Hardcore Game Vs Casual Games

[codeninja]

Well, since the other thread I created attracted wrong attention, I renamed the topic to more proper one. Which is your cup of tea? High production value scenematic experience such as Final Fantasy, Zelda, Halo, MGS and GTA series, or simple minded games like Katamari Tamashi, MarioKart, Tetris, and Brain Training? Which kind of games do you actually spend more time playing and you pay money to purchase?

 

[spray]

where would you place something like pokemon?

pokemon red took up the single largest amount of my gaming time

however that's hardly high production value stuff (it was a black and white gameboy game) but it certainly ain't no puzzler

goldfinger, ocarina of time and lylat wars are my other biggest time consumers so i guess really i'm both.

i like the over arching span of a hardcore game but will mostly play them in stints of twenty to forty minutes.

 

[codeninja]

where would you place something like pokemon?

pokemon red took up the single largest amount of my gaming time

however that's hardly high production value stuff (it was a black and white gameboy game) but it certainly ain't no puzzler

goldfinger, ocarina of time and lylat wars are my other biggest time consumers so i guess really i'm both.

i like the over arching span of a hardcore game but will mostly play them in stints of twenty to forty minutes.

​

I'd put pokemon in hardcore category. Sure, it's less production intensive than Halo or GTA because it's a 2D game, however, the game contents are simply mind-boggling. I spent over 100 hours collecting 200 pokemons playing Pokemon Saphire/Ruby. After 100 hours, there were some optional events I could've tried left! The amount of programming that need to get into that little game should rival most 3D games.

 

[Rico]

Okay I'll pitch in properly this time. I think that good cinematics/art direction/story are enough to carry a bad game along. Or rather, if an RPG gets boring in places, you will keep levelling up just so you can see the next cutscene and find out where the story goes. However at heart I usually find myself drawn to simpler games where the emphasis is on fun rather than plot development.

However, I think that your 'hardcore' and 'casual' terms are a bit ambiguous. You say hardcore means 'high production cinematic experience' but then say Pokemon is hardcore because of the amount of stuff to do in the game. Do you mean the size and scope of the game?

 

[codeninja]

However, I think that your 'hardcore' and 'casual' terms are a bit ambiguous. You say hardcore means 'high production cinematic experience' but then say Pokemon is hardcore because of the amount of stuff to do in the game. Do you mean the size and scope of the game?

​

Usually scenematic 3D games have high production value, but I'm sure pokemon games are not developed by a few programmers either. My guess is about a couple dozen full-time developers which is gigantic for a GBA game. So, I meant scope of the game and amount of contents in it.

 

[Alpha2]

I dont see why it ever has to be one or the other.

I love fun pick up and play games but sometimes I want an epic too. Is that so wrong? As tedius as some people might find Xenosaga or Final Fantasy I still enjoy being told a story. It's like reading a long book or watching a a flashy action movie that I occasianlly get to take part in and have a little fun with. at the same time I have Katamari Damacy and a bunch of puzzle games.

I think in recent years the proliferation of better graphics have been mainly to bring more people into gaming who wouldnt have come if we were still hitting large purple blocks with smaller green ones. Call these people "casual gamers", call the "graphics whores", call them "fucking n00bz", call them "people who don't know any better", but they are they ones who are helping companies produce more and larger games because their dollars fuel the engines that produce what we more hardcore gamers want because our dollars arnt enough by themselves.

 

[codeninja]

Alpha2 helped me realize that there is a flaw in my logic on hardcore vs casual. Megaman is hardcore game, but surely does not have high production value.

Anyway, what I was getting at with this thread was this:

High production value games require more realistic/better graphics and that requires the best and the latest hardware which doesn't come cheap. In order to compensate for the extra cost and improve the value, Sony and MS threw in extra functionality to "gaming" consoles. Also, games will be more expensive, as we heard. On the other hand, Nintendo seems to be betting on casual and easy to pickup games that doesn't require premium hardware and have shorter production cycles, hence cheaper all the way.

So, it's the battle between $50~60 scenematic high production valued games vs $30~$40 casual games. Which side is more appealing to you?

