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Hardcore Gamers on the Decline?
Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog takes a look at the numbers for last year, and makes an interesting observation: hardcore gamers are probably not the future. Specifically, last year's videogame sales numbers show a huge trend in the adoption of mass-market licensed games. We've also previously discussed the extreme popularity of casual games. Despite Gears of War selling around the same amount as Cars (both around 2 million units), the cost in time and money to create Gears was substantially greater than the cost to create the Pixar-licensed title. The result? "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."
Yes, I used to spend countless hours tweaking and overclocking my computer in order to get those extra FPS in CS Source and HL2. Now i just really don't care - I'm still 18, the "peak" age that everybody wants to market to, but I just lack the time or desire to pour hours on end into video games. School, life, and girls are more important to me now, and this videogaming thing has been slipping away.
I used to play 4 hours of video games a day back when I was a "hardcore gamer", it's just not worth it anymore. Has anybody else feel their killer instinct slip away?
Can't say I disagree. I'm 20. However, for me the most deterring factor for me is the decline in PC game quality. There used to be great titles like Thief and Deus Ex. Then all of the sudden everything had to be lobotomized so that it could be played on consoles as well as PCs. Wroooong move. Atleast I don't find a lobotomized point-and-drool interface that a chimpanzee could use very appealing.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I'm sorry but the distinction between a hardcore and a softcore player is blurred. I'm sick of people saying that things a hardcore player likes that a softcore player doesn't like. If you make a quality game, people will play it. The problem lays in the fact that people don't make quality games and they lay their excuse here.
For example: The article says Gears of War sold as many units as Cars even though Gears of War cost more to make. They then go on to say it is because of hardcore vs softcore players. When in fact couldn't it be that Gears of War doesn't do anything new in gaming. Its just another FPS, and doesn't even have a ladder like Halo 2. If they actually did something with all the money they spent in production of Gears of War, it could be the next killer FPS. You only need 2 things for the next killer FPS: 1) Ranked Online Play 2) Balanced Weapons . You could even make a MMOFPS and it'd instantly be better than PlanetSide which lets you level to max in a day basically. But no they chose to do a very expensive FPS.
Hopefully gaming companies will get these terms Hardcore and Casual players out of their head, so they don't give up totally and not try anymore.
God spoke to me.
The author of the article is seeing a trend.
Happy-Feet, the Ps2 game had over 1,000,000 million pre-orders, before it was released; the game rated below 5.0 on both IGN and gamespot, and didn't cost that much to make (I'm not at liberty to discuss numbers.)
Do the math. Sure, there is cross-over, but there is overwhelming evidence that if you're in the market for money alone, you should be chasing WB licenses, not hardcore gamers.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yeah a making a game base off a movie will sell 2M copies, but how much did you have to pay for the license?
This is a nice point. Let's say I'm an investor and have a choice between two investments:
1) A game that will cost $2 million in development, $8 million in license fees, and $0 million in marketing and will sell X copies.
2) A game that will cost $5 million in development, $0 million in license fees, and $5 million in marketing and will sell X copies.
Of course, we don't know how many copies will sell, but bear with me for a moment. Market theory dicates that the total cost of the game should yield a certain number of game sales. If we knew #1 would sell more games, then the licenser should theoretically charge more money.
At the end of the day, I'd rather invest in #2. Here's why- at the end of the product life, I've now got a brand/franchise that I can sequel and make a nice bit of money on. Essentially, I've gotten profits and built up an asset. Halo/Warcraft are great examples of the value of building a franchise.
With choice #1, I've gotten some profits, but next time, I'll have to again pay those licensing fees. Essentially, I'm back to square one.
If you want to take things a step further, I would bet the return on investment for a licensed game is less than that of an original game because the licensed game is more a "sure bet." Just like in the stock market, low risk investments typically yield lower returns.