I recently started a journalism class in school and I had to write an article about gaming for the school's paper.
It was my first article and well, I'm proud of it so Imma show it to you guys!
Please give any and all constructive criticism.
Remember, this article was written for a school newspaper, and not everyone is a gamer so judge content accordingly.


The Video Game War- Hardcore and Casual
Video games are a growing subculture, and like many sub cultures, it’s people fall into sub-sects. The two most distinct sub-sects are the “Casual” and the “Hardcore”. Now, not all gamers fall into these sub-sects, and not all agree with them, but a lot do and like all cultures, it is important to know a little background before judging.
The most common definition of the “Casual” gamer is either the baby or the senior citizen. To elaborate, according to the bulk of gaming culture (aka, the “hardcore”), the casual audience is either too young to know what a good game is, and will beg their parents for anything with colorful boxart, or are too old to appreciate a video game, and only buy a system (mainly the Nintendo Wii or DS) for non-games (“Brain Age”, “Wii Sports” and the like.). My definition of the “casual” gamer isn’t that different, being someone who plays video games as a secondary or tertiary form of entertainment, behind T.V. and books perhaps. The “hardcore” claim that the “casuals” are a cancer to gaming. That is because companies (again, mostly Nintendo) can find profit in these games and will start making cheaper games to appease to this larger crowd and forget all about the “hardcore”. The hardcore use the Wii’s and DS’s high quantity or “shovelware” (cheaply made games with poor gameplay, graphics, and little to no depth), as proof of this switch of audences.
The “hardcore” definition of “hardcore” is a real gamer’s gamer; someone who plays only real games, with guns and blood. A gamer who doesn’t dare pick up a game that isn’t mature enough for their standards. These gamers are usually boys between the ages of, believe it or not, 13 to 22. These people own usually a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. They believe that games can only be appreciated by the “hardcore” and that games need to be a more mature art form. My definition of a “hardcore” gamer is someone who treats gaming as a primary form of entertainment, and like all coinsures of an art, have experienced it in all of its forms and genres.
I also believe that most of these “hardcore” gamers, are in-fact “casual” and are the very cancer that they claim to be protecting gaming from.
From what I’ve experienced as a gamer, your average “hardcore” gamer has a false perception of maturity, but this isn’t just in gaming. Like most people in the lower percentiles of that age group, they perceive maturity as the media that targets them does, in this case, the still predominate gangster culture that make being older seem all about pushing the envelope and breaking the censorship of a previously sheltered world. I believe that another huge part of the mindset of the aforementioned group deals with another common feeling of insecurity. Most teenage boys feel that if they play something they perceive to be to immature, they’ll be labeled as such by others; and because of their already blurred perception of maturity, they usually feel that unless it has something’s blood on the screen at all times it’s too kiddy.
Overall, I believe that these labels and the “hardcore’s worrying about the “casuals” ruining the market is stupid and immature. Yes, gaming is an art form, and it does need something to entertain it’s older audience, but hogging all of it to them is bad. Gaming needs a fresh new audience of the youth to continue, and right now, those youth are being drawn in by the shallow games that the “hardcores” protest so strongly. Don’t worry, like you, they will mature and find the pleasures in more intricate games, but for now let them have their fun.