don’t foresee the casual audiences buying 6 million copies of every Casual game released. A Hannah Montana game isn’t going to surpass it’s install base, unless the gameplay merits otherwise. So in the end, casual gaming only means that to start there will be a ton of “MiiTwos!”, and then developement studios and publishers will realize that real breakout hits will be games with great style and engrossing gameplay.

This is so annoying, the problem is not the casual gamer or the casual games. As always, the problem is the developers. The Wii does not force developers to make lazy ports or quick mini games. It’s like trying to blame the medium of cinema for crappy summer blockbusters, companies are at fault for exploiting the set up, not the actual set up.

I really can’t understand this hysterical backlash to the Wii’s success, every damn game on the 360 is a hardcore experience about shooting people,there is no variety whatsoever, yet I didn’t hear anyone complaining. My point? If people were genuinly concerned with the health of the industry, then the 360 set up would cause the same hysterical outbursts as the Wii does. But, we all know they are not genuinely concerned about the games industry, they are concerned about “their” games industry, and there’s a big difference.

This Wii backlash is nothing more than the paranoia of the privelaged, you know when imigrants enter a country and everyone starts worrying about the new imigrants taking all their women and jobs. Well this scenario is excatly the same.

The Wii’s success and the casual gamer is absolutely no threat to the industry, as always and as ever, the only threat to the industry is the crapness of game developers.

I’m not blaming anyone yet and I’ve been a Nintendo diehard since the NES was released, but I’ve been noticing that there really aren’t that many games out for the Wii that are that appealing. Right now it’s only Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario. Other than that (and the simple demand to have the newest Nintendo console) there doesn’t seem to be any reason to try and fight to get one. Sure some good games are on the horizon, but I’m becoming increasingly worried that the software won’t live up.

This is a crucial point because, aside from simply the desire to play great games, this has long been one of the best points in favor of Nintendo. Whenever Playstation or, even worse, XBox fanboys try to bash on Nintendo we’ve always been able to rest secure in our claim that Nintendo produces some amazing games that simply cannot be matched elsewhere. The way the current slate of Wii games have been going that’s not going to be true for much longer.

Ultimately the problem is that the Wii gets stigmatized, just like the Gamecube before it, as “kiddie” or, in this case, as being only of interest to casual gamers. Sure a few titles will sneak in and Nintendo will continue to release first-party content (though I do worry that their focus will shift more heavily towards casual gaming as they have already stated is their desire), but it will be few and far between.

Casual gamers have their place and I have no problem with sharing a console with them. The current titles available just seem to suggest a future where there is little room for me.

Please, real hardcore gamers would play anything they want, it doesn’t have to be new. There are still hundreds of games any hardcore gamer hasn’t played. With that said, the market shifts, but hardcore games are here to stay as long as people play them. And if people stop playing them, who cares if they aren’t there anymore?

This bullshit about hardcore games is really, really, really retarded.

Hardcore gamers are the most irritating bunch of know-nothing asshats on the internet. They can, as they say, suck it.

let’s all just be friends.

@ STU

You speak the truth.

Hardcore gamers are a bunch of spoilt, inbred hicks who have evolved in complete isolation from the real world of digital entertainment. Casual gamers come along and dare to buy games, oh no, the horror.

The other annoying fact is that it’s not as if we have been experiencing gaming heaven up until now, it’s not as if we’ve been experiencing the best games ever made, then the horrible casual gamer comes along and ruins our incomparable joy. No, we have been playing the same shooting, driving, hitting rubbish for over a decade, if hardcore gamers had it their way we would still be playing a super neo HD HD version of Tekken come the year 2050.

I know. I still can’t remember when “nerds” turned into “hardcore gamers”. I been what is now called a casual gamer for years, and play all kinds of games, from puzzles to RPGs, but unlike “hardcore gamers”, I get laid. And that takes up a big part of my leisure time.

I thought “hardcore gamers” were the ones that beat Contra without dying, did speed runs through Super Mario 3, could memorize every inventory item in Link to the Past, can beat Ikaruga on Hard without continuing (without dying I think is asking a bit much) and so forth.

When did they become talentless hacks that just played a lot of games and got good only on easy ones (come on, RPGs for crying out loud?!?!).

Does the concept of just, y’know, MAKE “hardcore” games for the Wii just boggle the mind for people like this? I mean good grief, Nintendo concentrated more on the control design this gen and it’s like “oh my god, Nintendo hates graphics.” Nintendo has popular titles like Pokemon and Mario and some just act as if that’s all Nintendo has in both first part software all the way to the hardware as a whole. Now Nintendo gives more attention to untapped markets, y’know, the ones that have been ignored generally speaking, and so many are flipping out like it’ll start the decline of “hardcore” gaming.

