"Hardcore" gamers are hipsters.

[LKArtillery]

Okay.

Before we all go on:

What the fuck is a hipster?!

I am aware of the phenomena of hipster, but the way the OP is talking, and the way I've heard it...

Well, apparently anyone who wears clothes, breathes, and has a modicum of personal taste is a hipster.

So sue me, no one is a hipster. This is all bullshittt

 

[Shadowsole]

Okay.

Before we all go on:

What the fuck is a hipster?!

I am aware of the phenomena of hipster, but the way the OP is talking, and the way I've heard it...

Well, apparently anyone who wears clothes, breathes, and has a modicum of personal taste is a hipster.

So sue me, no one is a hipster. This is all bullshittt

Clearly Hipster is not the best word.
I apologise.
My Point still stands that as far as i've been able to see the people who played games before the rise in casual games came about have irational hate on the new 'casual' gamers.
As I see It Casual Games are a stepping stone to the more "hardcore" games
Someone plays bejewlied or whatnot and they learn the basics of gaming. they then try a more complicated game. then continue on untill they can play most games

I see it as the current gen version of paint > That Skiing game that i always died in because of that monster > Super Mario Bros. > Mario 64 > Jak And Daxter > Final Fantasy > Mass Effect.

Peronally that is the stepping stones that helped me get the ability needed to play most games.

I do not understand the idea that 'casual' gamers are dystroying the industry.

 

[Grimlock Fett]

99.99% of the people who labels themselves "HARDCORE" aren't!
A hardcore gamer to me is someone that shits in a bucket so they don't have to leave their room! That's hardcore but they've failed massively at life!!

As for hipsters..... when everyone is doing the same thing its mainstream. Refusing to believe you're mainstream is mainstream! Not liking something because its popular is retarded! People like this should realize that being alive is mainstream!

OT....
Shit stops being fun when people make it a big deal! Games are games! Enjoy them don't hate over it!

 

[Frotality]

nobody cares that casual games exist or that some people like them; to use your band example, it isnt that the band is selling out, its that the band is completely switching genres. a world where all types of games can exist side by side is my ideal, but as it stands everything is being pushed aside to capitalize on the casual market.

the point oh so many people seem to miss is that there isnt much for supposed "hardcore" gamers to play these days to begin with; its not like we can sit back with our baldurs gate 3 and system shock 3 while you play whatever you like, we have to see what few remaining "hardcore" series shift to casual markets while nothing is made for us to enjoy. is that not a reasonable complaint? what if bejewled suddenly incorporated 30 new kinds of gems, an expansive leveling system, and a complex system of power-up style modifications to alter how you can and cant swap, ranging from multi-swaps to diagonal to star shapes and came with a 50 page manual you had to read to understand the game? what if farmville turned into a C&C style RTS? would you just sit by and say, "well thats how it is" if that was all you played?

 

[TheScottishFella]

EDIT:
Clearly Hipster is not the best word.
I apologise.
My Point still stands that as far as i've been able to see the people who played games before the rise in casual games came about have irational hate on the new 'casual' gamers.
As I see It Casual Games are a stepping stone to the more "hardcore" games

I don't know, bejewelled and say Call of Duty are two different things while I do feel casual gamers shouldn't get as much hate as they do (and as you are with your opinion) but I don't feel casual games can just lead on to hardcore gaming. These have two completely different objectives and control schemes, however a gamer is a gamer I ain't going to judge someone just because they play casual who is to say that hardcore and casual are superior a game is a game. At this point in time in gaming history we need as many allies as we can get. If we can get the parents then that means Fox won't brainwash the gullible and misinformed people.

Kudos with this post though, and some fair points. Better then some other posts I have seen recently.

 

[Continuity]

snip

A hardcore gamer appreciates all good games whatever their nature, a hardcore gamer also love other people to play games no matter what sort. What a hardcore gamer does not like however is for major studios and big budget AAA series to be dumbed down to the point of banality for the sake of serving this new majority.

So in short, everything is cool so long as good games are still being made, and by good I mean deep, complex, though provoking, skilful (requiring skill, or having the capacity for you to develop skill) games. Casual games and dumbed down games are rarely these things, that doesn't make them bad games but we do want the choice.

 

[Dr. Feelgood]

From the people I've heard speak on Xbox LIVE, most "hardcore" gamers are better classified as competitive gamers, but nevertheless, many are hipsters.

