It's time "core" gamers looked in the mirror before passing judgement

So, for a good while now, I've noticed a trend amongst typical gamers. Ever since the Wii became so popular, there's been a good amount of hate targeted at, what most would deem, casual gamers. These are people who don't typically play games, but found the concept of the Wii, and the nature of games like Wii Sports and Just Dance to be something they can enjoy. Gamers tended to try and distance themselves from these casual players and eventually cited the Wii as something to be mocked.

In theory this is easy to understand; a console that is a huge success based on a "gimmick" with overly simplistic games could mean more developers simply not wanting to make deep and complex titles any more. If a game like Wii Sports can massively out-sell an RPG game that took 5+ years to make, then what's the incentive for developers to continue bothering with the latter game in future?

This is all well and good, and may be true to an extent, but there's a fundamental flaw with this whole way of thinking. You see, the Wii didn't start this trend at all. In actual fact this process of developers making more simplistic games for more financial gain has been happening for a long long time. A certain section of gamers know this all too well - PC gamers.

Before hating on these guys, take a look at yourself

It was perhaps with the mass popularity of the Xbox 360 whereby gamers became ignorant to events that were already occurring before the Wii even landed. In the Western world the 360 is undoubtedly the "core" gamer choice, and it helped introduce many of these people to games/concepts they maybe didn't experience much on SEGA, Nintendo and Sony consoles (namely First-Person Shooters, Western Role-Playing Games, or dedicated online-gaming), bar a few exceptions.

Typically, you would get FPSs and RPGs on the PC, but now Microsoft had a console that allowed PC developers to port their games over for people who weren't interested in using a PC for gaming. This was initially a good thing, since it allowed more people to play great games without needing a monster of a PC. However, at some point, it became apparent to PC developers that they could make a lot more money if they designed games specifically for consoles, rather than PC.

With Bethesda Softworks, for example, the coin dropped when they ported The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to the original Xbox. This was a game that was specifically designed for PC gamers, with the Xbox port perhaps only being considered after the game already shipped. If anything, the game arriving on the Xbox struck me as a basic way for Bethesda to try and get more people to enjoy the game, rather than an indication of them going for the console market. What happened, however, was somewhat of a surprise, since Morrowind sold extremely well on the Xbox. It was at this point Bethesda realised they could make a heck of a lot more money if they made games for consoles, rather than PC, and subsequently TES IV: Oblivion became a console RPG.

Morrowind had a unique style that many appreciated; most was lost in Oblivion

With Bethesda now aiming for a console market, they made the decision to remove, scale-back and alter elements of previous Elder Scrolls titles in order to make Oblivion more approachable for new players. Certain weapon types were dropped, levelling abilities removed, the location of the game was set somewhere eerily similar to more popular fantasy settings such as Lord of the Rings (where-as Morrowind was set in an entirely unique world with an art-style to match), and the content laid out in such a way that no player could ever become lost or not know what to do next (a stark contrast in having fend for yourself in a much more realistic manner in previous games). Of course, we all know this new approach worked well for Bethesda, since Oblivion sold even better than Morrowind, but much like "core" gamers now, PC gamers looked at the 360 and Oblivion as a threat to their way of gaming; essentially, Oblivion selling well on the 360, to them, is akin to Just Dance selling bucket-loads on the Wii.

This is just one example, of course, but the contradiction of "core" gamers angrily staring at families enjoying their Wii is pretty clearly to me. But even though they themselves are contributing to more "streamlined" and "accessible" gaming (two of my most hated developer-spoken words, by the way) there's actually more irony visible if you delve even deeper into "core" gamers, and their attitudes.

To explain, the reason I keep putting "core" into quotations is because the definition of gamers, these days, is also pretty messed up. To ask a typical Modern Warfare-playing gamer, they would say a casual gamer is someone who plays the Wii, while a hardcore gamer is someone who plays Call of Duty online. In actual fact, they're only half-right; people who pull out the Wii at parties, or occasionally play Wii Sports or Zumba Fitness with friends/family are casual gamers, but that most certainly does not make a Call of Duty player a hardcore gamer at all.

Playing this online doesn't make you "hardcore"

In fact, a gamer who primarily plays games like Call of Duty, or Gears of War, or FIFA, is in the middle category - they're neither casual, nor are they hardcore. The reason they're not casual is self-evident, but the reason I say they're not hardcore is because they are exactly like typical cinema-goers who go to watch films like Transformers. Now, before we go any further, I have no issue with people enjoying games like Call of Duty, or films like Transformers, but to make my point it is essential that I make this comparison. You see, Transformers is what I call a 'Saturday-night pop-corn' film; it's not going to win any Oscars, or score 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, but to a cinema-goer it'll give them enough enjoyment to pass the 2 hours they sit there for. On the other hand, if they only go to watch films like Transformers, it's perhaps not right to assume they're big on films like American Beauty, or more obscure but equally well-made films. This tells me they're not exactly in a good position to call themselves hardcore film fans, and the same has to be said for gamers. If a gamer only plays and appreciates games similar in design and tone to Call of Duty, it is not right that they should consider themselves "hardcore".

I'm not going to rule every player of Call of Duty out, but I'm confident that the majority of players of said game, and similar games, would likely never play a game like, say, Demon's Souls. Yet Demon's Souls is exactly what I would deem a hardcore title. A person who dedicates themselves to getting good at Demon's Souls is a lot more hardcore than someone who plays Black Ops online. Ditto, someone who plays StarCraft II competitively is more hardcore than someone spending time with Halo: Reach online. Because of the nature of games like Call of Duty, with its availability and with its easy access on the most basic level, that makes it the perfect game for a non-hardcore gamer. Obviously it takes time to get good at CoD, but anyone can jump right in and enjoy it, and that's entirely the point.

Some games require an immense amount of skill to become any good at them.

Of course, mass market dominance doesn't necessarily guarantee the game's players aren't hardcore, but to even get to that level typically depends on designing the game so that non-hardcore people can play and enjoy it; it's rare that a proper hardcore game hits the top of the charts, let alone remain there for more than a week. There's a reason why so many play Black Ops compared to Arma II on PC, it's not that Black Ops is supremely better -- it isn't -- it's that it's much easier to get into and enjoy, and allows instant gratification. Those are things non-hardcore gamers thrive on, while actual hardcore gamers are more inclined to wait and play longer before experiencing anything they deem enjoyable. And that's one of the main and vital differences between the two categories of gamers.

Now, I'm not saying I have any feelings towards any type of gamer, rather, I just want a gamer to realise exactly what type of gamer they are before judging others. At the moment, people playing Call of Duty every night on their 360s are looking at Wii players like they're killing gaming, yet all the while they're oblivious the notion that they themselves are likely contributing to the killing even more. What they should realise is that they're part of the middle-section of gamers, what I now deem pseudo-hardcore, since they believe they're hardcore, but are actually not. The sooner this realisation comes to pass, the better.