There is no hardcore

[zhai]

Loving this statement from lead producer Dustin Browder on how they're polishing Starcraft II for accessibility.

“For us, there really isn’t a sharp division between casual and hardcore (players),” Browder said. “A casual could become a hardcore, if only we let them. I know so many grandmothers that play World of Warcraft - what the heck is that

Comments

[genmaicha]

This is a great outlook to have, what Blizzard is saying here. I know that I've felt that a lot of game companies aren't talking to me because I don't play video games the way other people do, and that they seem to only care about what they consider to be "hardcore"...unless what they're making is stuff like Peggle. Why does it have to be either/or? Sadly, I've ended up playing less for many reasons, some of which because it seems the video game companies do not value my experience.

Though I will bring up one thing: could you seek words other than "retarded" for comparisons to something that seems to have a lack of sense applied to it?

[zhai]

I think, if it's possible to loop "video games" together into one ball, which I think it might not be, the business as a whole is having something of an identity crisis as a result of the rapid growth of the space into so many demographics. So there are definitely games that look down on other games and certain kinds of players (that they perceive), but it fundamentally comes out of insecurity -- many of those same game communities are deeply concerned about the dying-out of the hardcore, or what they perceive to be. The truly misguided even yearn for the 'good old days' when games were hard for stupid reasons. I look back on my own nostalgia games with great affection, even for their stupid hard parts, but at least (or so I tell myself) I recognize that those elements were stupid

[gryphart]

I think it's a difficult line to walk, and I suspect a lot of the ability to net casual players has to either be rooted in a social network or fun writing, since ease of play alone doesn't seem to accomplish it.

I'm of a split opinion about MMOs in particular - I think in order to make them long-term attractive to me, they'd have to somehow edit humanity to make them more fun to talk to. I preferred the idea behind Guild Wars (though not necessarily the implementation) where you could play with a team of AIs - in most MMOs, you need a scheduled time for the raid group, and I'm just not inclined to game on a schedule; that seems like the antithesis of casual gaming.

[brennye]

Heh, I don't know.. Warcraft's gameplay has become easy enough that a person can level to 80 without really knowing their class, if they're persistent enough and skilled at punching buttons. Have one in my guild.

But the raiding does weed out the hardcore from the casualcore, simply by the sheer mass of work it requires.

[anguirel]

That's not entirely true -- it's easily possible to raid on 2 nights a week, or one slightly longer session on a weekend. Consider it like doing community sports and it isn't that huge a deal -- most content can also be done in Pick-up Groups these days. There's also a huge group on my server call left-overs that is set up around allowing people to sign up for raids when they can go, and usually they'll get slotted for those times, but if you can't make it for a few weeks, you don't sign up and its no big deal.

[brennye]

Hmm.. maybe it's just my personal experience then. My guild is pretty laid back, but we've got enough 80's to put out two 10-man teams, if we could find the tanks to run with us. Saturday night we did find a pair and went roaring in... nearly two hours after when we were supposed to "start."

Most of our members make noises that they want to go, but they don't run the heroics to get the gear needed, nor do they bother to gem or enchant their gear. My guild has three jc's and five chanters. it's not that hard. ;) But it is work required, and they don't put out the effort to do it. That's what I meant about raiding weeding out the casuals.

[kmarkhoover]

I found this interesting, thanks for posting.

This is what some game developers are missing

[anonymous]

It's easy to see that this is why blizzard is so successful; they know how to create a game for anyone and do it well.

It's easy to target a "Hardcore" audience or the "Casual" gamer, but how about nurturing ANYONE from casual to hardcore, that in it self is a task that deserves major kudos!

I think what games should be looking forward to (if they want them to last for a good while) is gameplay diversity so that not only a novice and expert can play but people who want to take it slow and uncompetitive can be in the same world as the hardcore, cut-throat gamers, kind of like what Star Wars Galaxies did with the Entertainer class.

JLGMedia256@gmail.com
whtrbbt.blogspot.com

[brennye]

It's an interesting concept. Personally, I would drop a game if it got too hard at a point for me to progress (and the controller usually got thrown or the keyboard smashed). Warcraft has been different because it's so multifaceted.

What's funny is I rank with those grannies.. I consider myself casual, but my priest just got her last piece of Tier 7 gear, in prep for Naxx. And she's gemmed and chanted.. The badge system, to me, is fekin brilliant for gearing up a character in game. Much easier to get a group of 5 players for a fast instance than 10-25 for a long raid instance. As my casual, family guild has learned.