Is "hardcore" gaming still legitimate?

Not too long ago there was the rather depressing discussion of gamers being slandered by the very people whose paycheck relies on gamers. A situation with some potential corruption turned into a big mess. However while I was defending the word "gamer" I remembered some similar discussions I've taken up before, though that discussion was both less important and yet also more foggy and unclear. It was about the difference between casual, hardcore, and maybe even a core or mainstream gamer. People have tried announcing that dead alongside the usage of "gamer" before, and while I still think gamer is a strong word that rolls off everyone's tongue when discussing the majority of those active players, I have to ask myself what it means to be a hardcore gamer. There isn't one answer to it. I have not for the past 5 years been able to bring up that word in my mind and instantly apply it to that one definition I fought for. That's because countless people online assert or suggest something else, and it seems to be a case by case basis of something different changing to that term with many contradicting each other. Does a word really mean anything if its so scattered and broken? No its not even a word, its a label used to help categorize something. It really loses all use and credit when nobody agrees on how to organize it. A label is used to help idintify something specific, but if that cannot be accomplished because the label is broken then it ceases to be useful or strong.

Here's some of the things I've recently seen with "hardcore": Its anti-casual. In the context of Killzone veterans its a competitive skillful multiplayer label for some, and other just a matter of a game requiring skill. The "Hardcore" modes on most shooters just rip out the HUD and take health even lower than it already is, thus making it a lot more blind luck and easier to kill. Similarly some have used it to mean low health and fast death in a CS inspired game, but COD has some of the lowest health by default yet gets insulted all the time as casual. Hardcore in some RPGs and rogue-likes just use it to mean a loss of progress, but what does that have anything to do with any of the other definitions and how is it at all consistent with the type of person that would play it? Its not a challenge, or a selling factor to any real demographic, its just a choice of survival and luck. Some mean for the label to be a game and gamer that just gravitates to high difficulty things, even things that aren't skill based but just hard. Some including the developer Capcom view hardcore as a game that just is stuffed with content (COD as an example despite how "casual" it is within certain comment sections) and hardcore gamers as people following those games, but wouldn't that just mean MMO's dominate the hardcore market? Its also used sometimes in the context of slander, with the presumption that hardcore gamers only play gritty violent games, though funnily enough we never see these self-proclaimed guys around for the insults to stick to. Finally we have the basic and most blunt two definitions, Hardcore as in seriously passionate, and Hardcore as in nerdy 80's stereotype. See nearly none of these really follow on any consistent message, but they have all come up from people when discussing something with the topics of "hardcore" and "gaming". There's absolutely nothing consistent though. At best it can combined and broken down as a game with serious challenge and allows for online competition, lots of depth, and lots of grinding, and people who follow those type of games would be "hardcore gamers". However how often do we see something like that in gaming anymore? Dark Souls was the last and one of the only major examples in recent years. Maybe some other RPGs I may have missed or an MMOFPS. You would have to go beyond that call or put down gaming for long breaks of time while waiting for a new one. So it sounds like a hardcore gamer then excludes most of every genre except some RPGs (so I hope you love numbers), countless triple A titles, or Nintendo. Does that sound quite right? Is that what really comes to your mind as a hardcore gamer? Of course not, because its a duct tape combination of a confused label.

Recovered gaming, raised generations of gamers, and has 100+ Classics. Still not "hardcore"

To be honest though casual isn't in so much of a better position. Its confused for an insult half the time, or used to describe mobile gamers, or gamers drawn to so called gimmicks. However it is slightly more grounded. You can easily get that tone to change by bringing up either PC point and click games (instead of being mobile exclusive), or pop cap games (for when "casuals" don't play anything of quality), or just suggest Casual at its basic, being "isn't it just for people who want to relax and play an easy game for escapism occasionally?". Almost anyone level-headed will be able to agree with you. In the end though both terms have lost quite some ground. Even though gamer is easy to define as someone who loves playing video games, its harder to hold down what is "casual" and what is "hardcore" forms of a gamer. Honestly I don't think we even really need the distinction. Its much easier to talk to your fellow gamers by their genre of choice, or their favorite franchise, or their attitude or interests. What do they look for in gaming? If I look at the "casual" Wii audience that suddenly got excited over wii sports, I see people who are fascinated with diverse levels of interactions and a form of television that gets you moving. I had a gaming friend in school that I could describe better as someone who was into video game stories, lore, and JRPGs. I can't get that clear message across by just calling him "hardcore", and if I have to keep things short and simple without necessary description all I need is "He's a gamer". I can easily describe my dad as a "casual" gamer but he hates the wii and motion controls, and insists on playing COD and sniper elite 2 90% of the time. I could better describe him as a casual FPS player than a casual gamer. Meanwhile on the Killzone forums its pretty well agreed that Killzone 2 and killzone in general is pretty hardcore for a current FPS, but at least two guys have noted before that they just don't enjoy many other games and have even said Killzone is "the only shooter they truly get into". So... doesn't that contradict itself a bit? Who cares! Its just not so meaningful of a discussion, and its not how we usually talk or describe people or our hobbies. We call someone who's a reader exactly that, a reader or maybe even a bookworm, or a fan of a certain series. We don't say "he's a hardcore reader" or have debates over how many pages a book needs to be considered "for the hardcore bookworms out there". Same with movies. Art is good at doing exactly what I proposed earlier, its more about the individual's taste and style that gets brought up. Someone may be interesting in "minimalist drawings" or "abstract" or "pencil sketches", or they may be about the subject matter and be known for animals or high fantasy art. Music is the only thing I can even come close to seeing a similar problem, but even then that's more about genre battles rather than someone being a "hardcore music fan!". That would be just dumb. Instead we hear battles over what "real metal" or "good rap" is.

