A reader rejects the label of hardcore gamer and asks what the phrase actually means and who else it’d apply to.
I’ve been a gamer now for over 20 years and I prefer to suppose I do know the interest fairly nicely. I’ve all the present consoles, I preserve updated with information and occasions, I do know all the massive identify publishers and builders, and I’ve performed or at the least learn about all the massive franchises. Does that make me a hardcore gamer although? I believe by some definitions it could do. If I used to be speaking about motion pictures I’d be generally known as a movie buff however is hardcore gamer actually the equal of that? I’m not so positive.
I’ve numerous youthful cousins who’re additionally, by their very own admission, actually into video games, however they don’t appear to know or care about any of the issues I like. Their mostly performed video games are Apex Legends, Name Of Obligation: Warzone, Fortnite, Minecraft, and Future 2. All both free video games or stay service video games, none of which I’ve any curiosity in.
To me these are the equal of claiming you’re a petrolhead, and actually into vehicles, and but discovering out you haven’t really obtained a automobile and take the bus in every single place. Though among the free-to-play video games are excellent – I significantly like Apex Legends – the dimensions of their success shouldn’t be as a result of their high quality as a recreation however the truth that they’re free.
Fortnite specifically shouldn’t be an particularly good recreation and in the event you needed to pay full worth for it, it could be nowhere close to as in style as it’s. Being free excuses a variety of issues and Fortnite has lengthy since developed from being a straight shooter to a bizarre mixture of group chat room and social expertise. That’s effective, that’s nice, however to me none of that has something to do with video video games.
In a similar way, the rationale video games like Future 2 and Minecraft are profitable is as a result of they’re additionally social experiences. Future 2 now has little or no in frequent with issues like Halo or Name Of Obligation, and not competes with them and even tries to supply the identical form of experiences.
It’s not the gameplay or the story that’s the enchantment with any of those video games, as it’s with all those I get pleasure from, it’s the simple accessibility, the always altering content material, and, most significantly, the sense of group and social interplay.
The free video games aren’t actually free, as a result of as quickly as you begin stepping into them, you’re tempted to purchase all of the battle passes and microtransactions. I’m always shocked at my nephews shopping for skins and different, to my thoughts, pointless cosmetics for the price of an entire indie recreation. I believe they really find yourself spending extra on video games than me, although I’m shopping for full worth video games.
So are they the hardcore avid gamers? I discover it arduous to say they’re given how little curiosity they appear to have within the video games themselves or any conventional titles. To them, the concept of a recreation having a narrative or development being opposed by something aside from different gamers is totally alien, to the purpose the place it appears this stuff they play ought to nearly be referred to as one thing aside from video video games.
But when they’re not hardcore avid gamers then who’re? Perhaps esports gamers and different professionals? I suppose you would argue that, however these folks normally solely play one recreation, which appears far too specialist to deserve such an all-encompassing description. Streamers would possibly play a couple of totally different video games, but it surely appears to me they’ve the identical limitation of slender horizons.
So possibly it’s me. Perhaps I’m a hardcore gamer. I nonetheless don’t really feel that method but when it’s not me or folks like me, I don’t know who else it is likely to be. I suppose in the long run it’s not the identify that’s essential, however what we imply by it. Perhaps we’re all hardcore avid gamers in the long run or possibly merely… avid gamers.
By reader Cribbens
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