- Quake 3 Arena versus Unreal Tournament.
- Starcraft/Warcraft versus Command & Conquer.
- Call of Duty versus Medal of Honor.
- The Battlefield franchise.
- Counterstrike.
All of these titles were etched so deeply within the gamer psyche–some for their polarizing nature, others for the sheer joy of playability and innovation. They all shared one common thread in that they were marketed toward the hardcore gamer. I would challenge you to name one genre bending game for the PC in the past two years that was steered toward the harcore. (Maybe Portal. Maybe.)
As PCs became more ubiqitous, the market has shifted to include the casual gamer. These are the people who play Myst, The Sims, and Sim City. With that market shift, publishers realized success beyond their wildest dreams. Similarly, the MMO market exploded with World of Warcraft, raking in even more gamers that don’t necessarily fit the hardcore mold.
Given the vast market segment opened up by soccer moms, teenage girls, and over-fifty baby boomers, we may never see a return to the glory days of PC Gaming. (Glory meaning an elite, enthusiast hobby peopled by those who would spend two hundred dollars for 10 fps.) Gone are the days of LAN parties, a vibrant mod scene, and a community of hundreds of thousands of people all playing the same shooter.
I totally agree.
Agreed. the last 3-4 years have been pretty boring in the gaming world….
Part of being old and set in my ways is that I still enjoy playing the older games. We still have a small core (or maybe corps) of gamers who play Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 2 and its mods, and even Call of Duty UO. I have the later versions of all those games, but my core group has chosen to stay with the older versions. Out skill has increased exponentially as we master all the nuances of each map. (and it’s still fun) Blitz
Those people that made up the elite hardcore gamers are still around, and they are the ones who define what the current hardcore gaming scene is. It’s far from being dead, I can assure you that. I know several people who are spending large amounts of money to upgrade PCs to play Warhammer Online (which is awesome) at a fluid frame rate since the game is PVP based at it’s core.
If you’ve never witnessed a group of people in WoW take on Sunwell and Black Temple then you’re missing out on some of the most skilled gameplay seen in our time. Sure, we’re not playing FPS games as much, so maybe we can’t click directly on the 2 pixels that would have equaled a players head in the past, but now we have much more thinking to do. It involves situational awareness, a solid lag free machine, planning, coordination and timing, and making sure the other 24 people in the group are every bit at skilled as you are.
PC gaming isn’t dead. It will not die until the graphics card vendors quit making cards, and even then we would turn to playing MUDDs like my brother does now. As for the glory days? Depends on who you ask, take a look at the people overseas who are foaming at the mouth for Starcraft 2 because they are still running SC1 tournaments for large cash prizes to this day, I’m pretty certain they consider themselves hardcore.
Less focus on graphics and more focus on playability. I don’t like the spam shots in all the latest games. I remember thuroughly enjoying FLF and DoD with James and others when one shot to the head or two shots to the torso meant death. Thats one of the nice things about CS its still pretty close that that, but TF2 which is the only fps game I’ve played in over a year gets old very fast which is sad.
MMORPG=best place for those who cant Frag! In all seriousness Damian does make a valid point Hardcore gaming has just shifted to a different style,albeit it may not appeal some of our palettes.