 

[darkman]

I think when it comes to defining the "hardcore gamer," we are actually talking about someone who is attracted to gameplay. The "casual gamer" is really someone who is attracted totally to eye candy. They pick it up to play for a few minutes, but it is not their thing. They do not invest all their hard earned cash into it. A hardcore gamer will sell all they have, even their loved ones, to have that one game that they are obesessed with having. The hardcore gamer may spend a little time inbetween those games that take hours to master or finish on some of those simple minded games just to rest up. Then they take that next plunge and not come up for air for days. The harecore gamer is obesessed with games while the casual gamer knows they exist. A casual gamer is not going to dive into, for an example, an RPG. Any other thoughts on this?

edit: typos

 

[Alpha2]

Hence the eye candy prettiness of the recent RPGs. In japan they're pushing these pretty images to hook people who wouldnt normally play RPGs and it's having the right effect on some of them but they're very single minded in their fanaticism... actually I'd say it's more like a fetish for certain types of games. These people are sort of in the middle. They dont particularly chase the game play just the stories and characters invloved, so they'll learn how to play the game just as much as they need to in order to finish it.

The casual gamer actually WILL pick up the occasional 50 - 60 dollar game if it's something that speaks to them, the hardcore gamer will buy them ALL.(but he'll probably watch the review to weed out the crap and look for a deal first or wait for the price to drop. but not buy the "Greatest Hit's" version because of the ugly lable). The 20-30 dollar price point is forever going to be reserved for the "meh" titles like Narc or Bad Boys:Miami taketown. As much as Nintendo knows they need to keep their prices low but that dosent mean they're going to lower their prices. New revolution games (if they ever bother releasing any) will probably still cost 49 bucks and the Greastest Hits for $27 like they've been doing with game cube. (but it could be said that this is the case because they didn't have to do anything new for their next generation of games... of course it's not like you really HAVE[.b] to do anything different for the Xbox360's gsames or even the PS3's for that matter besides keeping a better eye out for detail.)


Tangent:
You can always spot a casual gamer because they dont seem to have ever read a review on a web site or in a magazine. It's always "Wow! this game has anime in it!" or they say things like "Is Grand Theft Auto a racing game? It has cars in it."

Back on topic:
Personally I like fun games, but I like them to look good too. I can however understand the differance between when a game is graphically minimal for a reason (usually because the graphics weren't entirely important to the game play) and when a game simply looks like crap because the developer wasn't even trying, something you'll not see in a casual gamer...

Person X: "Dude! they only have two frames of animation when they attack! This game sucks!"
Me: "It's an RPG , it dosen matter all the hits are generated before you even SEE the animation, the important part is knowing you actually got attacked."

(this is why they look the way they do today to avoid comments like that from Person X.)

Graphics arn't everything to me but if a system can push 150 million polygons per second I'd least like to see them try not to suck but not at the expense of gameplay. On the other hand decent graphics can make a shitty game bareable I know I have at least a dozen games I wouldnt have touched at full price because they were garbage but at the right price with pretty graphics I dont mind it being as bad. It's sort of like the added functionality of the current crop of systems adding something that makes up for something else you dont like. In the system's case it's movie playback to make up for high prices, while for bad games it might be cool graphics to make up for poor gameplay... but even that can only go so far.

 

[Angel]

i'm a hardcore stuck in a casual gamers body. I won't pay full price for a game. I'll wait a year or two and then get it used for alot less. Regardless of the type of game. Last game i paid full price for was Madden 06 for PSP and boy was that a mistake and Mario Kart, which was not a mistake but with WIFI, couldn't wait for a price drop

 

[codeninja]

i'm a hardcore stuck in a casual gamers body. I won't pay full price for a game. I'll wait a year or two and then get it used for alot less. Regardless of the type of game. Last game i paid full price for was Madden 06 for PSP and boy was that a mistake and Mario Kart, which was not a mistake but with WIFI, couldn't wait for a price drop

​

I'm doing the exactly same thing myself. I said to my friends that no game is worth 50~60 bucks to me, especially when pretty much all games drop their price sooner than later. The hotest games will get the greatest hit title price in a year and so-so games will get lower price even faster because they don't sell after the first month. That's win-win situation for customers, but troubling for developers/publishers.

 

[Ravnos]

i'm a hardcore stuck in a casual gamers body. I won't pay full price for a game. I'll wait a year or two and then get it used for alot less. Regardless of the type of game. Last game i paid full price for was Madden 06 for PSP and boy was that a mistake and Mario Kart, which was not a mistake but with WIFI, couldn't wait for a price drop

​

I'm doing the exactly same thing myself. I said to my friends that no game is worth 50~60 bucks to me, especially when pretty much all games drop their price sooner than later. The hotest games will get the greatest hit title price in a year and so-so games will get lower price even faster because they don't sell after the first month. That's win-win situation for customers, but troubling for developers/publishers.