So the Wii isn’t as powerful as the 360 and PS3 and it has software that would get more interested in the system outside the usual devoted fans and gamers. Does that suddenly mean developers should continue on this narrow minded rant like “hardcore” and “mature” games has suddenly become impossible to be made for the Wii? Did you guys even existed during the PS2 era? Is this why 2D games kinda disappeared? Did somebody switched on 3D gaming and suddenly became oblivious to the concept of 2D game design? “2D? How do doo dat?”

Boy, do people get lost easily here. Such melodramas. Extremist much (i.e. Not A, must be Z; hello, not FFXIII quality level doesn’t mean mini-game level for Wii, try FFX or MGS3 level and shoot for that)? For years Nintendo fans have been longing for stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and the like (and just before people point out RE Cube sales, RE0 was the only exclusive, RE1 was a remake of the same story that is BC on the PS2, while the rest were PS1 and DC ports, all available to the PS2, including a RE4 port that had more content). And despite all that, it was all nothing but excuses. No online, small discs, cartridges, small userbase, etc. And all this despite the N64 and Cube’s more powerful systems compared to the Sony systems. And now that the Wii has improved those shortcomings, now it’s about power and specs. And yet somehow if the specs were on the part with the other systems, Nintendo will stick get mocked (with the price equally hurtful to the average consumers as the other systems price do now). So now it’s not only “kiddy” and “gimmicky,” it’s also how it’s not HD. And once again, a new excuse: the Wii’s success will destroy hardcore gaming. Oh p-leaze. Do you know how many casual gaming there are out there? From flash games to tetris to solitaire. Sure they don’t get a lot of advertising and hardly ever in the limelight vs. the next big epic JRPG or FPS game, but they are there. The only difference is that casual gamers and non-gamers are being given more relevance but mostly in perception and mind share.

And if all you see from Nintendo systems are Mario and minigames, then look closer, because it’s time to change your perception. The Wii is still an open system that run game software. And that’s ANY software; from epic to minigames. And if developers simply stop sticking their fingers in their ears and stop herding the flock to the other systems from a bias perspective, then they’ll come to the understanding that, yes, you can herd the same flock that can enjoy the same thing regardless of which farm they’re put into as long as the same great tasting feed is provided. So you simply put something like the FF main series on the Wii (and I’m not talking about simply putting one famous series here cuz it’ll take a lot more than just game/series for people to get a complete picture that the Wii can be every bit as good as any system with the right amount of games they want) and it’ll change the perception of the Wii as simply being about Nintendo and minigames. The power is in developers’ hand, if the reason people only perceive mini-game efforts, it is because of their own fault treating the system as second class (i.e. minigames, PS2 ports, and lousy efforts in general - a lousy “exclusive” doesn’t mean squat even against a multiplatform game that’s actually great; surprise surprise, the latter’s not coming to the Wii, mostly).

So simply put, enough excuses. All these excuses seem more like efforts to NOT develop and truly support another good Nintendo system. I mean c’mon, if it was the PS3, developers would be making games like MGS4, RE5, Oblivion, Assassin’s Creed, R6 LV, FFXIII, etc. but the Wii, “oh let’s wait and see” or “let’s see if this mature game sells first.” Bullshit. Why don’t you just say “let’s put all the best games on this other system, give it all the momentum to do great and hopefully it’ll sell the best and we will just ignore the other one and then we’ll just use the excuse about which one has a larger userbase.” Well too bad, the Wii’s doing better than anyone expected. So what’s your excuse now? Oh, that’s right, “it’ll destroy gaming as we know it.” :\

And just to add, there are two ways you can see a reason for such a doom and gloom scenario: 1. high sales of casual and non games draw more support from traditional “hardcore” game developers due to their cheaper development and high profit generation, or 2. not enough “hardcore” gamers bought “hardcore” games and pushed developers to reconsider their position. Let’s face it, hardcore as many gamers are, there just isn’t as many of us that would buy any and every “hardcore” game out there. Sure we’ll get big sales of games like GTA, Mario, FF, MGS, etc., but how of these multi-platinum sellers are out there out of the entire hardcore gaming library? And with consoles that are supposedly for the “hardcore” reaching around half a grand in prices (and PC rigs doubling and even quadrupling that price), can they really sustain sales where even software prices will increase? Face it, just because a game like Crysis exists, it doesn’t mean that everyone can afford to play it or develop a game in the same calibur (graphics-wise). So unless the minority group of “hardcore” gamers are willing to shell out $100 per game to sustain the same support of the same quality spanning this comparably smaller group of gamers, they’ll just have to accept the fact that more easily mass consumed games will have to be the norm and help build up funds for bigger risks like Crysis. It’s a symbiotic relationship. You can’t insist for the industry to be the next film industry but then complain how the casuals are ruining it for you. Ironic too that people praise the Playstation for making games mainstream, and yet cry foul for the Wii’s success for supposedly making the hobby even more mainstream. I swear with things like that it makes it seem like no matter what Nintendo does, there will always be this big resistance to whatever it does outside of the fans and the indifferent.

