Gamers Anonymous

As you can see from the date of my previous two posts, I am not a very consistent blogger. And as such, hardly anyone reads my blog anymore. But this will change!

I will be committing more time to blogging now that ideas for articles have started flowing again. True to what I have set out to accomplish from the start, I will not make this my personal blog (i.e. day to day life drama). Hopefully I will be able to provide interesting insights to the game, movie and tech industry on a weekly basis (at the very least). Before that though, I have to make a few adjustments to the direction of this blog. Firstly, I will try not to write any reviews unless I relate it back to the relevant industry. For example, if I were to review the new Batman movie, I have to talk about comic book to movie adaptations or superhero movies as a whole. This would prevent me from becoming lazy and just writing a straight-forward movie review. Secondly, I might be shifting from movies to video and photography, but this hasn't been decided yet so.... yeah. Whatever. Anyway. Thirdly! I hope to add more links, pictures and videos to this blog so that you won't be facing a Wall of Text all the time. All these things are just reminders to myself so that I will blog dilligently, so feel free to ignore. On with the post!

Originally I wanted to start this post by announcing my departure from gaming, but I guess that would make this blog useless wouldn't it? Instead, I am going to announce that I won't be actively gaming anymore. I would still being reading up on game news and give my opinions on the latest trends and happenings, but I won't be doing much game reviewing. And anyway, what makes a hardcore gamer? Words like "hardcore", "casual", "hardcore casual" and "casual hardcore" have been thrown around lately as the Nintendo Wii turned the gaming industry upside down with its blue ocean strategy. First, let me explain these four terms clearly for my dear readers (random Norwegian guy, the FBI, and the Malaysian government):

Hardcore: Guy with thick spectacles that plays computer games for hours to days at a time. Hardly sleeps. Speaks of "1337 ski11z" and man with sword bigger than his body.

Casual: Guy/gal that thinks Adventure Quest and Mech Quest are the pinnacle of PC gaming.

Hardcore Casual: Person who buys a console just to play Winning Eleven/Madden/(insert yearly sports game here). Trains hard at it. Thinks RPGs are games where you fire rockets launchers.

Casual Hardcore: Same as hardcore, except doesn't game as much.

For the record, I think I am a "Casual Hardcore" gamer.

Although these terms seem quite clear cut, the Hardcore Casual(HC) and Casual Hardcore(CH) crowd are quite hard to define. In terms of marketability, these two groups are the hardest to figure out. HC gamers buy fewer games and tend to base their opinions more on online reviews and little snippets of gameplay video available on Gametrailers.com. CH gamers are like specialists. They specialize in one genre in gaming, typically sports titles, and can give very good commentaries on the subtle gameplay and animation differences between Winning Eleven and Fifa. These two groups belong nowhere, as they are despised by the Hardcore for not having deep wallets to play every single damn game out there, and laughed at by the Casuals for taking gaming too seriously.

Thinking of this makes me sad :( So as the Resident Gaming God of this blog, I shall decreed that ALL GAMERS ARE EQUAL (but some are more equal than others). However, respect should be given, when it is due, to the almighty hardcore crowd, without whom today's game industry would not be what it is today. I'm not saying hardcore gaming is good. But it balances out the large Casual crowd out there to make sure we are not drowning in Ubisoft shovelware (Petz Dogz Fashion anyone???).

But being hardcore is tough. On the wallet that is.

So support gaming by only buying quality games and ditch those shovelware! Even Casuals want quality.