​

Not really. I read something a while back that said that even at $20-30, most games are profitable for the publishers. The problem is that with new games, most people associate that price point with "shitty" games and they're priced that low because otherwise they wouldn't sell. There are games like Katamari Damacy that debunk this, but to most people that's an exception, not the rule (and even that game would have likely been forgotten if not for the word of mouth on it). So they'll sell it at the high price point for a while, then bump it down as a "Greatest Hit" and sell even more copies.

That's just what I heard though. May or may not be true.

 

[Alpha2]

http://www.cheapassgamer.com

Learn it, love it. I do.

As for the 20-30 dollar price point, they may be profitable but not at a level that the corporations would accept. Katamari Damacy sold for 20 bucks and sold like hotcakes, they raised the second game to 30 and the game sold a LOT slower so raising the price dosen't automatically make it a better game to the casual buyer, and I'dkinda have to label what you heard as partially being "bunk" (no offense).

The Publisher might get a profit form a 30 dollar game but if it can sell at all for 40 or 50 they're going to sell it for that much. Greatest Hit's prices are for when the game sales have dropped off and the new MSRP is designed to spur sales as a casual consumer who might have passed the game over before suddenly sees the price drop and associates it with being a deal.

Personally I feel every "greatest hits" label hurts my imaginary "hardcore" rating.

 

[onionfrog]

I'm definately a cheap ass gamer.... i buy most of my games at $10-30.. but there are some id shell out full price for...
I simply buy what i like.. which most of the time is some damn great stuff...

The casual gamer label is reserved for the people who dont really like games much and mainly buy sports titles and overrated junk like gta...

 

[Alpha2]

I think sports gamers are a different animal all together. There is a strange addiction in them that I think surpasses "hardcore gamer" lables for something more like "rabid fanatic".

I wouldnt so much call GTA overated as I would call it a "commercial success". The idea as stated previously is that game companies want to get the casuals to fork over cash for there game even though it might not be something they;d play. with GTA they manage to hit almost every hot button except maybe fore "sexy characters" which will might happen inthe next gen but they'd have to drop their current concept artist who I wouldnt call a "sexy" artist. GTA regardless of the content is what all game comepanies want, a game that no one can really say anything bad about (yeha you might say it's repetative but that's assuming you dont explore and use the broad pallet they've given you.) You might not like the GTA series but it has enough originality between games to consistantly be concidered a worth while product... much more so than something like Madden year after year.

 

[Nova]

Nintendog has been one of the biggest success stories of this holiday season's games; well over a million in US alone and over 4 millions in the world. Along with Animal Crossing, way more females purchased the games, who usually don't buy games.

Wanna know why mostly girls bought Nintendogs? It's because us guys got our girlfriends, wives, etc. to buy it for us, so we didn't look soppy.

Well, that was the tactic I used.

 

[CUPC4KES]

nintendog was the bigges load of crap i have ever played, for me it was the other way round, i got roped into buying it for her, she played for about a week then never touched it again, she hasnt even noticed i part ex'd it against mario kart about a month ago.

 

[Angel]

nintendog was the bigges load of crap i have ever played, for me it was the other way round, i got roped into buying it for her, she played for about a week then never touched it again, she hasnt even noticed i part ex'd it against mario kart about a month ago.

​

lol thats what i need to do. I got two copies, she's spoiled. Amazon.com lost my order so i went to K-mart and bought one then it came in the mail. Got Chiuahaha and Weiner dog. She played for about 1 week and hasn't touched it since. She's 23, but i could see how someone around 12-13 would love this game and play it alot.

 

[codeninja]

Ok, I'm contining my other thread, here. I think, the most casual game could be Solitaire on Windows. It's been there since Windows 3.1, and tens of millions of people played it, and I'm sure that still millions are playing it today from every where including at workplace where they're supposed to work instead.

Solitaire, Nintendog, and Tetris got no, or very little, love from hardcore people, but they surely succeeded only with casual gamers.

 

[Goity]

You're right when you say Hardcore Game with the psp... There's only about one of them which isn't a port or a sport!