 

[Continuity]

I wonder how many 'casual gamers' have pretended like they're some sort of oppressed minority and lashed out at anybody who doesn't go by their definitions of 'fun'.

Thats a nice piece of flame bait there. I wont take it but i will respond.

The casual gamers are the new majority and the new cash cow... they have no need to complain of anything because games companies are bending over backwards to accommodate them. And infact that is the whole problem, the games companies are somewhat turning their backs on their staple audience, it no wonder that they (we) feel a bit miffed.

 

[xPixelatedx]

The reason why casual games get negative stereotypes is because causal games subtract much from the experience; you are trying to compare go-karts to actual racing cars and wonder why one group looks down on another? It's fun to actually accomplish and earn thing in games, that was their original design, and when something has all it's depth and skill removed so your grandmother can play it to, it's clear the company was more concerned with shoveling their product in to the most homes rather then how good a product they could have made. It's like these games are manufactured in china and sold exclusively at wal-mart. Casual games have their place, but at this rate everything will be casual since most companies have seen the cash cow this can be. People who actually play games for more reasons see this as threatening, because they are losing what they love, and can you really blame them for being upset?

It's like if all the 'super movie enthusiasts' woke up tomorrow and saw their art and foreign films were replaced with Transformers 2.

 

[xPixelatedx]

thats why I dont like mario who wants to play the same game over and over again?

Everybody. Why else Would COD and Halo and Madden be so popular? To be honest, I saw more variety between all original NES Megamans then these games. There is nothing wrong with making the same thing over and over again, is there? If it works, don't ruin it.

Whats your favorite food? Have you eaten it more then once? That's the logic you are missing with Mario.

 

[Justin Gooch]

There will always be a fine line between the "hardcore" gamers and the "casual" gamers. Those who were born in the 80's or before and grew up playing atari and the like are going to be more into the difficult games and want more story and great gameplay. I honestly think the whole new generation of gaming has made gaming as a whole much worse. Designers focus on the graphics of games now. Me personally could care less, I love putting in FFVII or an old ps1 game and seeing all the polygons, hell I still play my nintendo and snes. as far as being a hardcore gamer or a casual gamer, think it is more up to the person. A hardcore gamer is someone who is knowledgeable about the games they enjoy the most. If your into the resource management RTS type gaming, if all you play is Starcraft II, in my eyes, your a hardcore gamer, your doing what you love and what you have the most knowledge about. Same goes for someone who only plays fps, or rpgs, just because a game was made easy doesn't mean it's been made for casual gamers. There are plenty of games that I've beat in a day or two and absolutely loved. The red dead series is a good example of that.

 

[funguy2121]

EDIT:
Clearly Hipster is not the best word.
I apologise.
My Point still stands that as far as i've been able to see the people who played games before the rise in casual games came about have irational hate on the new 'casual' gamers.
As I see It Casual Games are a stepping stone to the more "hardcore" games
Someone plays bejewlied or whatnot and they learn the basics of gaming. they then try a more complicated game. then continue on untill they can play most games

I see it as the current gen version of paint > That Skiing game that i always died in because of that monster > Super Mario Bros. > Mario 64 > Jak And Daxter > Final Fantasy > Mass Effect.

Peronally that is the stepping stones that helped me get the ability needed to play most games.

I do not understand the idea that 'casual' gamers are dystroying the industry.




First of all I'm a hybrid gamer as far as i can tell. or i'm just a picky hardcore gamer this isn't hate on hardcore or causal games ( I'm currently playing nintendogs and cats for gods sake)
second Hipsters might not be the right word. but it works in the way that my social circle uses it.

On to the point, i've been thinking for a while that 'our' reaction to the causal gaming is very much like a negative stereotype, It just hit me this was hipsters.

My understanding of hipsters is they are the people who only like a band when they are underground. the moment it becmes popular they start arguing and complaining that the band has 'sold out' or what not.
Apply this to gamers with the band being the gaming industry.

It's become popular so we're complaining that it's changed when really it really hasn't that much.
Back at the begining there was pong and the like. Thats a causal game, Games like the Katamari games i'd call causal.

causual games have always existed. But now that Gaming isn't a exclusive club we see them as evil.

