The Hardcore, The Casual and the Achievement Whores

Lets be honest when it comes to the old hardcore verses casual debate the entire conflict can pretty much be traced to one thing; fear. Fear of change, fear of no longer being able to experience games as we hardcore gamers once did, with a sense of accomplishment after having overcome a challenge.

Their are a number of definitions associated with the phrases hardcore and casual but the most commonly accepted ones are that the hardcore are people who have developed significant skills within the gaming medium due to having spent countless years being involved with it and thus prefer their games big budget and relatively complex and the casuals typically being regarded as people who have only in recent years begun gaming and prefer to only play certain types of arguably simpler games.

So I ask the question, why do so many hardcore gamers believe that it is their right to be catered to more than the casuals, a market of gamers who are growing in number by the thousands with every passing year who if not already will soon outnumber the hardcore by a very large difference.

It is understandable that after spending so many years going from one console to the next (or upgrading a pc many times over) that an individual may develop a certain level of entitlement. You’ve poured god knows how much money and time in to your hobby how dare some new different crowd of people try to take away that experience from you, right?

Perhaps a little too cynical a view of how a hardcore gamer may think but perhaps closer to the truth than they would be willing to admit, it does make them sound awfully arrogant and even a little self centered. I don’t deny for a second that I once thought any different.

Lets think about the mindset of a typical hardcore gamer who has no interest whatsoever in say playing Peggle or any number of the high selling Wii titles, why is it that they feel this way about these games?  Is it because they are simple and require very little thought compared to your usual gamer title, or is it because the game simply feels like a step backwards?

And when I say simple I mean more in the sense of very few game mechanics and options are available to the player and less in regards to the amount of actual input that is required to play the game.

No matter what we are doing in any game we are still just hitting buttons to make things on our tv screens happen so the argument must be more cemented in mechanics and design instead of actual input.   Although their is clearly an element of input devices involved in this entire argument we see that even on the PS3, 360 and PC platforms the same discussions are being had about casual and hardcore.

What then is the big problem the hardcore have with the casual market? clearly it must be the simplification of gameplay.   Instead of having to remember the ultimate combo for the ultimate move the ultimate move has been allocated to a single button and can be used at any time.  This is essentially the exact kind of thing the hardcore are peeved about.  

Hardcore gamers are scared of games being dumbed down, of becoming too easy and to some degree they have the right to complain as I myself have experienced this frustration first hand in titles like Prince of Persia, but that was an extreme case of misdirected design.  

Their is a difference between what that game did and what alot developers are trying to do, at least I believe their is.

It needs to be said out right; developers still want us to feel like we are doing more than simply mashing buttons, don’t for a second think they want that to change my fellow gamers.  No one in their right mind wants to make a game that ends up becoming one long quick time event, at that point you might as well be watching a cgi movie. Even the simplest of Wii titles have some challenge to them, hell pong still ramps up the longer you play.

What developers are trying to achieve is making games easier to enjoy so that more people can enjoy them.   Games are about having fun and sharing that fun with others whether directly or indirectly, if you are not having fun then why are you playing the game? Think about it. 

Their was a time when I thought that failure and repeating frustratingly hard segments in order to proceed was all just part of how gaming is meant to be.  I use to think this was an element to game design that not only couldn’t be changed, but shouldn’t.  It is only in the last eight or so months that I have started to really realize just how incorrect this is.

I started thinking; “wait, why do I allow myself to get so frustrated? aren’t I suppose to be enjoying this experience?” and from that point onwards I have taken potential frustration levels in to very strong consideration when it comes to which games I buy or don’t buy. I now purposely avoid any game that gets labeled as an ‘old school’ experience because you know what, I don’t want that anymore.  All old school means to me now is ‘I’ll probably want to kill myself while playing this’.   Nostalgia is overrated.

Looking back at all the games I have played in the past fifteen or so years I can think of very few that I actually completed on medium difficulty, let alone the highest so perhaps I am simply an oddball amongst a sea of angry complainers who is finally getting what he wants from the industry.  I have never held any pride or sense of major accomplishment when it comes to beating a game whether on easy or hard and I have always found it very difficult to understand why so many gamers out there think that their is something to be proud of upon doing such a thing.

Would you walk up to say president Obama and say ‘pfft president, dood that’s nothing I beat Ninja Gaiden on the hardest difficulty man!’ Of course you wouldn’t so why pretend that their is so much value to your supposed accomplishment? Its fine to think their is if that makes you happy but don’t make it out to be on the same level as something more meaningful not to mention part of the real world as apposed to the virtual ones we spend so much time in. 

That last paragraph may anger people who devote vast quantities of their spare time to ‘being leet’ but I think deep down even they realize that playing a game no matter what the circumstances is still just playing a game.  I like getting achievements when I don’t have to drastically alter my play style to acquire them, anything that leads to me having to grind or spend several hours playing the exact sequence countless times over is no different to trying to beat a boss who uses cheap moves constantly (think any number of fighting game end bosses).  Its a great feeling when its done but surely for most sane people its not long until they ask themselves ‘why did I just do that?’.   I’m still wondering why I played World of Warcraft for four years, god knows it wasn’t for fun, but hey at least I have some kick ass epics I’ll never need or use for anything.

The only real exception to these situations is when an achievement leads to something significant to gameplay being unlocked but at that point you should maybe be asking if the developer just likes to make players suffer in order to get cool things, some times I think they really do. Tekken 6 is setting a good example for how fighting games should be done from this point onwards, in that their is no character unlocking. You simply have access to all of them from the start.

Maybe this entire subject of fake achievement has more to do with the psychology of alot of gamers than anything else, perhaps the ones that truly believe they should be proud of their gaming victories have nothing else to be proud of and it simply brings them comfort.  I can understand that perspective but that doesn’t mean I should think of it the same way they do.

At the same time it goes without saying theirs a difference between someone who finds all the skulls in Halo 3 and someone who holds rank one the world over for a game because they spend six hours every day playing. I often wonder if some multiplayer shooter players have all kinds of syndromes or conditions, they’re probably all on crack actually (i kid i kid).
I had friends in highschool who would play nothing but Counter Strike and I felt really sorry for them but I guess it meant something to them in a way I never really could understand.
Its probably no suprise I have no real interest in competitive sports, I was always the kid who would have a laugh whether or not his team was winning or being utterly crushed.

Do I think the hardest of the hardcore should change their ways and stop caring about getting all the gold medals or adding yet more points to their gamer score? Well no but I am hoping that as time goes on at least some of them will start to really think a little more about fun verses carrot chasing, if this article helps with that then awesome.  

My personal gaming collection now features six consoles, multiple pc hardware upgrades  and well over two hundred and fifty games and growing.  My achievement scores across all platforms are abysmal and I generally get my ass handed to me in almost every multiplayer game I play but hey I’m rarely not having fun and that to me is the best achievement of all.