There are some valid points in this article. If companies can pump out so-called ‘non-gamer’ games, they’ll do so until they flood the market with them. Of course, that doesn’t mean that developers wouldn’t still be interested in making deep, “hardcore” games.

Well, I just contradicted the one point I was trying to defend in that article. Ahh, screw it. He just sounds like a kid who doesn’t want to share the playground. End of story.

I’ll say the same thing here that I did on Kotaku. The Wii has not changed anything concerning the “hardcore” gaming experience.

Overnight suddenly hardcore gamers did not suddenly become casual gamers. Yeah, sure there is bleed over into the two territories of gaming, but the Wii hasn’t suddenly converted the hardcores into casuals. What it has done is created more casuals.

So let’s just say the hardcore produce a billion dollars in profit this year (JUST AN EXAMPLE), but then this new market emerges and produces two billion. Did the second market take away from the first? Or does the first just seem smaller now when compared to a budding, thriving market?

Japan has ALWAYS been the themometer of the gaming industry and for years the industry has been declining there while its been thriving in the West. This new market is one that has existed since the Atari days. It just took Nintendo to harvest it.

Now the concern is that developers are going to put all there time and money into casual games because that is where the most profit is. I however disagree with this mentality. The true hardcore games are going to come out no matter what because hardcore games are NEVER a result of profits. Yeah sure Take2 wants to make a killing off of a game like Bioshock, but if you read the interviews and watch clips of the developers what comes out of those meetings is not PR propaganda “we think this is what the populace wants” bullshit”; it’s a labor of love. Because THIS is the game that the developers wanted to make. Bioshock wasn’t cooked up in some PR marketing room. And the thing will probably sell ok. It will sell like a hardcore game sells, like shit.

The problem is that we have been slowly numbed into causal gamers already. Remmeber how hardcore games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow six were? Now they are nothing more than a “popcorn” game. And for those of you who THINK that HALO is a hardcore game you have another thing coming. Hardcore games do not have Aim Assist. I’m not saying Halo isn’t a great franchise or that even the new GR or RB6 are bad franchises either, but they are as causal as you can get in their respective genre’s. The only hardcore part about it is an individuals dedication to online play.

I’ll say the same thing here that I did on Kotaku. The Wii has not changed anything concerning the “hardcore” gaming experience.

Overnight suddenly hardcore gamers did not suddenly become casual gamers. Yeah, sure there is bleed over into the two territories of gaming, but the Wii hasn’t suddenly converted the hardcores into casuals. What it has done is created more casuals.

So let’s just say the hardcore produce a billion dollars in profit this year (JUST AN EXAMPLE), but then this new market emerges and produces two billion. Did the second market take away from the first? Or does the first just seem smaller now when compared to a budding, thriving market?

Japan has ALWAYS been the themometer of the gaming industry and for years the industry has been declining there while its been thriving in the West. This new market is one that has existed since the Atari days. It just took Nintendo to harvest it.

Now the concern is that developers are going to put all there time and money into casual games because that is where the most profit is. I however disagree with this mentality. The true hardcore games are going to come out no matter what because hardcore games are NEVER a result of profits. Yeah sure Take2 wants to make a killing off of a game like Bioshock, but if you read the interviews and watch clips of the developers what comes out of those meetings is not PR propaganda “we think this is what the populace wants” bullshit”; it’s a labor of love. Because THIS is the game that the developers wanted to make. Bioshock wasn’t cooked up in some PR marketing room. And the thing will probably sell ok. It will sell like a hardcore game sells, like shit.

The problem is that we have been slowly numbed into causal gamers already. Remmeber how hardcore games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow six were? Now they are nothing more than a “popcorn” game. And for those of you who THINK that HALO is a hardcore game you have another thing coming. Hardcore games do not have Aim Assist. I’m not saying Halo isn’t a great franchise or that even the new GR or RB6 are bad franchises either, but they are as causal as you can get in their respective genre’s. The only hardcore part about it is an individuals dedication to online play.