I played a farmville rip off for a while a year or two back. and you know what. It was fun. i've since lost my intrest in it but i enjoyed it. Really I say this to anyone who hate casual games because there casual, who hate gimicks like kinect and move. Grow up, gaming isn't your club

Note: My complaint is really that 'hardcore' gamers have made it so i'm embarrased by the fact i play casual games aswell. A game is a game no matter how hard

OP just narrowly avoided an ass-whooping by punks, metalheads and mods. And ravers. OK, maybe not the ravers. Maybe some of the more coked-up ravers, but not those e-dropping candyravers. They're called candy ravers for a reason you know.

What are we talking about?

ESCAPIST: what is going on with captcha?!

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

OK, to the OP, I've thought about this quite a few times, and I think I created the best metaphor to explain why "hardcore" gamers have such disdain for "casual" gamers, or at the very least the surge of casual gamers ever since the iPhone and Facebook came out.

Imagine for a moment you're, let's say, a Basketball player (Or Football, or Baseball, or whatever, just pretend you play a certain sport). You've played it all your life, you've become something of a pro. You probably even play on a local team; you're not planning on making a career out of it, but you are sufficiently skilled. One day, some 300+ pound man walks onto the court carrying a basketball that you can immediately tell he just bought, like, two days ago. He immediately walks up to you and tries to pretend he's just like you, like he's been playing basketball all his life, and he wants to play with you. You know you were just like him at one point, but you were like him YEARS ago, as a kid, while this dude's trying to get in on it as an adult. He's not exactly bragging about his uber basketball skills, rather he seems to enjoy bouncing the pretty orange ball in front of him and throwing it in the air, without much care whether or not it makes it into the net. The sheer fact that he has the gall to consider himself a member of something you enjoy, something with which you have a strong passion for, that he takes so lightly, just infuriates you to no end.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, a lot of casual gamers are playing casual games with no real goal to progress further. A person who only owns an iPhone or iPad, even if s/he has a veritable library of app games, is probably not going to purchase a gaming console and try to work their way up. They're happy where they are, playing the games they play, but when they see someone playing on their DS or PSP, or god forbid an actual home console, they try to associate themselves with these gamers, and it's rather infuriating only because of the world of difference between the two types of games.

 

[moretimethansense]

@moretimethansense

I have not actually seen what needed said said. thank you sir.

It's true. With more casual games making money soon our ass hole corporations will throw all developers into making farmville type games leaving us in the dust because we did not spend as much for the shit they churned out. For every million Zynga earns we get one step closer to seeing most corporations involved in gaming steer us into the storm and they will stop making games we deem fun because they did it wrong. They will make farmvill games because they want to make money and not quality games. That is why we hate them.

That doesn't make us hipsters it makes us sensible people. Fortunately we have companies in the background making good games like Anet, THQ(disregard homefront), DICE(before EA corrupted it worse than Cthulu can corrupt a man), Valve sells everything discount, and ummm... Toss me some devs would ya?

Double Fine
Team Ico
Sucker Punch
Gearbox
Obsidion

Love their games or hate them at least you can see the passion in their work.

But as I said, I don't think we'll run out of devs trying to make great games so much as devs will run out of publishers.

 

[Continuity]

you lay down flame bait. Therefore, you are a troll.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Here's the part where I offer a rebuttal that you will probably counter with "you're a troll" or "you take games too seriously".

It wasn't what you said it was the way you said it friend, I'm quite happy to hear your opinion but there no need to phrase it in such an inflammatory way.

The video game industry is a seller's market. Developers and publishers don't owe you jack. It's easy to rest on your laurels when you're the safest investment, but the moment the rug is pulled out from under your feet and businesses continue to make the financially sound decision, they're accused of "betrayal" or something equally absurd. Catering to the casual market with games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is what makes money. That's why it will continue to happen.

This is all very true, however I don't see anything there that stops me, as a consumer, complaining about my lot. Of course games companies are businesses and of course they are going to do what nets them the most profit but in every other media there is choice, be it books, film, music, TV, whatever, there is the mainstream which is nearly always poor content/broad appeal stuff but then there are vast reserves of other material covering every possible taste (and those people still make profit one presumes).

The problem we have in the games industry is that games cost so much to make that very few of the developers are willing to make something that doesn't fit a formula that Is known to have worked and made money for someone else. Thats not healthy for the industry and it leaves us the consumer with a relatively poor choice of games... now were not there yet but this is certainly the way things are heading.

 

[GRYPHOM]

Isn't there something hipster about the very act of pointing at someone and calling them a hipster?

Yes, very much so.

No. It's too mainstream.