So... hardcore is becoming a dead term to me. I'll still hang on to what I used to know it as, but it holds practically no meaning in today's time. You can't communicate the term clearly to anyone, the games industry doesn't support many games I find suiting to my old definition, and honestly there were already conflicts with using it to begin with. My old defining term was this: Hardcore is a passionate gamer that plays games of all kinds but prefers to play games with depth to it. Depth means more features, mechanics, and or content and it takes some sense of skill or adaptation to pick up on. So something like Killzone 2 roughly follows it compared to the normal COD-like experience because it had a different aim system to learn, better stat and clan system, more features that allowed and trusted user freedom and player communication, and the classes and objective system made you learn to cooperate to prevail better. It also had enough features to spawn its own set of memes, get. However Killzone 2 and Dark Souls are exceptions rather than the rule. While games like this kind of quality, or better, could exist in quite large numbers now its down to mostly a few games on the PC market, indie, and nothing else. Most of triple A has abandoned this fundamental idea of depth, exploration, and adaptation because it wants to play things safe and follow trends all the time, and this mainstream trend setting mentality is far more detrimental to the idea of hardcore gaming and gamers more so than the harmless casual stuff. When things like matchmaking prevails over user servers, and a super vision or omnipotent navigational tools are mandatory in every game, and gimmicks like skinner boxes or awards are praised over core mechanics and power struggles between competitive players things die down and place everybody on a near equal level on day 1 and so few things are learned or worth discussing between people. The hardcore game by my definition is borderline MIA in today's expensive budget market. So if the lack of a clear definition isn't the problem, the industry is, and in both cases "Hardcore" gaming means a lot less than what it should.

exploits, and jokes within the loyal fan cult community. The multiplayer was a pretty hardcore experience compared to the usual shooters found within the same market. However going even further many RPGs, and strategy games are even bigger examples of this. The very best example of hardcore though would be Dark Souls. It not only has a steep learning curve based on learning and fixing mistakes, but it has tons of weapons, different attack combinations, an intentionally cryptic explanation requiring a dedicated community to learn and pass on knowledge to conquer the game, and a deep story encouraging analyzing, collecting the games many objects for study, and again passing around information. All that and a competitive online scene and higher difficulty level makes for an experience that only a hardcore gamer would totally

Is this bad though? Well... it depends. I mean on one side I do think the industry is in a terrible state, and on that side of the coin I will say things are terrible because there isn't enough of what I'd consider "hardcore games". However I'm talking more about the subject matter itself; Is it bad that Hardcore is a dead term? Well honestly it stings a little because it was a fun old classification to use to help feel more accurate, but honestly there's no harm in retiring it. Hardcore gaming in the sense of a big time fan of gaming is actually stronger than ever, but at the same time that's because there's so many broad genres, tastes, and ways to publish or play a game. Even though the major market is trading its soul and heart for trends and a one size fits all style of each genre there are still alternatives and a lot of diversity to go around. So there's a lot of different types of people playing games, and there tastes aren't really unified enough to say that some game type or those who play it are more hardcore. Regardless of the term the thing that matters is gaming and gamers are still going strong. I guess both hardcore and casual will always be alive as a way to discuss extremes, like someone who participates a lot less will be "casual" while someone who is stuck in deep with it is "hardcore". However for the most part its just gamers, and the games they like. I will still sometimes use the label to mean my definition on this blog, but outside where its held more accountable I just can't see myself using if at all effectively. Its quite a dead term compared to better vocabulary and clarity. However gaming is still present and strong.