MrEco wrote:
You say that, but according to your own four criteria you've included literally everyone except for the people who only play the kinds of games you don't like. Because they're too "popular and mainstream."
Wtf are you on about? A hardcore gamer is either some one who is really good at a game with a
really high learning curve or some one who is a walking gaming encylopedia/gaming God(=has played everything imaginable) otherwise. If you play WoW, BlazBlue, Street Fighter, Starcraft 2, Quake or Counter Strike, that does not mean you're a hardcore gamer. If you're so good at one of those games that you can play them in tournaments (=more skilled in the game than 99.5% of people who play it), that makes you a hardcore gamer. If you only play modern games or only play NES&SNES games, you're not a hardcore gamer. If you play ALL genres on all different platforms (in case you're retarded and don't understand what that means: that also includes casual, popular and mainstream games) and have played thousands and thousands of games within your life time (5000-6000+), then you can be considered a hardcore gamer. Even out of people who play a large variety of games, like people here on Racketboy, very few are actually so dedicated that they could be considered to be hardcore. It means playing Japanese import PC games, games that are super hard (bullet hell, old WRPGs, sadistic 8 bit platformers), Brazilian exclusive SMS games, games that are really slow paced, "boring" and obtuse (many 1980s and 1990s PC games), modern indy games, homebrew games, games with high learning curves (grand strategy, simulator, Dwarf Fortress...), current generation AAA games, roguelikes that use ASCII graphics, smart phone games, Atari 2600 games and other really old and ugly games. Anything and everything that's worth playing (for example games like Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall aren't worth playing under any circumstance because they do nothing new and generally have gameplay that's copied from other games, and they're all around horrible). Most (retro)gamers specialize in certain platforms and/or genres, and therefore have an incomplete picture of gaming as a whole. Only very few have the patience and dedication to try to everything.
How in the hell is that "literally everyone"?
And if you're trying to debunk that argument by attacking me personally: I've never claimed to be a hardcore gamer, nor is it very likely that I'll ever become one unless I'll do a conscious effort of getting properly into SHMUPs, roguelikes, grand strategy&4X, simulators and old computer games. Even then it's likely to take me more than a decade of playing hundreds of games a year to get to that level.
My favorite online game when I was younger was FreeSpace 2. I might still be playing it now if the community weren't basically dead. Things get less fun when you have to wait an hour to find a game. And that was 10+ years ago. Now it's probably practically impossible.
