Opposable Thumbs, the gaming side of Ars Technica, wants to tell you that hardcore gamers are on the decline. They posted an article earlier that compares the sales data of various genres over the last year and comes to the conclusion that since Cars, the licensed game based on the Pixar film, was the second best selling title (behind the unstoppable juggernaut of Madden 2007), that casual, mainstream gamers are taking over the gaming landscape, and that hardcore, Bawls drinking, vagina fearing gamers are on the way out.
Here's a quote:
The landscape painted by the thorough report reveals quite a few interesting factors about the changing industry. As growth continues, we're bound to see some substantial changes. As it stands, hardcore gamers are still a pivotal purchasing force in the games market: most of the top ten titles were what I would consider "hardcore" games. However, the trend away from the hardcore and towards the casual is becoming increasingly more predominant. We've talked quite a bit lately about the growing demand and response for casual games, and when coupled with the shocking sales of licensed products, I'm left wondering whether or not the number of hardcore gamers is dwindling.
While Señor Thumbs has proven his competency in reading (and adding), he missed a crucial part of the logic behind his argument; Cars was released for everything. Seriously, they had ports of it for Linux-based rectal thermometers. Since the only title also released on as many platforms was Madden (and it managed to outsell Cars), one begins to see flaws in the argument.
Then again, maybe I'm just mad that Larry the Cable Guy is getting those kinds of residuals and I live in a tin shed in the wilds of Eastern Europe. What do you guys think? Is the hardcore gamer going the way of the dinosaur?
Contest:
1:15 AM on 02.15.2007
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He'll spend most of his days playing World of Warcraft : The Final Crusade 4 Part Seven. And when not popping a myriad of state funded pills (current legislation pending) he'll be yelling at the local neighbor hood kids to stay of his lawn, or at least organize a lan party, since he cant after the local Mother's group deemed him too creepy to hold parties with children.
Eventually he will pass, most likely in a strange Alzheimer's enduced state where he thinks hes the right paddle from pong.
With any luck, he can time his death so that when he dies in the game. He'll die in real life.
Hardcore gamers aren't dying out, casual gamers are just growing in numbers. That's it.
Additionally, if 4 "hardcore" games are released, they'll all likely sell well, with hardcores getting all 4 games. Whereas if 4 of these games like Cars are released at the same time, each of those titles will lose a lot of sales to the others. So hopefully when the industry latches on to these 'numbers', and starts cranking out the craptacular licensed... well.. crap... at record numbers, they'll just end up losing a lot of money. Or perhaps they'll realize that going after a market that by definition doesn't spend a lot of time gaming is a poor marketing decision.
On the other hand, I've got warts.
Not really. Your point fails to recognize that these games were "released on everything" for a reason; they sell.
Most publishers are smart enough to release a game on a platform it will do well on. If a platform is skipped it's because the market research indicates the profit/sales won't be enough to warrant the expense. I guarantee if every game would sell well on every console, then every game would be released on every console, at least every major title from publishers that can afford it and for the most part when we are talking top 10 games sales, that is the case.
Now, I'm not saying he's right, because I don't know, but the point you're referring to is not flawed in the way you say.
The flaw I see is what someone mentioned above. It seems this guy is not taking into account that a certain portion of casual gamers will BECOME hardcore. It's like the hardcore are the "upper classmen" if you will. Casuals are often the "freshmen". Eventually casuals can graduate.
So, maybe the number of hardcore is decreasing as a ratio of hardcore to casual, but my guess is that enough casuals are becoming hardcore over time to offset the losses in our numbers, such that the total number of hardcore games is at least staying level.
Hell, if the Wii can hit as many new customers as they want it to, we may see an uptick in hardcore in a few years once these casuals move away from games like Wiisports to games like topspin or whatever the less casual equivalent of wario ware is.
Remember how hard god damn Kung-Fu was? Boy it was fun, but I got tired of being punched in the sack by midgets.
"It's just that these days, it's easier for publishers to release the same game on multiple systems without too much reworking, so the numbers increase"
Well, during the 8-bit days, the only console worth releasing any thing on was NES, and they still dominated the market in the 16-bit days. There have been console wars before, but they keep escalating. Maybe pretty soon we'll have nuclear console wars. The fallout will consist of badly ported Console-to-handheld games, and we'll all long for the days when Nintendo produced was king(I know a lot of us still do).
First, I think some of these games WILL be cross platform when the opportunity arises for the very reasons I mention. Second, obviously if there is a negotiated exclusive (which I think there are in several of the games you mention) there is a financial reason not to publish cross platform. Lastly, in regard to the 360 games you mention, I DON'T think they would all sell well, at least not yet. The PS3 base is still pretty small and many of the PS3 owners don't have a lot of money for 3 more triple A titles right now. Timing is everything. Look at all the 360 ports on the way to the PS3. It's no hurry for the devs because the base isn't there yet.
Slap a diaper on this man, so he doesn't have to get up...that's hardcore.
Michael Bay and Joel Shumacher are the movie equivalents of Madden and Cars. The 'hardcore' crowd recognizes that they are awful, awful things, but the vast mouth breathing crowd eats them up. Accept it, and be glad that those morons can fund the smaller, more creative titles.
+ Time played on games per week, not including casual games such as solitaire
+ Number of games purchased per month
+ Grasp of gamer culture: read gaming websites, know what is going on in the industry, aware of future games that are coming out.
There are other factors those are just a few that I quickly thought up.