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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."
True Gamers don't need friends or outside time. And they wear Depends when they camp the MOBs because they're so fuckighardcore.
The only reason Gears of War of war sold was it was the only game for the 360, ignoring Viva Pinata of course. Just like Halo and Halo 2. Using Gears of War as any type of data point for industry trends is absurd. There is one and only one thing to be learned from Gears of War: (*) the niche Xbox demographic will buy whatever is the latest 'guy in shiny metal armor running around shooting things' game Microsoft releases - no matter how crappy the game is.
And the same demographic will buy Halo 3 later this year no matter how crappy it is. And the rest of the gaming world won't care. And there will be absolutely nothing to be learned from any of it. Except for *.
Exactly, which brings us to the real question...
Who cares?
I don't think that it matters whether or not it's happening.
I can't stand those unfunny jokes.
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