I'm Hardcore-Part one

My closet isn’t full of designer jeans or fancy shirts: it’s full of Tri-Force shirts and old issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly. My concept of room decorations are the numerous posters I receive from buying a strategy guide. Nearly half of my music collection is full of soundtracks that had to be imported from Japan.  My days usually start and end with a controller in my hand and a TV screen that usually says ‘Game Saved.’ In short, I’m a hardcore gamer.

One of the biggest topics around message boards and articles is the role of the hardcore gamer in the industry. For decades, they were the lifeblood that kept pumping money into the industry, including $9.5 billion dollars in the US in 2007 and nearly $5.4 billion by April 2008. The hardcore gamer has also turned long-running franchises into bona-fide blockbusters. But, with the rise of casual market, I’m always wondering: what the hell does ‘hardcore’ even mean anymore?

John Davison, president of What They Like, Inc., a gaming website for families, has the definition of hardcore: ”Labeling someone a hardcore gamer is really just another way of saying "enthusiast."  In other words, an enthusiast is someone who by-and-
large takes an active interest not just in a particular game or genre 
but goes well beyond that to become an expert about a variety of games 
and the video game industry in general.” Does this mean that all I do is play a lot of games for long periods of times? I asked one of my friends, Jenn, what it means to be a hardcore gamer. ‘I think part of being hardcore is the diversity and range of your knowledge of all genres.’ There’s some truth to that. In my collection, it includes the triple-A blockbuster (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), the critically acclaimed niche title (Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure), a sports title (Madden NFL 2005, probably the best Madden ever), a collection of old, classic games (Sonic Mega Collection). That’s a lot of money spent sitting on my shelf. But are hardcore gamers just a cash cow good for nearly $600 each year for the industry? ‘You go to cons, you invest time and money into the industry’ said Jenn. Probably another characteristic of a hardcore gamer is how they can influence a game. ‘I'd say they kind of have an influence and impact on public opinion,’ said Harry Ouzounian, a former producer at 2K Games and a friend from college.

Final Fantasy XII was notorious for having a menu glitch that would cause the game to freeze towards the ends. Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s online play was a giant lagfest that turned off people from ever playing online.  Gran Turismo 2’s rally mode was cut out of the game and made it impossible to achieve 100 percent. Halo 2’s ending was panned by critics and gamers alike. Grand Theft Auto IV’s driving controls were widely criticized for taking too long to ‘get used to.’ These are valid complaints and criticisms which would be the subject of every angry email for other games. But, also these are some the few blockbusters within the industry.  These aren’t just franchises that break even at 1,000,000 copies sold, these releases set and break records, raise the standards of other games within the genre, and are routinely awarded with high critical praise. Halo 3 set a record with $170 million within its first week. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the fastest-selling game in Nintendo’s history. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots gave the PlayStation 3 one of its best months since it launched in 2006. Games that have turned consumers into fanatics of game designers like Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuji Naka, and the Houser brothers (Dan and Sam), which keeps the press always interested into what they have to say and do. So what is it about their games that keep fans loyal, especially when some of the biggest franchises are more than 15 years old?

One of the biggest barometers of success, outside of sales, is critical praise. Taking some of the top selling hardcore games from the Xbox 360 (Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Halo 3), Playstation 3 (MGS 4, Motorstorm, GTA IV), Wii (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl), Nintendo DS (Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, New Super Mario Bros.), and some of all-time classic blockbusters (Resident Evil 4, Gran Turismo, Super Mario Bros. 3, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy VII, Street Fighter II), and using Metacritic scores and reviews as a guide, here are some similarities I found in reviews: They were all praised for their incredible graphics, great control schemes, and excellent level design. I remember how much people gushed over Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast and still do to this day. But one thing no one really talks about how tough it is to do for every entry.

Ask any Zelda fan how painful that wait for Ocarina of Time was having wait nearly three years since its first unveiling. How there were only preview stories based of screenshots alone. Hell, I stood in line for the Wii just to get Twilight Princess after it was canceled for the Gamecube. And I know I’m not alone as many hardcore gamers have waited and waited for any kind of info or preview for a game. Having to rely on screenshots & press releases is the norm for a game that was probably preordered months in advance. Metal Gear Solid 2 had a press blackout for months before the game was released, one of the few high-profile games to actually do that and actually succeed at the sales chart, despite the nasty backlash for their big twist. But, while that game succeeded, most games have to deal with months of nasty complaints before a game is even finished. ''They're knowledgeable, and they're vocal, so in the right  environment they can affect the perception of a product either 
negatively or positively,"said Davison. Just like Too Human, which has had to deal with months of nasty message board complaints…and no one had even played the game yet, it resulted in sales of nearly 100,000 thousand copies in it's first month. Metroid Prime, a winner of multiple game-of-the-year awards in 2002, had to deal with months and months of complaints about its first person aspect. Even Wind Waker never lived down its cel-shaded look was unveiled after its realistic looking tech demo. It went to score high marks from critics and good commercial success, but it went relatively ignored in Japan at the sales chart. Those are just two small examples how hardcore nitpicking isn’t a big deal, but that’s only because they the hardcore fans will always support a Zelda game. Sometimes, if a complaint is cried over and over, it can be enough to make developers make important changes in a franchise, just like Resident Evil 4. The series, while a financial juggernaut for Capcom, had always had reviews full of horrible the ‘tank’ controls were for years. It took a long development period to add new intuitive controls (and a bunch of mediocre off-shoots) to give new life in the long running survival horror franchise and lead to some of the best scores and review any Resident Evil has seen.

So it seems like that the hardcore have a lot to celebrate in this current gen. Some of the best games are selling well, grabbing a lot of headlines, and seem to set a new standard for gaming excellence. So why do I have such an uneasy feeling when I look at shelves when I go to Best Buy and Gamestop to buy a new game? One company that has made legions and legions of hardcore gamers: Nintendo.

By the time you’ve gotten this far in this entry, Nintendo has probably made $8 million in profit alone. But, exaggerations aside, Nintendo deserve the success after their dismal Gamecube showing and gutsy gamble on their hardware designs. But with the happiness and success comes a lot of anger, which was personified by Nintendo’s E3 conference earlier in July 2008. After touting the success of their system sales, the games they announced were Wii Sports Resort, Wii Music, and Animal Crossing: City Speak. 3 major games and only one of them could be considered hardcore. Fans were furious. Even Nintendo acknowledged that it was a ‘disappointing’ showing and reassured fans that new games of Super Mario and Zelda were coming. Even the sales chart a huge shift to non-hardcore success. The biggest selling on the Wii isn’t any of their high-profile franchises. It’s Wii Play, which is nothing more than a 50 dollar remote with a nine-game tech demo. And as budgets balloon to eight-figure rates and the need to recover costs fast, many publishers are also going a ‘casual’ route.

But isn’t it in the hardcore gamers best interest to for publishers to grab as much cash as they can? Should we be the only market to be catered to? The next series will explore the how much the hardcore has hurt and helped the industry.

 

 

 

Topics: Video Games