When DID nerds turn into ‘hardcore gamers’? ^^

YAY!!! I’m a hardcore gamer!!!

The article has a point, but it has *nothing* to do with the Wii! The *big business* of video games is getting in the way of better games; we need an “Academy of Awards Oscar” for video games or something. Even before the Wii, many PS2 games were altered to make them more profitable instead of more fun.

Why do you think EA Sports has been moving away from innovations with their dynasty mode in EA HNL Hockey? Because you can’t make a profit with those kinds of innovations.

RPGs could be so much better if they added some elements from the sims and, yes, mini-games to create a little persistent world. But, then, you wouldn’t want to buy another RPG quite as soon, would you? If you ask me, it’s big business, not the Wii, that’s hurting the hardcore.

The article, the 4CR analysis, and most of the comments appear to be coming from the perspective that hardcore gamers have ALWAYS dominated the industry and families playing video games together is some new thing encroaching upon the domain of the Cheeto-stained basement jockeys who spend 20 hours a day on GoW or Zelda.

Wrong. “Hardcore gamers” only started showing up in the early 90’s and I think for the most part it was a PC phenomenon until sometime during the life of the Playstation, maybe due to the N64 or dual shock controller or the rise of the FPS or some combination thereof. “Hardcore gamers” are only a market fixture to people who never played a videogame before the NES. Sure, they grew the market. Now Nintendo and its allies are growing the rest of the market to surpass them.

To those of us whose memories go back a little further, hardcore gamers are n00bs. They had their moment in the sun and now they can go back to being the ostracized anoraks they always were, while the rest of us who really loved videogames before the hardcore thing happened can come back and dominate the market again.

That said, it’s not like there aren’t gonna be lines outside of Best Buy for days before the release of Halo 3.

Sublime I totally agree. Look back just to a game like FF7. Yeah sure there were only two secret characters, but the game had side quests and mini-games within the game coming out the wahzoo. RPGs are sooooo linear with very few “extras” anymore. Why is it that we never see games like this anymore?

Because it costs too much! It costs way too much to send in a team to make a game like a Final Fantasy and then tell part of the development team to split off and go make X, Y, or Z extra element to the game.

And now with microtransactions its going to get even worse, because features that would otherwise be sent with the game are going to be marginalized or even worse if some marketing team decides to cut a feature and PURPOSEFULLY hold it back to nickle and dime us even more.

The more mainstream and marginal the videogame industry gets the worse it gets in many ways.

Good point Raindog. I know tons of people who played Atari when they were young and it wasnt a “hardcore” thing. Atari was definitely a “casual” gamers phenom.

I have theii, but have been gaming for over 20 years now and am happy to finally break away from what has been common in the gaming market for about 5 years now.
I started with the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Back in the beginning the console market was pushed towards a more casual gaming audience. Check out a few of the old Atari commercials - Te whole family is there.
I admit there has been some great games to come out in the last few years (Ikaruga, R-type Final, Tony Hawk Series, Metroid Prime, Panzer Dragoon Orta) but most of the games I like are the games that flew under the radar of the “hardcore” gaming market. The Wii is the “back to basics” system that I have been waiting for. I know it’s not for everyone, especially the “real man / hardcore gamer” crowd, but it’s just right for me. I’ve loved games all my life, maybe if the hardcore gamers would wake up and look at gaming history, they’d have some respect and appreciation for something as original as the Wii.

Meant to say I have the Wii, not theii .

I remember when “hardcore” gamers were those that were really good at games, not the ones that spent a lot of time getting stupid little secrets they can read off of GameFAQs.

I think part of the problem is the nomenclature. When you start saying “hardcore” there is a distinct tendency to start thinking of the lowest sort of fanboy. Not just someone who prefers, say, A Link to the Past over Solitaire.

The problem is that Nintendo is increasingly moving from the former towards the latter. As stolen from Press the Buttons(unfortunately quoting IGN):

“However, IGN Wii has heard separately that Nintendo is actively re-working some traditional games so that they are more accessible by casual players. If it is truly canned, Project H.A.M.M.E.R. may have become a casualty of Wii’s newfound success in the mainstream market.”

This is the sort of thing that I think is the potential problem. Not just a peaceable coexistence between the Nintendogs set and those of us waiting for Phantom Hourglass, but a case where the older franchises are increasingly reworked to make them easier, simpler, and more accessible to someone who thinks the doggie game is cute. This has the potential to hurt both sides. The newer market of casual gamers won’t be won over by the traditional games and the rest of us are going to object to having dumbed-down games.